In the Junge Leiden section of Heine’s Buch der Lieder this poem follows on directly from Belsazar and one could scarcely think of a greater contrast of subject-matter. It is well known that this poet was a major influence on Wagner in the plots of Der fliegende Holländer (from Heine’s Aus den Memoiren des Herren von Schnabelewopski) and Tannhäuser; but here we have a glimpse of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. The poem is couched in a lighthearted tone certainly, but it makes some marvellous points about the differences between sportsmen and artists, between those competing in a trial of strength, and those whose destiny it is to sing of their tribulation, and wear it like a rose. The pen is mightier than the sword is what the song says, and one can imagine its significance for Schumann whose only strength in the battle with Wieck for Clara’s hand was his own artistic genius. Perhaps this is the reason the composer left out the consolatory fifth verse of the poem which contains the marvellous phrase (a later adaptation of the original 1827 version) ‘Liederblut aus Herzensgrund’. The idea of songs coming like blood from the depths of the heart is a typical Heine conceit. Avoiding such imagery, here Schumann decides simply to repeat the first verse to bring the song to an end.

The Opus 33 songs are a set of six settings for male chorus. There are two settings of Heine (both on this CD), two of Mosen (the poet of Der Nussbaum), one of Goethe (Rastlose Liebe, made famous by Schubert) and one of Robert Reinick. Of these, Der Minnesänger is probably the most simple, certainly the least chromatic – probably because the subject-matter suggests time-travelling music in the manner of a sixteenth-century madrigal. The result is a setting which is simple and charming – in C major and in the tradition of student drinking societies. We can discern little of Heine’s deeper message here, and it is likely that Schumann thought that too much introspection was inappropriate in music written for these hearty and merry forces. Cheeky acciaccaturas bring a spring to a step of the singers and a sparkle to the eyes of the ladies. There is a change of rhythm into 3/4 for the more wistful sentiments of the fourth verse, but the opening mood quickly re-establishes itself. Because the first verse ends with ‘Tournei’ (tournament), Schumann takes the liberty to chop off the final syllable for numerous repetitions of ‘ei’. This creative reworking of the text (an ‘Oh, ah!’ equivalent) is very much in the spirit of the laddish camaraderie to be found in the genre of the Männergesang.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 2001

Schumann composed this choral setting four days before the solo song we have just heard. In some ways it seems an obvious study for the later more famous version: there is the same time signature of 6/4 and the same spacious sense of music unfolding in the moonlight like the petals of an exotic flower. Wafting quavers in the opening bar seem to make the Lotosblume float on the surface of gently rippling water. The absence of a piano, however, is a major factor in the difference between the settings: as a piano composer par excellence, in 1840 Schumann still needed the idiosyncrasies of this instrument (and its pedal) for his most magical vocal utterances. The key is D flat major – an unusual tonality for this type of choral music for men’s voices which tends to embrace simplicity more readily than complexity. The fashioning of the song is less sophisticated and word-conscious than the solo setting: for example, ‘mit gesenktem Haupte’ ascends the stave in contradiction to the meaning of the words (compare the sinking phrase in Op 25 No 7 at this point). There is attractive imitative part-writing at ‘Der Mond, der ist ihr Buhle’ (the communing of lovers implied by the interplay of voices); at ‘er weckt sie mit seinem Licht’ the waking of the sleeping flower is accomplished in musical relay – a secular laying on of hands where one bass line sets off the other, followed by the second tenor which is then capped by the first tenor whose radiant tessitura is ideal for the words ‘mit seinem Licht’. There is a modulation from D flat major to E major at ‘Und ihm entschleiert sie freundlich’ (the pivot is A flat in D flat major which is enharmonically identical with G sharp in E major). This modulation on the bar-line (at ‘ihm’) emphasises the importance of the male lover (or ‘Buhle’) in this story – in this case surely Robert Schumann himself.

As in the solo song, there is a similarly excitable accelerando at ‘sie blüht und glüht und leuchtet’ as the flower blooms and glows and shines, basking in love and its physical manifestation (‘the marking is ‘von hier an etwas schneller nach und nach’). But this is only the beginning of an idea, developed later with the solo setting. Schumann was later to make something much more exciting of this phrase which culminates in the verb ‘zittert’; but we see here that he already saw in the concluding lines of this poem a metaphor for the night of love that he so longed to experience with his beloved bride. This setting would perhaps be better known if it had not been eclipsed by the moonrise in music that is Die Lotosblume from the Myrthen cycle.

Heine enthusiasts should note that the poet wrote another poem simply titled Lotosblume towards the end of his life. This described the relationship with a much younger woman (known as ‘La Mouche’) when he had long been an impotent and wretched invalid. The concluding verses (in Hal Draper’s translation) are:

She dreams she’s a lotus, God bless her
And really believes it, almost;
He thinks he’s the moon, as possessor
Of a face that is pale as a ghost.

The lotus unveils her lonely
Face to the moon, nightlong;
But all this gives birth only
To another rhyme and a song.

Rarely can a great poet have more poignantly parodied his own work from an earlier and healthier time of his life. Heine was dying of syphilis in Paris as he wrote these lines. Incarcerated in the asylum in Endenich at the same time, Robert Schumann (who had not seen his wife Clara for three years) was afflicted by the same disease but he was not even able to write ‘a rhyme and a song’ in the sad twilight of his life.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 2001