Drei Duette, Op 43

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composer

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

2, 3 & 9 October 1840

Introduction
Français
Deutsch

Musique destinée de façon évidente à une agréable pratique familiale, un aspect de la vie musicale très cher à Schumann depuis qu’il est marié. Le texte du Knaben Wunderhorn pour Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär (un duo qui réapparaît note pour note dans l’opéra de Schumann Genoveva) et de Herbstlied d’August Mahlmann inspire des duos agréables, peu exigeants, bien que l’écriture pianistique de Schön Blümelein de Reinick soit d’une surprenante difficulté.

extrait des notes rédigées par Graham Johnson © 2010
Français: Marie-Stella Pâris

Diese Musik ist eindeutig für komfortablen Hausgebrauch bestimmt, ein Aspekt des Musiklebens, der enorme Anziehungskraft für den verheirateten Schumann hat. Der Text von Des Knaben Wunderhorn für Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär (ein Duett, das Note für Note in Schumanns Oper Genoveva wiederkehrt) und Herbstlied von August Mahlmann inspirieren ihn zu gefälligen, anspruchslosen Duetten, wenngleich die Klavierstimme von Reinicks Schön Blümelein überraschende Fallstricke enthält.

aus dem Begleittext von Graham Johnson © 2010
Deutsch: Henning Weber

Recordings

Schumann: The Complete Songs

Graham Johnson (piano)

CDS44441/5010CDs Boxed set (at a special price)

Schumann’s songs are among the greatest musical achievements of the nineteeth century, and this is the perfect release with which to mark the composer’s 200th birthday. This marvellous collection comprises Schumann’s complete songs, presented for ...» More

Schumann: The Complete Songs, Vol. 10 - Kate Royal

Kate Royal (soprano), Graham Johnson (piano)

CDJ33110

‘Royal's pure, pellucid tone, free-soaring top notes and refined musicianship give constant pleasure … abetted by Johnson's ever-sentient keyboar ...
‘In the Liederkries, Kate Royal, discerningly partnered by Johnson, sings with pure, luminous tone and eloquent phrasing … there are many memorab ...» More

Details

No 1: Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär

author of text

Anonymous - traditional

Des Knaben Wunderhorn

Dame Felicity Lott (soprano), Dame Ann Murray (mezzo-soprano), Graham Johnson (piano)

Track 22 on CDJ33110 [1'10]

Track 25 on CDS44441/50 CD4 [1'10] 10CDs Boxed set (at a special price)

No 2: Herbstlied Das Laub fällt von den Bäumen

author of text

Siegfried August Mahlmann (1771-1826)

Dame Felicity Lott (soprano), Dame Ann Murray (mezzo-soprano), Graham Johnson (piano)

Track 23 on CDJ33110 [2'17]

Track 26 on CDS44441/50 CD4 [2'17] 10CDs Boxed set (at a special price)

No 3: Schön Blümelein Ich bin hinausgegangen

author of text

Robert Reinick (1805-1852)

Dame Felicity Lott (soprano), Dame Ann Murray (mezzo-soprano), Graham Johnson (piano)

Track 24 on CDJ33110 [2'32]

Track 27 on CDS44441/50 CD4 [2'32] 10CDs Boxed set (at a special price)

The marking of Zart (Sweetly) is of little use to performers. This indication might encourage the pianist gently to embark on a moderate, wafting tempo, but the singers would be challenged to sing in one breath the four-bar phrase that initiates the vocal line. In fact the setting of the words requires a tempo of considerable joie de vivre. The vocal line is somewhat reminiscent of that of Schubert’s Die Forelle and if the opening semiquavers had been printed in sextuplets (rather than triplets) the similarity would have been even greater. In fact the tempi of these two songs are also similar, although as a check the performers should turn to the end of Schön Blümelein and find the speed at which the sprightly little march for the words ‘Und Schmetterling’ und Bienen, / Die Käfer hell und blank’ sounds bright and perky enough for butterflies and bees. The accompaniment, though rather swift, is no stomp; the phrase ‘gently rippling ebullience’ comes to mind. The introduction romps down the stave in a gambolling succession of thirds and sixths. The four-bar interlude between the second and third verses (and again between the fourth and fifth) is derived from these but in the third bar the hands execute a sequence of curious little twists and chromatic turns (a hemiola of kinds as the harmony changes in sequences of two notes rather than the expected three) before deftly steering the music back to the home key of C major.

Reinick’s poem has seven verses; for his musical purposes Schumann arranges six of these into pairs, but it is necessary to find a coda for the song to accommodate the seventh verse. In fact, the imagery in the closing words brings home that it is Friedrich Rückert who has inspired Reinick to this kind of verse (as in the animal ballad settings by Loewe like Kleiner Haushalt). The vote of thanks from butterflies and bees strikes a note of Disney-like anthropomorphism, twee by today’s standards for acceptable literature, but definitely a part of the Biedermeier poet’s vocabulary—although prompting a smile and not taken very seriously, even then. The succession of dotted rhythm fanfares with which this song says its goodbyes sounds like a wedding march simply because there is something about it that recalls the music at the end of that celebrated wedding song Helft mir, ihr Schwestern, from Frauenliebe und -leben.

Robert Reinick was an important Schumann poet in 1840 (when Schumann came to know him personally in Dresden after 1850 there was friendship, though no further artistic collaboration). The Reinick Lieder eines Malers cycle, six songs Op 36, will appear in volume 11 of this series, together with a biographical note on the poet. The only other Reinick settings are the duet Liebesgarten Op 34 No 1 (see Volume 7) and this piquant little effusion.

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Drei Duette, Op 43

Introduction

Recordings

Details

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