Welcome to Hyperion Records, an independent British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods from the twelfth century to the twenty-first.

Hyperion offers both CDs, and downloads in a number of formats. The site is also available in several languages.

Please use the dropdown buttons to set your preferred options, or use the checkbox to accept the defaults.

Click cover art to view larger version
Track(s) taken from CDA67944

Sechs Gedichte aus dem Liederbuch eines Malers, Op 36

composer
22/23 July & August 1840; published 1842
author of text

Gerald Finley (baritone), Julius Drake (piano)
Studio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
Recording details: May 2012
Potton Hall, Dunwich, Suffolk, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Julian Millard
Release date: October 2012
Total duration: 15 minutes 58 seconds

Cover artwork: Grotto in the Gulf of Naples (1829) by Carl Blechen (1798-1840)
Image courtesy of the Art Renewal Center / www.artrenewal.org
 

Other recordings available for download

Hanno Müller-Brachmann (baritone), Graham Johnson (piano)
Eric Sams makes the point that when Schumann ceases to make his poetic choices in a subjective way in his 1840 songs the results are rather indifferent; his music had taken fire, as is the case with settings of Heine, Chamisso and Eichendorff, when he dreamed of his Clara and engaged in the struggle to win her hand. When he begins to write songs with texts that he feels he ought to set, there is something of the former mastery that is missing. This is to raise the subject of Robert Reinick in Schumann’s work, as well as in the songs of the young Brahms and Wolf who probably approached this poet, however briefly, as a result of Schumann’s earlier dalliance. Of all the poets that Schumann set in 1840 Reinick is perhaps the weakest—the reputations of Heine, Eichendorff, Kerner, even Chamisso, have remained more or less untouched by time, but who now has heard of Reinick apart from lieder enthusiasts? He was a talented artist and engraver as well as a reasonably skilled versifier, and this at a time when the ‘complete’ artist of this kind was highly valued (another such was Franz Kugler, poet of Brahms’s famous Ständchen, who was also an artist, art-historian and composer). Reinick’s lyrics combined patriotism with a Biedermeier kind of folkish (and specifically Rhenish) lyricism that seemed quintessentially German at a time when politics were slowly but surely moving in an increasingly nationalistic direction. But even this kind of patriotism was old hat in comparison to the work of Uhland.

There was a side of Schumann that was lost in a subjective day-dream, but there was also a more ambitious part of his personality that planned his career to a fault: thus the lieder of 1840 were self-consciously followed by new chapters: the symphony in 1841 and chamber music in 1842. It is very clear that for all his altruism it mattered greatly to him how he was regarded by the outside world; the careful fostering of the Robert–Clara legend is evidence enough of this. If the works of the left-wing rabble-rouser Heine from Hamburg, and the Catholic Silesian Eichendorff were inspired literary choices on the part of the Saxon Schumann, a poet like Reinick seems like a literary choice selected to befit a composer who aspired to the status of a national figure, someone transcending the state boundaries that had so long served German art with such variety and distinction. Reinick’s poems represented a more central, if rather anodyne and artificial, tradition in the same way that Disneyland’s mythology and the castle of Cinderella may claim to represent the history of a United States without a history of his own. In hymning the Rhine and the Fatherland Reinick steps outside the time-honoured concept of the regional poet and provides lyrics for an emerging Germany that are much more generalized: this is not a real country (at least not as yet) but rather a concept—Germany united by cosy religiosity on the banks of the Rhine, the mighty river in itself symbolic of the nation and a source of legend. In this kind of fairy-tale land all is sweetness and light ‘mit Lust und Liedern’; lovers always become wives, and the elves play their part in revealing to the poet that what he needs above all is a pure-of-heart German girl. Of course Reinick was not the only poet to write on these topics in this way, but his Gedichte had early success partly because of the appealing and atmospheric drawings that went along with them.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 2009

Nonobstant son fameux goût littéraire, Schumann aimait assez mettre en musique les poètes mineurs dont les vers s’accordaient à son humeur. En juillet 1840, alors que son mariage était presque acquis, il se lança dans les Sechs Gedichte aus dem Liederbuch eines Malers op. 36 («Six poèmes extraits du chansonnier d’un peintre»), sur des vers de Robert Reinick, bon dessinateur mais littérateur tout juste correct. Même si la musique transcende ces poèmes mielleux, et leur amalgame Biedermeyer mêlant sentimentalité, piété et patriotisme, la veine exploitée ici est la plus simple de Schumann. Le «Sonntags am Rhein» initial tient du croisement entre un paisible Volkslied et un hymne. «Ständchen» est une timide et secrète invite à une fugue amoureuse nocturne (Schumann avait lui-même envisagé de s’enfuir avec Clara), tandis que «Nichts Schöneres», agréablement sautillant, est un nouveau dithyrambe à la gloire de sa fiancée.

Marqué à chanter «dans le style populaire», l’énergique air de marche d’«An den Sonnenschein» valut à ce lied de devenir vite l’un des préférés du public. Hormis une pointe de réflexion vers la fin, sa musique optimisme, de plein air, semble faire fi de l’isolement mélancolique du poète. «Dichters Genesung» reprend une fois encore le grand mythe de la Lorelei. Mais contrairement à ce qui se passe dans «Waldesgespräch», il y a une fin heureuse, le poète revenant à lui lors d’une petite marche animée, qu’accompagne le passage du mystère en mineur au simple éclat du majeur. Pour clore ce corpus d’après Reinick, le fervent «Liebesbotschaft» est, de l’aveu même de Schumann, une lettre d’amour à Clara. Au début, le compositeur souligne toute l’importance que ce lied revêt pour lui en citant une phrase du «Liebeszauber» («Magie de l’amour») de Clara.

extrait des notes rédigées par Richard Wigmore © 2012
Français: Hypérion

Trotz aller literarischer Differenziertheit, für die Schumann so berühmt war, schienen ihm auch geringere Dichterlinge zu genügen, wenn sie seiner jeweiligen Stimmung entsprachen. Im Juli 1840, als seine anvisierte Hochzeit praktisch gesichert war, begann er mit der Arbeit an den Sechs Gedichten aus dem Liederbuch eines Malers op. 36, die von Robert Reinick—einem talentierten Zeichner, jedoch kaum als kompetent zu bezeichnenden Literaten—stammten. Obwohl die Musik die salbungsvollen Gedichte mit ihrer biedermeierlichen Mischung aus Sentimentalität, Frömmigkeit und Patriotismus übertrifft, gehören die Lieder doch zu Schumanns häuslichsten Werken. Das erste Lied, „Sonntags am Rhein“, deutet eine Kreuzung zwischen schlenderndem Volkslied und einem Kirchenlied an. „Ständchen“ ist eine zaghafte, geheimnisvolle Aufforderung zu einer nächtlichen Flucht (Schumann hatte selbst einmal in Erwägung gezogen, mit Clara durchzubrennen), während das gefällig perlende Lied „Nichts Schöneres“ ein weiterer offensichtlicher Päan an seine Verlobte ist.

Die robuste Marschmelodie von „An den Sonnenschein“ soll „Im Volkston“ gesungen werden und erfreute sich bald beträchtlicher Popularität. Mit Ausnahme von ein wenig Nachdenklichkeit gegen Ende scheint Schumanns optimistische Al-Fresco-Musik die melancholische Isolation des Dichters nicht zu beachten. „Dichters Genesung“ ist eine weitere Version der Loreley-Sage. Anders als beim „Waldesgespräch“ ist das Ende hier jedoch glücklich, wenn der Dichter in einem nüchternem kleinen Marsch—in dem ebenfalls ein Wechsel von der Rätselhaftigkeit in Moll zu der unkomplizierten Dur-Helligkeit stattfindet—zu sich kommt. Das letzte dieser Reinick-Lieder, die inbrünstige „Liebesbotschaft“, ist, wie Schumann selbst preisgab, ein Liebesbrief an Clara. Zu Beginn unterstreicht er die persönliche Bedeutung, indem er eine Phrase aus Claras Lied „Liebeszauber“ zitiert.

aus dem Begleittext von Richard Wigmore © 2012
Deutsch: Viola Scheffel

Other albums featuring this work

Schumann: The Complete Songs
CDS44441/5010CDs Boxed set (at a special price)
Schumann: The Complete Songs, Vol. 11 - Hanno Müller-Brachmann
CDJ33111
Brahms & Schumann: Voices of the Night
CDA66053Download only
Waiting for content to load...
Waiting for content to load...