Composer: Crabtree, Leslie
Dates: 1941-
Song title: Warte, warte wilder Schiffsmann
Opus, no., etc.: Nr.6
Music collection title: Lieder
Imprint(s): -
Analysis: The song is without prelude or postlude. The opening line's cries of "wait, wait" are set as quarter-note descending fifths (e' to a), rising then to f' on "wilder." This is contrasted in the second line with a stepwise phrase of limited compass in a modal A minor tonality. The latter is characterized by frequent but not exclusive use of lowered second, sixth and seventh scale degrees and chords which include them. The unpredictable oscillation between minor modes accentuates the wildness and distress inherent in the poem's outrageously extravagant imagery. The second half of the first stanza repeats the contrasting phrases of the first half with only minor changes, but the accompaniment of descending triplet eighth-note arpeggios is intensified here by raising it an octave, and alternating it with a melismatic triplet motif in right-hand octaves. This accompanimental pattern continues through the first half of the second stanza, which commences immediately without interlude. This stanza echoes the first a step higher ("Blutquell"), through a sudden but short-lived shift to B minor/E minor, all but unprepared because of the first stanza's frequent use of B-flat. The second phrase, sliding downward to B-flat minor/E-flat minor (about as far afield as one can get from A minor), again echoes the descending fifth, rising sixth pattern. The contrasting stepwise motive of the first stanza is inverted, then expanded into a long expressive arch for the second stanza's last two lines, cadencing back in A minor. The stormy arpeggios and melismas resume for the ensuing interlude, before subsiding and modulating to F major. The quieter, slower fourth stanza is also built upon the inverted stepwise motive, but modulates continually, ending up in G major. Crabtree emphasizes the mournful aspect of this passage, but with a leap to "lange Jahre" expressing the poet's bitterness at long years of unrequited love. This contrasts greatly with Schumann's highly agitated, dramatically syncopated setting of the same words, but seems as effective in its context, and perhaps more accurately expressive of the immediate text. Another sudden shift, this time by third to E major, begins the even slower and softer fifth stanza, characterized first by leaps up to e' and g-sharp', which are then followed by a return to the inverted stepwise motive. For the first time, unarpeggiated, syncopated chords appear in the piano. Enharmonic modulations abound, producing eerie slitherings through various keys, quite apropos of the imagery of the snake in the garden, but a cadence back to E major prepares us for the return to A minor for the last stanza. The resumption oftempo primo , however, is sudden and dramatic, and we hear a modified reprise of the song's forceful opening phrases, this time expressive of extreme anger and bitterness. Key shifts heard in the first and second stanzas are here compressed and reversed, initiating a rise in tessitura to a final broadened statement of the opening motive (spelled enharmonically g-sharp', c-sharp', b-flat') almost screamed out over flashing octave melismas and crashing chords, before a final A minor cadence and an accelerando flourish of arpeggios into the piano's upper and lower extremes ends the song.
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Copyright © 2000, Peter W. Shea