Heine-Lieder : Lied des Gefangenen (Als meine Großmutter die Lise behext) / Kugler

Composer: Kugler, Franz Theodor
Dates: 1808-1858
Song title: Lied des Gefangenen von Heinrich Heine
Opus, no., etc.: No. 3 of Musikalische Beilage, a supplement of separately paginated musical numbers bound into Kugler's Skizzenbuch
Music collection title: Skizzenbuch
Imprint(s): Berlin: G. Reimer, 1830
Source(s) for score: Musikalische Beilage, pp. 6-8 (between pp. 106-107 of Skizzenbuch), transcribed from copy at Beinecke Library, Yale Univ., New Haven, CT; also in: Liederhefte von Franz Kugler, Heft II, p. 15 -- Stuttgart: Ebner & Seubert, 1852.
1st line of poem: Als meine Großmutter die Lise behext (Go to text)
Source of poem: Buch der Lieder: Junge Leiden: Romanzen, Nr.5
Date of composition: -
Nationality of composer: German
Language(s) of text: German
Tempo marking: Nicht allzu wild
Key: A minor
Time signature: 2/4
No. of measures: 31 (124 with all 4 strophes)
Approximate duration: 3 min., 30 sec.
Form: strophic
Vocal range: G-sharp to e
Vocal tessitura: low (Go to chart)
Vocal rhythms: quarters and eighth-note duplets in various permutations
Vocal intervals: mostly stepwise motion, one ascending fourth
Vocal comments: marked parlando, the vocal part has a very narrow compass, and is quite monotonous, almost literally so: first half of each stanza is sung mostly on c, second half mostly on A; written in bass clef, obviously intended for low male voice, as is appropriate to the text
Textual variants, etc.: line 2 of stanza 2: "sich" is moved from after "als" to after "Qualm"
Instrumental part(s): very easy; the introduction (which also serves as interlude between stanzas) is fully half the length of the song, with rising and falling natural minor scales in eighth-note, right-hand octaves, while the left hand thirds oscillate between tonic and dominant; pulsating eighth-notes in thirds continue under the vocal part
Summary: A very simple, uninspired and rather monotonous Lied, of interest only as a very early Heine setting. The rather foursquare octave scales of the introduction/interlude, which may depict the flight of the raven (the prisoner's witchy, executed grandmother), are perhaps intended as stark contrast with the low, depressed grumblings of the prisoner himself, but the effect is merely of one monotony exchanged for another.

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