Heine-Lieder : Mit Myrthen und Rosen / Schumann

Composer: Schumann, Robert
Dates: 1810-1856
Song title: Mit Myrthen und Rosen
Opus, no., etc.: op.24, Nr.9
Music collection title: Liederkreis nach Gedichten von Heinrich Heine für eine Singstimme mit Klavier
Imprint(s): Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1840
Source(s) for score: Schumann, Sämtliche Lieder für eine Singstimme mit Klavierbegleitung, Bd. I, ed. Friedländer -- Originalausgabe (hohe Stimme) -- NY : C.F. Peters, [n.d.] Pl. no.9307
1st line of poem: Mit Rosen, Zypressen und Flittergold (Go to text); Schumann used an earlier version with a different first line (Go to text and translation)
Source of poem: Buch der Lieder: Junge Leiden: Lieder, Nr.9
Date of composition: 1840
Nationality of composer: German
Language(s) of text: German
Tempo marking: Innig, nicht rasch
Key: D major
Time signature: common time
No. of measures: 77
Approximate duration: 4 min.
Form: through-composed
Vocal range: d to g' [d' to g"]
Vocal tessitura: medium overall; some high-lying phrases (Go to chart)
Vocal rhythms: mostly quarter and eighth notes, with many triplets and dotted patterns of both kinds as well
Vocal intervals: flexible and full of contrasts in this regard; ascending scales are often followed by phrases composed mainly of descending thirds and fourths; many chromatic passing tones or alterations
Vocal comments: some effective and challenging upward leaps of sixth and octave; a feeling of inexorable forward motion should propel this song, even in the slower passages
Textual variants, etc.: Schumann uses earlier version of poem (Go to text and translation), quite different in many details from "standard" text, especially in the first stanza. Other than repeated lines at the end of the second and fourth stanzas, he indulges in no alterations of the text.
Instrumental part(s): The piano part is even more rhythmically and dynamically fluid and changeable than the vocal part. Passionate interludes alternate with syncopated and impressionistic accompaniments. Some of the more forceful vocal passages are doubled. Fischer-Dieskau says this part is "reminiscent of the Novelette, op. 21, and like it succeeds in combining romantic sensitivity with clarity, passion, and artistic discipline."
Summary: This song masterfully encompasses stormy passion and gentle melancholy, the extremes of Schumann's Florestan and Eusebius personalities, plus many gradations of mood in between. Heine's words have here inspired one of Schumann's more successful songs, individually speaking, but it is even more powerful as the conclusion to the op.24 cycle. For a fascinating analysis of the entire Heine Liederkreis see Berthold Hoeckner's "Poet's Love and Composer's Love" in Music Theory Online, Volume 7, Number 5, October 2001.