Calder Balfour
Senior Thesis | 2024
Calder Balfour
Advisor: Dr. Jewell
BUA 2024: Senior Thesis
April 12, 2024
Schumann and Schlegel: Music and Poetry in German
Romanticism
Es wehet kühl und leise
Die Luft durch dunkle Auen, Und nur der Himmel lächelt Aus tausend hellen Augen.
Es regt nur eine Seele Sich in des Meeres Brausen, Und in den leisen Worten, Die durch die Blätter rauschen.
So tönt in Welle Welle, Wo Geister heimlich trauren; So folgen Worte Worten, Wo Geister Leben hauchen.
Durch alle Töne tönet
Im bunten Erdentraume, Ein leiser Ton gezogen, Für den, der heimlich lauschet.
The Romantic composer Robert Schumann based his Op. 17, a work for piano finished in 1836, on a poem. This poem, “Die Gebüsche," by Friedrich von Schlegel, was written some time earlier, in 1800, and showcases the beginnings of the Romantic movement. The Fantasie C-Dur Op. 17 was prefaced by the last stanza of this poem, and Schumann’s music draws on many aspects of Schlegel’s work. By placing Schlegel’s poem in the piece's dedication, Schumann makes his work into a commentary on the changing Romantic ideals of the time, fighting back against Schlegel’s claims that music could not encompass all of Romanticism. Since Schlegel was working earlier than Schumann, his Romanticism was a response to the Classical and Enlightenment periods that came before, and Schumann subsequently used his work to push Romanticism farther. I am
going to compare a work of literature and one of music, since although poetry by its nature distills language to express emotions while music expands sound to do the same, both mediums transport us equally to a Romantic state of mind. Thus, by placing poetry and music side by side as Schumann did, we see how they reflect one another. Understanding the poem becomes crucial to understanding the music. In this paper, I will also focus on the development of musical ideas for a performance of the Fantasie, using clues from the poem.
Schlegel’s “Die Gebüsche," is a typical example of German romantic poetry. It was published in 1802 as part of a larger cycle, Abendrote, which aims to capture the feeling as the sun goes down in the evening. Including poems on the river, flower, mountain, forest, and other aspects of nature, as well spiritual, primeval human characters, such as a boy, a hunter, and a poet, Abendrote gives an overview into what the romantics valued. The cycle is
split in two parts, the first evoking the fiery moment of the sunset, and the second the calm as the world settles into dark.
Schumann’s Fantasie C-dur quotes the last stanza of this poem in its dedication, and follows a 3 part structure, divided into sections with distinct tonal qualities but without pause. This lack of the concrete stops which typically separate movements in a classical sonata is reminiscent of the short break between stanzas in a poem, and points to the other similarities to the poem which Schumann hints at in his composition. The first piece of the Fantasie is melodic with a lot of motion, and roughly resembles sonata form, with a departure in the middle to what Schumman calls, “Im Legendenton,” or in the tone of legend. The second part is rambunctious and loud, seemingly out of place for the tone of “Die Gebüsche,” and hence the larger cycle of Abendrote, but looking closer we see that it does in fact fit and tie into the romantic notion of music. The third section is very calm, evocative of nature rustling and existing as it can only in the night, when
people aren’t there to disturb it. This musical structure mimics the end of the first section, where the intro gives way to a fiery middle, and then transforms back to a peaceful ending.
Interestingly, in comparing the scale of Schumann’s work to the poem he bases it on, there is a disparity of size, with the piece much larger than the poem, and so it would seem to make more sense for such a large musical piece to take the entire Abendrote as its model. However, it would not be coherent for Schumann to try to represent so many ideas through one musical work. Music can never be a direct comparison to poetry; poetry is the distillation of language, while music is more similar to a novel, needing time to develop and get the listener familiar with its narrative1. This does not mean however, that poetry and music
1 Weaver, Andrew H. “TOWARDS A NARRATOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE ROMANTIC LIED: EVENTS, VOICE, AND FOCALIZATION IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY GERMAN POETRY AND MUSIC.” Music & Letters, vol. 95, no. 3, 2014, pp. 374–403. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24549498. Accessed 13 Apr. 2024.
cannot be adapted from each other, as they share the same role of expressively conveying emotion. Schumann’s Fantasie then is an expansion of the poem, a bit like taking a book and turning it into a television show with more scenes.
Another type of adaptation can be observed in Joseph von Eichendorff’s “Mondnacht,” a similar romantic poem which Schumann set to music. It too has themes of the sky, dreams, idyllic fields, and rustling, but instead of being brought out through music alone, the nature of setting a poem to music means that the listener can hear the words at the same time. The need to express the emotion and story of the text with the instrumental score as Schumann does with the Fantasie doesn’t apply to this adaptation, where he focuses more on the accompaniment, which takes the form of a gentle rustling, over which a beautiful vocal melody shines. Though it is reminiscent of moonlight over a peaceful field, with the dark and quiet background portrayed by the piano and the moon’s radiance in the voice, the repetitive quality of the melody
makes this vocal setting much more one-dimensional than the wild adventure-like quality of Schumann’s Fantasie. Therefore, it can be categorized as a character piece, rather than a musical epic.
Through understanding these different types of adaptations and other aspects of Romantic thinking, as well as the connection between poetry and music, my interpretation of the Fantasie has evolved. Looking at the first page, I no longer see just a piece of music, but an expression of words, which paints a stronger picture in my head than notes alone could. The piece begins similarly to a normal setting of a poem, with a rolling baseline and then the introduction of melody, but it quickly grows into scales and gestures that the human voice cannot accomplish. And because the piano controls both accompaniment and melody, total creative control is given to the pianist, reflecting the Romantic value of individuality and self exploration that we will see prominently in “Die Gebüsche”.
However, though the art he created reflects individuality, we now turn to the wider implications of Schumann’s Fantasie. Schumann’s role in the larger picture of the development of German Romanticism can be analyzed with an understanding of Friedrich von Schlegel’s philosophical writing. Schlegel was one of the earliest participants in the Jena Romanticism movement – a handful of philosophers, poets, and ttics who started German Romanticism – and wrote mainly literary theory and criticism2 . Abendrote is among his only well known works of poetry – and he was not as widely regarded as other poets of the day, such as Goethe – which brings up the question of why Schumann would choose a poem by him unless he had something to say about the author. According to John Daverio, a leading scholar on Schumann and Romanticism, Schlegel was “not as anxious to embrace music 2 Ellen Pilsworth | Published in History Today Volume 72 Issue 11 November 2022. “The ‘Jena Set.’” History Today, www.historytoday.com/archive/review/jena-set. Accessed 12 Apr. 2024.
as Novalis, Tieck, Wackenroder, or Hoffmann,” his contemporaries in the Jena movement3. Schlegel writes about the concept of a literary arabeske, taking the name from a type of picture with a flourished frame and a comedic nature. He adapted it to the Romantic movement as a term defining witty short stories, or in music, short character pieces like Schumann’s vocal setting of “Mondnacht.”
For Schlegel, the romantic spirit consisted of the contrast between a sentimental and an exuberant or fantastical side. Schumann also acknowledged these two sides, and indeed he proclaimed that he himself had two sides, Florestan and Eusebius: contemplative and overeager respectively. Schlegel however believed that while poetry could capture both these sides of
3 Daverio, John. “Schumann's ‘Im Legendenton’ and Friedrich Schlegel's ‘Arabeske.’” 19th Century Music, vol. 11, no. 2, 1987
romanticism, music was only capable of representing the sentimental romantic tendencies4 .
Schumann does have collections of shorter pieces like Kinderszenen, Papillons, and Waldszenen, which each encompass a range of ideas, like a tasting platter. These works, for example
Verrufene Stelle, which quotes a poem by Friedrich Hebbel, are like the character pieces described by Schlegel’s arabeske notion, and only become something grand when collected together. The fact that Schumann took “Die Gebüsche” specifically to use as the basis for such a large work gives credit to the idea that the poem is a meaningful example of romantic ideas.
Turning back to “Mondnacht,” it should be noted that vocal settings in general are a much more difficult medium to convey the fantastic through. The German language needs to be stretched out and slowed in order to sound lyrical, which means songs for voice
4 Daverio, John. pp. 150
can appear not to achieve the fiery quality of the fantastic5 . In fact, Schumann’s father-in-law wrote a book advocating for Germans to take on an Italian style of singing that tries for beauty, since the language otherwise sounds too harsh6. This results in poems set to music fueling Schlegel’s argument that Romanticism is not fully conveyed through music, and thus his position makes sense, since these songs were the main musical adaptation of poetry at the time he was writing. However, it means that by using only instrumentation in his Fantasie, Schumann proves that Schlegel’s assumption of musical limitation is wrong.
Schumann’s objection against Schlegel’s notion is made evident, as he titles his work “Fantasie,” or “Fantastic,” proclaiming in the title that he has made music to contradict Schlegel. Schumann also writes the work almost twice as long as a
5 Elliott, Martha. “German Lieder.” Singing in Style: A Guide to Vocal Performance Practices, Yale University Press, 2006, pp. 160–93. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt32brkx.9. Accessed 13 Apr. 2024.
6 Ibid. pp. 167
typical Beethoven sonata, which is the basis for the sonata form. This extra time allows him to explore different depths of music, and prove how versatile the medium can be. He further plays with Beethoven's sonata form by swapping the second and third movements. Normally the second movement of sonata is the adagio, while the third picks up the tempo, but Fantasie C-Dur shows that this convention is not necessary, and allows Schumann to display the full range of Romantic emotion. Ultimately, as we will see, Schumann succeeds in creating music from poetry that still holds both sentimental and fantastic elements at once, and quotes Schlegel’s poem to show the author that he has been disproven.
I will now turn to investigating Schlegel’s poem as a basis for my musical decisions as a pianist in playing the Fantasie. In doing so, it becomes evident how programmatic of “Die Gebüsche” Schumann intended his Fantasie to be. Poetic details
from the poem appear throughout the piece, informing melody, structure, and the meaning that Schumann brings forth.
Firstly, one notices the poem’s rhyme scheme. For the first three stanzas, the second and fourth lines are rhyming, but in the last stanza, Schlegel gives us “Erdentraume” and “lauschet,” meaning ‘the dreams of earth’ and ‘he listens’ which do not rhyme. Indeed this fourth stanza is the one Schumann chose, suggesting that he planned from the start to deviate from the normal form, or that he chose the poem as a reflection of this deviation7. There certainly is a striking departure from typical sonata form in the first part of the piece, where Schumann interrupts his development, and then jumps right into recapitulation, with a completely new theme and variation, and in a different key. This breaking out from traditional convention is foreshadowed in Schlegel’s poem, and by the Romantic movement as a whole, which was trying to break out
7 This is a claim that has no scholarly basis, since we do not know what Schumann was thinking in writing this piece, but it is plausible, and lines up with Schumann’s evident toying with form.
of the structure of the Enlightenment, or the German “Aufklärung.”
This departure is hinted at in the exposition, where a flurry of notes set the tone for a melody. A sonata is meant to have two distinct themes in its opening, but in Fantasie’s introduction, one isn't always able to tell which two themes are the main two. Some of the introduction of the Fantasie sounds like music meant to fill the gaps, which clouds the sonata structure for the listener; however on a closer inspection there are two themes. We see this murkiness come through in the rhyme scheme of the first three stanzas of the poem, which all appear to rhyme. However, in reality, though “Auen” and “Augen” sound similar, they don’t fully rhyme, since the ‘g’ changes the pronunciation enough. “Brausen” and “Rauschen” use the ‘s’ and the ‘sch’ sound respectively, which are distinct sounds in German. And in the third stanza, Schlegel goes so far as to change the spelling of the word changing “Trauern” to “Trauren,” which doesn’t rhyme with
“Hauchen” and only serves to further emphasize the difference in sound between the two verbs. Thus, Schumann mirrors the fuzziness of the rhyme scheme in the way he toys with the sonata form to make it more uncertain. And with the beginning of the development, the music strays further away from strictly melodic content, instead moving closer to phrases that express a part of the environment described in the poem. For example, in measure 49, the recognizable theme is accompanied by chromatic triplets, blurring the texture as dusk would.
Within its cycle, “Die Gebüsche” falls second to last in the latter half of Schlegel’s cycle, and thus it becomes helpful to frame the poem as a transition from dusk to night. However, it isn’t the very last poem in the cycle, and as such we understand that it doesn’t depict a pitch-black night, but rather a night still alive with the light of the smiling stars.
Now that we have seen how the structure of Schlegel’s poem impacts the Fantasie, we can look at the actual meanings of
the words of the poem. In the last stanza of “Die Gebüsche,” there is an even more direct link between the poetry and the music. The melody of the right hand in the beginning of the piece carries the right rhythm for a voice to sing the words of the poem to. This is likely no coincidence, as the poem is quoted in Schumann’s dedication, and Schumann also set numerous poems to music as vocal settings, such as “Mondnacht.” Additionally, Schumann made his composition in 4/4, matching the baseline of the poem which is tetramic lines, and making it possible for the line in the poem to match that of the piece. Thus he could have used a similar process to create a vocal piece, but rather he chose to leave Fantasie C-Dur as a work for solo piano. This is for individuality, but the fact that the piece still includes a hidden voice line means the player cannot ignore it, and I often sing the words under my breath as I play. This decision also sheds light on the difference between the relationship between music and poetry in a vocal
setting, as compared to the relationship of the poetry used as a guide for an instrumental work.
Since one can hear the lines of the poem in the melody, I phrase the music to the words of the poem. For example, in the opening phrase of the piece, a normal idea would be to phrase the line until the diminuendo in measure 5 and then start a new one which tapers off again. However, keeping the basis for interpretation in the poetry. This means I don't diminuendo till measure 10, where the natural pause in the middle of a 4 line stanza would be. This is also supported in the Urtext edition, which only has a diminuendo in measure 10.
Another example of the words informing the music can be found in the first stanza: “Und nur der Himmel lächelt / aus Tausend hellen Augen,” meaning “the sky alone laughs / from a thousand shining eyes.”8 In the context of the previous conclusion 8 All translations are my own, unless otherwise marked
that the poem is set in a night that still holds enough light to see by, these lines seem to depict the stars, which are responsible for the brightness of the night sky. Armed with this interpretation, I can base decisions on how to perform Fantasie C-Dur. For example, when playing the second theme, a descending line, I now picture a shooting or falling star. When the melody comes back within the “Im Legendenton” with a softer, soothing quality, I imagine a child being sung to under the night sky. The poem’s text also gives meaning to the witty moments of the Fantasie, such as measures 73-75, where I play the off beats with a sparkling quality, reminiscent of the stars popping through the night sky.
Though the connection between “shining eyes” of the night and the stars may seem obvious, matching the musical form to the verbal content produces valuable insight for playing Schumann’s Fantasie. In the second and third stanzas, it is again necessary to find the patterns, as the first half and second half are reflected in each other across the two stanzas. Thus we see: “Es regt nur eine
Seele / Sich in des Meeres Brausen” in contrast with “So tönt in Welle Welle, / Wo Geister heimlich trauren.” The translations are:
“It moves just one soul / Amidst the roaring ocean,” and “Thus waves resound in waves / where spirits secretly mourn.” Both these lines discuss the ocean, and the individual spirit. Thus it is natural to look for a motif resembling these in the music. Indeed we find it, the deep, rolling chromatic line beginning in measure 105, which I treat as a wave for my right hand to ride, and the soulful melody of measure 77, where all the noise dies away and I am left with just myself.
Another notable detail of the poem is the repetition of “Welle.” It makes more sense with German grammar, but is it still rather remarkable syntax to juxtapose the same word in two different cases. And Schlegel does it again in the following line, with “So folgen Worte Worten.” This repetition comes out in the piano work as the repetition of notes, such as the A-flats in measure 214-15 and 115-18 or the A which insistantly starts the
melody. This also serves to highlight the harmonic change throughout the piece, where C major shifts into C minor, resulting in A, the 6th of the scale, moving a half step down. This act of falling a half step is something that I could simply let happen as I play, but I prefer to imbue it with meaning. In this case, I look back to the connection between the second halves of the third and fourth stanzas of the poem. There we have: “Und in den leisen Worten, / Die durch die Blätter rauschen,” or, “and in the quiet words, / which rustle through the leaves.” And in parallel: “So folgen Worte Worten, / Wo Geister Leben hauchen,” which means, “Thus words follow words, / where spirits breathe life.”9 Both these lines evoke a feeling of breath; the words come out of the mouth, and they are quiet, but with enough force that the rustle leaves, so I imagine a breathy whisper. This offers another interpretation of measures 73-75, where instead of little laughs, the 9 “Die Gebüsche: Song, Texts, Lyrics & Translations.” Oxford Song, oxfordsong.org/song/die-geb%C3%BCsche. Accessed 12 Apr. 2024.
off-beats are breathes, and so sometimes I will breathe on the down-beat in that passage to give the music its breathy quality. This does not mean, of course, that the measures cannot also be witty. Rather, having two compatible interpretations of a passage is helpful to bring in variance, since all the material is repeated throughout this long musical piece.
Through the breath present in both music and poem, we arrive at another key aspect of Romantic music, the sighing gesture. The descending minor second motif, or A to A-flat, is called a pianto, and during the Romantic period shifted in meaning from weeping to a sigh10. This means that Schumann is one of the creators of the musical sigh, and he seems inspired by the lifegiving sighs of spirits in Schlegel’s poem. I give extra attention to
10 MONELLE, RAYMOND, and Robert Hatten. “THE SEARCH FOR TOPICS.” The Sense of Music: Semiotic Essays, Princeton University Press, 2000, pp. 14–40. JSTOR, Accessed 12 Apr. 2024.
this gesture, and emphasize the higher note, since a sigh starts louder and then diminuendos.