Heinrich Heine (originally named Harry) was born on December 13, 1797 in Düsseldorf, Germany, of Jewish parents. Though his family preferred that he become a businessman, Heine eventually took a degree in law, and in 1825, in order to make possible a civil service career (closed to Jews at that time), he resentfully converted to Protestantism. Despite this, he never practiced law or held a government position.

Heine’s reputation grew steadily with the publication of his poems in the early 1820’s. Most of these were collected in 1827 into the Buch der Lieder (Book of songs), which has always been his most widely read collection, and the most popular with composers, with nearly 5000 settings made of its 245 poems. It may have been inspired by his youthful and unrequited infatuation with one, or possibly two, of his rich uncle’s daughters. These poems are a concentrated combination of lyrical perfection, Romantic imagery, wry humor and bitter irony. Their seeming sentimental simplicity has been widely imitated, but seldom with any success. Heine had an unsurpassed ability to write lyrics which on the surface are almost trite, but are crafted as word-music of the highest order, where the sound and rhythm enhance the often contradictory underlying emotions. He often revised poems which had already been published, which has led to confusing conflicts between the versions which composers have set and Heine’s final versions.

Before his exile from Germany, Heine spent many holidays in northern Germany, on the North Sea shore. Its bleak beauty haunted him the rest of his life, and his poems on the sea, many collected in a part of the Buch der Lieder called "Die Nordsee" (The North Sea) are considered among the finest such poems in the German language.

Heine moved to Paris in 1831, after publication of his Reisebilder (Travel pictures), a whimsical amalgam of fact, fiction, autobiography, social criticism, and literary polemic which was widely imitated. In Paris his political and social concerns found outlet in his prolific critical and satirical prose writings. He became acquainted with many of the most prominent figures of the age, including Karl Marx. Heine’s pro-revolutionary views were unacceptable to the German governments, and by 1835 his voluntary exile in France became an imposed one, and his works were banned throughout Germany. He continued to write poetry as well (New Poems; Germany, a Winter’s Tale; Atta Troll, a Midsummer Night’s Dream), much of it with often satirical elements of social and literary commentary. After 1844 Heine suffered financial reversals and painful physical deterioration from syphilis. He spent the last several years of his life in his "mattress-grave" in a Paris apartment, although his poetic and observational powers never left him. Romanzero, his last volume of poems, is full of heartrending laments and bleak commentaries on the human condition, many of which are now considered among his finest lyrics. He died in Paris on February 17, 1856. (Much of the above biographical information was taken from Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature, Springfield, MA, 1995)

With the exception of the four short songs by Hoven, this concert’s music is not the usual fare of songs with piano accompaniment found on a typical vocal recital. Songs with the accompaniment of piano plus another "obbligato" instrument, as well as vocal duets, are much more common than one might deduce from their relative rarity in today’s concert halls. At the time they were composed, most of the songs you will hear today were intended not so much for concert performance as for "house music." Although there was an insatiable demand for published songs on the part of the burgeoning middle class of the Biedermeyer era, many songs were also circulated in manuscript, and intended to be heard only by the composers’ friends and family. The addition of an obbligato instrument to a score was often dictated by who in the composer’s circle played what instrument, or who was visiting that week. If such songs were published, there was often a choice given to the customer; for example, the cover of the first song on today’s program states that the obbligato part may be played by cello, bassoon or horn. Later in the nineteenth century, and into this one, songs intended for mass consumption (like the two songs with violin on this program) were often published in many versions for various combinations of voices and instruments. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine some of the more recent works on this program (Bridge, Shaw) in any other instrumentation than that prescribed by the composer. Perhaps this is because they are more self-consciously "serious" and "artistic," which is symptomatic of the ever-widening gulf between "popular" and "classical" music that started opening toward the middle of the nineteenth century.

Franz Lachner’s reputation varied widely even during his lifetime; Schumann regarded him as "the most talented and learned among the south German composers," while Wagner derided his works as dull, dry and devoid of poetry. Lachner’s output was so extensive (over 200 songs alone) that Wagner’s comments are probably true of a fair percentage of his works, but the songs with horn would seem to be a happy exception. They display an unstrained lyricism and, in "Die Seejungfern," a deft atmospheric touch.

J. Hoven was the nom de plume of Johann Vesque von Püttlingen, who was a Privy Councillor at the Austrian court. At the same time he studied piano and theory with leading musicians of his day, and made his mark as a composer of operas. He also published many songs, holding the distinction of having set Heine to music more than any other composer, with well over 100 settings. He was a correspondent of Schumann’s, and tried to persuade that composer to come to Vienna, where presumably his way would be smoothed by Hoven’s connections, but that effort came to nothing. Like Schumann, Hoven obviously reveled in the ironic contrasts of Heine’s poetry, to the extent of setting some of the more humorous and sarcastic poems, usually avoided by other composers, in his "Vier Ironische Lieder." Schumann’s influence is evident throughout the set, but the first song, "Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen," is an obvious tribute to Hoven’s more famous and accomplished friend, for it quotes nearly verbatim the first phrase of Schumann’s setting of the same poem from "Dichterliebe." The second song sets two adjacent poems from Heine’s "Die Heimkehr," first juxtaposing and then concatenating them in a hilarious tour-de-force. Both the third and fourth songs start relatively conventionally, but the third ends with a parody of Italian operatic formulas (in the piano part practically every note gets its own excrutiatingly detailed expressive marking), and the fourth tops off the set with a depiction of an amateur singer/guitarist driving his neighbor crazy.

Arthur Foote was an eminent Massachusetts composer who received, from Harvard in 1875, the first advanced degree in music ever awarded in this country. As in the music of most of the composers of the Second New England School, the German Romantic influence is pre-eminent, down to the choice of poet in the case of his lovely lyrical duet "Summer Night."

Felix Mendelssohn is probably the only composer on this program who needs no introduction. He was acquainted with Heine before the poet moved to Paris, and set several of his poems to music. They were both Jews who converted to Christianity, although Heine was more conflicted about this common practice of the time than Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn took severe liberties with Heine’s poems, especially in the case of "Ich wollt’ meine Lieb’" which Heine wrote as "Ich wollt’ meine Schmerzen," where Mendelssohn substitutes "love" for "pain," changing the meaning of the poem entirely, robbing it of its Heine-ian bitterness. Still, these rank among the finest duets ever written, especially the incomparable "Abendlied."

Stephen Heller’s "Das Fischermädchen" is the only song with an obbligato part from a set of seven songs, five of them on Heine texts, written in 1835, but not published until 1975. Heller’s songs are tiny subtle gems. He was a virtuoso pianist whose pedagogical works are still used today.

The English composer Frank Bridge is perhaps still best known as Benjamin Britten’s composition teacher, but these days his music is starting to enjoy a revival, at least in recordings. His music was not much recognized in his life, perhaps because he mainly wrote chamber music. "Where is it that our soul doth go?" ranks among the best of his several settings of Heine, all of which are in English translation. It is the second of a set of three songs for voice, viola and piano.

Guy d’Hardelot (Mrs. W. I. Rhodes, née Helen Guy) was born in France and studied at the Paris Conservatoire. She toured the U.S. in 1896 with the famous singer Emma Calvé, and later married and settled in London. She wrote many melodious songs, some of which were hugely popular around a century ago, including "Because" and today’s selection "Invocation."

Eugene Degele was a German baritone, who, like many singers of his day, composed the occasional song. He starred in several of the major German opera houses in the 1870’s and 1880’s.

Martin Shaw was an English organist and composer of sacred choruses and oratorios. He was also a ground-breaking compiler of such collections as Songs of Praise and The English Carol Book. Vaughan Williams drew greatly upon Shaw’s work when he edited the English Hymnal. Shaw is not generally known as a composer of songs or chamber music. However, the use of string quartet (with or without other instruments) as a vocal accompaniment was quite popular with English composers of the time, in such peices as Vaughan Williams’ "On Wenlock Edge," Warlock’s "The Curlew," Gurney’s "Ludlow and Teme" and many others. "Water Folk" is certainly indebted to some of those works, but it captures Heine’s flights of fancy and self-mocking irony admirably, matching the two outer, rather digressive poems with similarly episodic, almost pictorial music, and treating the tongue-in-cheek "Meeting" with atmospheric mastery.