This breezy song is the first of a set of three forest pictures which comprise Op 119. The full title of this opus number is Drei Gedichte aus den Waldliedern von Gustav Pfarrius. The poet’s collection entitled Waldlieder (‘Songs of the Forest’) obviously appealed to the composer: he originally appended one of the poems to a movement in the piano work Waldszenen Op 82, but thought better of it when it came to publication. The second song of the Op 119 set – the haunting miniature, Warnung – has already been included in Volume 1 of the Hyperion Schumann Edition. There are a number of other forest songs in the Schumann canon: Waldesgespräch, Zwielicht, In der Fremde II, Im Walde (Eichendorff Liederkreis), Sehnsucht nach der Waldgegend (Kerner) but this one is surely the merriest and least mysterious.

Perhaps this is why it has excited scant comment. Sams notes the use of the ‘virile motif’ where dotted rhythms, particularly in march rhythm, betoken Schumann’s idea of manliness. When one thinks of ‘manly’ composers Beethoven is high on the list, and here Schumann, not for the first time in his songs, seems to have been thinking of that composer. It does not appear to have been noticed before that this bouncy music bears an uncanny resemblance to the opening of the Scherzo movement (‘Assai vivace’) of Beethoven’s ‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata, Op 106. Despite different time-signatures (3/4 for the scherzo, C for the song) both works have almost identical introductions of dotted rhythms and harmonies in descending sequence: I – V (in first inversion) followed by VI – III (first inversion) and then IV – I . There are also some tell-tale signs that this tune did not spring from the words themselves, and that Schumann had this melody in already in mind: at the very opening, melismas on the unimportant words ‘Im’ and ‘in’ indicate a line of poetry being made to fit an existing melody. This failing is more typical of Brahms than Schumann.

The tempo marking is ‘Ziemlich lebhaft’ (reasonably lively) although one would have imagined that the musical response to these words about communion with nature might have been rather more contemplative (cf. Schumann’s Eichendorff setting about a forest hermit, Der Einsiedler, which is written in the manner of a chorale). The composer has seemingly been more inspired by the energy implicit in the idea of DIY: building your own cottage is an undoubtedly demanding task, and this brisk music (perhaps a bit too whimsical to be truly virile) reflects the determination to do so. Although much of the poem describes the fruits of his labours (‘I have built myself a cottage’ is very much a fait accompli) the composer seems to be inviting us to take part in its actual construction.

One can only imagine that the idea of being solitary and isolated somehow brought Beethoven to mind, the handicapped loner who triumphed despite an isolation that would have daunted most mortals. In fact it could be said he owed his success to his retreat, a type of hermitage, and that he had built his own inviolable fortress, let alone a humble hut, within the realm of western music. A glance at the Beethoven movement from Op 106 shows how wonderfully the music is constructed out of these simple dotted rhythm motifs which dance quixotically through the score, weaving the movement together as a convincing whole; the music fits a picture of someone working with zest as he uses a combination of the same simple materials to build – well, something or the other … a forest hut, for example. The short-breathed phrases, emphasised by hairpin accentuations, suggest cheerful hammering within a foursquare construction. But in a song of this type such cheeriness comes at a cost. Any deeper spiritual import that the poet might have implied is not to be found in this heartily illustrative music. Comparison with the more gentle Bewegung of works like Schubert’s two settings about the life of a hermit (Die Einsiedelei, D393 and D563) shows how it is possible for music which incorporates illustrative figurations for rustling forest and babbling stream to preserve a background of serious feeling.

There are the usual controversial features of the late Schumann to be found here – admirable and ground-breaking if one believes that the late songs represent real evolution, disappointing and retrogressive if not. It would be hard to argue that Die Hütte is elegantly written for the piano – there is definitely something awkward about the accompaniment, and not in the same sense as the inspired quirkiness of the Beethoven. Slightly ungainly triplets at moments when the builder is off duty (at ‘Ins Fenster blüht die Rose’ for example) and ineffectual semiquavers for the water-imagery of ‘rauscht nah vorbei der Wiesenbach’ do little truly to vary or enliven the mood of the whole. Whatever vivacity there is in this music stems from the vocal line alone, and at times the hymn-tune doubling of voice and accompaniment seems simultaneously over-active and lame. With the final words of the poem a touch of the supernatural is introduced with mention of dancing and singing elves. This image fits the impishness of the ‘Beethoven’ refrain and may have been the key to the whole song in Schumann’s mind.

In terms of structure Die Hütte depends on a refrain verse of four lines (beginning in each case ‘Im Wald’ and ending proudly with the words ‘mir gebaut’) which appears three times in all – beginning and ending the work, and standing between two longer strophes (of eight lines each) which carry the narrative forward (sometimes this is reminiscent of an estate agent’s blurb for the ideal country retreat, almost too good to be true). The fact is that the poem, representing a German romantic fad for countrified solitude of which Schumann had no real-life experience, is not capable of inspiring his most intense response. But this innocent and simple song does have an infectious tune, and a case can be made for its carefully placed inclusion in a recital programme as a ‘trampoline song’ (Poulenc’s term). Wily performers place such a launching pad between two more substantial (and usually slower) songs. In much the same way, fruit sorbets serve to cleanse the diner’s palate between heavier courses; a fraises des bois of a hut-song then, hammered out of phrases du bois.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 2000

This bleak and desolate little song is one of the surprise discoveries of Peters Volume III where lie exiled so many of the late songs. It weaves its own spell of gloom and foreboding as if it were set in some primeval forest. The way that the voice suddenly rises to a loud F sharp on the word ‘Tod’ in the first verse is like the sudden screech of an exotic bird piercing the Amazonian twilight. The key is B minor, which Sams tells us is associated in Schumann with the idea of enmity. He also points out that the work could be re-barred to more natural effect. Perhaps, but the present strange accentuation adds to the feeling of mystery and disorientation. The accompaniment is made up of various permutations of the same syncopated falling phrase, and this monothematic construction of the accompaniment, around which the voice weaves snatches of melody that sound like mystified and frightened recitative, conveys an eerie feeling of magisterial stillness, if not of calm. This repeated falling phrase is indicative of the decline of daylight into darkness and death. Absolutely masterful is the passage at ‘Glutäugig durchs Gezweige der finstre Schuhu droht’ where the harmony stays fixed for no less than four bars and where the sfzorzati at the beginning of the each bar, as well as the two vocal phrases which both touch plaintive high F sharps, suggest the repetitive hooting of the owl. The last bar of postlude calls for a held pedal and smudged harmony; this shows just how impressionistic Schumann had become at this stage of his life. This cogent and tightly organised little song shows the virtues and individuality of the late style with none of its obfuscations and disadvantages.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 1996

Schumann, who had been in his time the most gently sympathetic and tender of bridegrooms, here puts himself into the shoes of a young lout, pushy and selfish, and completely insensitive to the environment. The birch tree is the victim of the piece, exploited, and eventually destroyed. Despite the superficial jollity of the piece, the fact that the beauty of the woods can so easily be trampled upon is something that disturbs both poet and composer – if only they could have known the depredations that were to come as a matter of course in the next century. It is salutary to realise that there was already a note of concern about the wholesale destruction of the forests at this time (1850), and that matters were soon to get worse in the interests of the new technology espoused by an increasingly powerful and ambitious imperial Germany.

One must be careful not to read too much into what Eric Sams calls music of ‘unpretentious cheerfulness’, and it is true that Schumann keeps the music very simple. The barlines of the piece seems strangely placed (one would expect the vocal line to begin half a bar earlier or later), occasioning off-centre stresses that add to the piece’s quirkiness. The whole piece is a dialogue where the young bridegroom’s arrogant demands (disguised as shamelessly impertinent questions) are framed mostly in angular and peremptory quavers and semiquavers. The birch tree, on the other hand, bends gracefully to the wind in replies that encompass yielding triplets. Mention of a cane (‘Ich schenke dir eine Rute’) with which to punish children places the song firmly in an earlier century, but we like the bridegroom no better for the alacrity with which he takes up the offer. The accompaniment is usually kept to a minimum – staccato chords underlining the arioso – more speech than true melody. The piano writing under the birch tree’s first words (‘Ich schenke dir einen grünen Strauss’) slips into graceful little semiquavers in the right hand set against triplets in the left, a complication typical of the late period, but in this case suitably combining music for wafting branches with a momentary shudder. At mention of the ‘junge Frau’ these delicate little figurations return suggesting that in giving the new bride a broom, one woman is giving a gift to another. Other slightly half-hearted illustrative touches include music for prancing horses under ‘Der Peitschenstiel gefällt mir sehr’.

What haunts one most about this song is the continued importunacy of the oft-repeated phrase ‘Birke, was schenkst du mir noch mehr?’. The negotiations between the tree and the greedy bridegroom, each acquiescence initiating a new and greedier requirement, echo Lebensraum appeasement with one capitulation leading swiftly to the next demand. The moment when the tree stands denuded and with nothing else to give is strangely poignant; in contrast the song’s final verse is heartlessly delivered: having taken everything from the birch tree and made its life a misery, the bridegroom hypocritically claims to be doing it a favour by chopping it down for firewood.

This is one of the strangest poems ever set by Schumann, and in a way one of the most modern; in its folksong simplicity this is as near as the lied comes to agitprop. Here, as in the poetry of the naturalist mystic Justinus Kerner, and in the later poetry of Rückert (see introduction page) we discern the beginnings of the Green movement. As an organised political party this goes back officially only to the 1970s in Germany, but its ideas took strong root in that country because of a longstanding pro-green cultural tradition in which German Romanticism, and some of its key figures, played a founding role. Gustav Pfarrius could claim no such important position, but such works as his collection of short stories Natur- und Menschenleben (1869) show a profound interest in the delicate balances between human requirements and Nature’s need to be untrammelled by mankind.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 2000