Blondels Lied is dissimilar to any of Schubert’s Seidl settings, but there are Schubertian resonances nevertheless. The phrase ‘Suche treu, so findest du!’ is similar to the conclusion of Schubert’s song Alinde, D904, where the singer finds his beloved after an exhaustive search. And then there is the poem’s historical context. Schubert was fascinated by the Crusades, and songs like Der Kreuzzug and Romanze von Richard Löwenherz, not to mention the libretto for his last opera Der Graf von Gleichen, show a partiality for medieval minstrelsy. The character of Blondel is even to be found in the 1818 Schubert song Blondel zu Marien. This enthusiasm may partly be explained as interest in local history: in 1192 King Richard I was imprisoned not far from Vienna by Leopold of Austria. In any case, the European fascination with the Plantagenet king’s rescue from captivity through the efforts of his faithful minstrel Blondel had been fostered by Grétry’s well known opera, Richard Coeur-de-lion. The international popularity of Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe prompted further interest in the reign of Richard I. And interest persisted. In the poem Richard Coeur-de-lion, written during the Second World War in occupied France, Louis Aragon wrote (in Louis MacNeice’s translation):
All French men are Blondel, in each he sings:
Whatever name we called her at the start,
Freedom – like a whispering of wings –
Answers the song of Richard Lionheart.
The modern ear inevitably finds longueurs in the ballad style of old Germany. Schumann casts Blondels Lied as a ballad-cum-strophic song which belongs to another, less sophisticated age. But the surprise is how well the composer accomplishes something noble and interesting within the deliberately archaic manner with which he frames the work, half pastiche and half deeply-felt response to the concept of unswerving loyalty. In this way, Blondels Lied about the Lionheart is a companion piece to Die Löwenbraut (Volume 2) which achieves considerable power despite its ludicrous story. The song was composed shortly after the marriage of Robert and Clara, and the refrain ‘Suche treu, so findest du’ must have seemed like a justification of their own long struggle based on trust and loyalty through extended separation. It is one of the songs that gave much pleasure in the composer’s own domestic circle.
1, 2. The opening melody (repeated in the last strophe) belongs to the narrator. It is a sort of free variation on Blondel’s own song in the central sections of the ballad. The tune seems to be somehow instrumental, an impression reinforced by the fact that the unimportant words ‘bei’, ‘vor’ ‘und’ and ‘dem’ occur on strong beats. In the opening lines we hear of the castle of Dürrenstein (now known as Dürnstein in Lower Austria on the left bank of the Danube in the Wachau) and we are somehow reminded of the landscape of Auf einer Burg from the Eichendorff Liederkreis. The appearance of the music on the page is not dissimilar, with its foursquare tempo and predominance of minims and semibreves. For most of the song the piano leads and doubles the voice in a solemn chorale style, the sumptuous lower reaches of the piano well employed to capture the solemn and royal task at hand. Somehow we can hear we are in the realm of impenetrable thick-walled castles and craggy landscapes. Each of the strophes ends with the very simple but strangely haunting refrain ‘Suche treu, so findest du!’. At the beginning of the second strophe Blondel himself begins to sing. Despite a difference in melody, and the change of many small details, every strophe in this song seems closely related to the others, variations of the same melodic idea. This gives the impression of doggedly faithful repetition. The nature of Blondel’s tireless search (singing his song under the ramparts of every castle in Europe) is built into the music. In the same way, the vigil-until-death of Schiller’s Knight Toggenburg is admirably depicted by the tenaciously strophic structure of the conclusion to Schubert’s ballad Ritter Toggenburg.
3. This strophe continues Blondel’s song to his king. The placid G major melody is replaced by a minore variation. The solemn, chorale-like crotchets that have dominated the piece so far yield to a more passionate aria in quavers. The closeness between the king and his minstrel is emphasised by the use of the ‘du’ form. Any hint at untoward intimacy between king and servant (Richard I has sometimes been depicted as homosexual) is dispelled by the mention of ‘Margot’, whoever Seidl meant her to be – perhaps he was confused between the famous Margot of Navarre (a queen from a later epoch) and Richard’s Queen Berengaria, also from Navarre.
4. For the first time the interlude, which has been firmly grounded in G major, takes us via a tonal side-step into another key. An A-major semibreve introduces the pedal note upon which the whole of the next strophe is built. At ‘Horch, da tönt es leise, leise, aus dem Burgverliess empor’ the very appearance of the music on the page illustrates what is happening: pianissimo minims, swathed and phrased in airy ties, are suspended, hovering in mid-air, above bass octaves. This depicts, also in visual terms, the sound of the imprisoned king’s voice projected from deep in the castle dungeons (the foundations of which are the austere left-hand semibreves). The king’s song resounds in empty space, waiting to be heard. When the connection is made at last, the uncertainty of harmony (which has been clouded by the lingering doubt of a B flat major chord) resolves into an unequivocal A major. This chord is deliriously affirmed in arpeggios in both vocal line and piano, and opens out into the dominant seventh and a high G natural on ‘klingt an Blondels lauschend Ohr’. This widening of harmonic scope is an analogue for the listening ear, cocked and straining to catch every sound. When the king sings again, the sense of excitement at the discovery is underpinned by the continuing pedal which presses the music forward (Schumann also asks for an accelerando) towards the resolution of a D major chord. This point is reached at the end of an ecstatic ‘Suche treu, so findest du!’ which is set a fifth higher than before.
5, 6. As a means of continuing to turn the screw of tension, Schumann dispenses altogether with the piano interlude that separates all the other strophes. We have returned safely and firmly to the key of G major as the discovery of the king is affirmed. The composer directs that the music should be performed ever faster and louder, and there is a sense of general exultation. Only the ritardando for the familiar refrain of ‘Suche treu, so findest du!’ at the end of the verse signifies that the long search is over and Blondel’s task is done. The final strophe allows the narrator to tie up the loose ends of the story, more or less re-using the music of the first strophe. Seidl refers to the sorrow (‘Leid’) at home, as well as the joy (‘Freude’). Presumably the former reaction refers to Prince John and his allies who had hoped to be permanently free of Richard. Schumann adds a few decorative touches in the piano part – notably dotted left-hand rhythms to depict the courtly entourage which returns to Austria to ransom the king. A similar depiction of grandeur is to be heard in the postlude which departs from the simplicity of the piano’s usual ritornello to add a pair of regal flourishes, in dotted rhythm, to end the song. Although Blondels Lied is seldom heard in the concert hall, Schumann lavished considerable care and ingenuity in its composition, much of which is hardly apparent at first glance.
from notes by Graham Johnson © 1999