Composer: Florence, Paulo
Dates: -
Song title: Berg' und Burgen schaun herunter
Opus, no., etc.: Nr.1
Music collection title: Drei Lieder für eine Singstimme
mit Begleitung des Pianoforte
Imprint(s): Leipzig: Dörffel
Analysis: The song opens with broad, tonic-to-dominant introductory chords, and after a pause the voice responds with a fanfare-like tune featuring octave skips and dotted rhythms. Perhaps this is meant to signify the majestic surroundings and resulting high spirits, but its ends up sounding rather martial instead. This tune is echoed back and forth between piano and voice until the last line of the stanza (rings umglänzt von Sonnenschein = surrounded by glistening sunlight) slows, calms and smooths out somewhat. This leads in nicely to the second stanza, marked with the its first word "Ruhig" (peaceful). Dotted rhythms are slightly less prominent, and the more legato accompaniment (six-three chords in continuous eighth-note scalewise motion over pedal tones) undulates like the "golden, rippling waves" of the text. The second couplet's awakening of hidden feelings is signaled by a shift to A major, and a motive which is associated with "the beloved" (drop of an octave, then a rising scale) followed by a broadening of the rhythmic texture and more expressive, dissonant chords.These continue through the interlude, until the third stanza, which begins with a reprise of the first. The second couplet shifts, however, to D minor, then A major again, when the river's treachery is revealed. A portentious motive, denoting treachery, and outlining a diminished seventh chord (VII7 of A) is sounded and sung in unison on the words "Birgt sein innres Tod und Nacht" (It hides night and death in its depths). This is repeated by the piano at a lower octave, ending with a rather silly-sounding A2. The rolling-wave accompaniment reappears for the first half of stanza 4, while the voice intones its first line quasi recitativo; a quickening of the tempo (the waves getting livelier) and a shift to G minor coincides with a reappearance of the "beloved's" vocal motive, only this time in full voice, as the poet realizes their resemblance. After a pregnant fermata the last two lines (back in F major) confirming this treacherous likeness are nearly whispered, again with broadened rhythms. The final line is a restatement of the "treachery" motive in the tonic. The postlude repeats the motive twice, before ending Adagio and pianissimo, the B-flat appoggiatura on the final chord resolving to A-flat, ending the song thereby on an unforeshadowed, unprepared and therefore unsettling F minor chord.
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Copyright © 2000, Peter W. Shea