One of the main themes of the troubadour tradition is courtly love, a love that was elevating and spiritual. The beloved was a noble woman, and the troubadour had a lower rank; their relationship followed the terminology of feudalism: she was his lady, and he was her vassal. Moreover, the lady used to be married, which made her even more inaccessible. Courtly love was necessarily platonic because otherwise, the lady would become adulterous. This would lied lovers to other pathways, such as the Arthurians or the Tristanians. So, the troubadours sang to a secret love, to a lady whose name they never mentioned, to a lady who occupied all his thoughts.
When the art of the troubadours reached Germany, that musical and literary genre was called minnesang. The songs were written and sang by minnesingers, some of whom are well-known to opera lovers, such as Tannhäuser or Wolfram von Eisenbach. Over time, the minnesänger tradition disappeared, and by the 15th century, they were replaced by other well-known operatic characters, the meistersänger, or meistersinger.
But let's go back to minnesang. In the 12th century, minne was a word used to refer to love, together with liebe. But they were not the same, there were nuances: etymologically, liebe relates to joy and pleasure, while minne relates to thought and memory (nowadays the Swedish verb to remember is minnen). That is, minne was very close to courtly love. And in case they had to be very specific, they talked about hohe Minne, which, if I'm not wrong, could be translated to high love or noble love, the form I chose to entitle this article I would greatly appreciate it if some of you, dear readers, could explain which translation would be better). Anyway, the word minne fell out of use, and liebe remained the usual way to refer to love, in any of its aspects.
But poets sometimes find words that have been forgotten, and composers bring them to us, lied lovers. It's the case of a Lied by Richard Strauss with a poem by Karl Henckell called Ich trage meine Minne [I bear my love]; it tells of someone that bears his love in his heart, in silence, like a secret, and this secret fills the days of the lover with joy and helps him face the darkness of the world. It appears that the poet did not choose this word, Minne, by chance.
Karl Henckell was born in the same year as Strauss, in 1864; he is one of the many contemporary poets that the composer set to music. We spoke about it briefly three years ago, in the middle of the lockdown. One of those terrible weeks we listened to a song that suited the situation we were in, the magnificent Ruhe, meine Seele, which is Strauss's first lied with Henckell's poem. Back then I told you that the poet and the composer had been corresponding as a result of this work, and had maintained a good relationship. Two years later, in 1896, Strauss returned to Henckell's poetry: three of the five lieder of Opus 32, also dedicated to his wife Pauline de Ahna, were written on his poems. Ich trage meine Minne is the first lied of the collection.
The four stanzas of the poem become two musical stanzas. The first is stable, calm, tender, with a touch of passion; the poet tells us about his love. In the second one, however, when the poet speaks of the evil in the world, music becomes unstable and restless. And, perhaps because he does not want the last word to be uncertainty and discontent, Strauss repeats the first stanza of the song. And we end up with a smile on our lips because, although it doesn't mean the same as in the 12th century, in the 21st century we also know what a noble love is.
I am eager to present to you the version of Ich trage meine Minne that we are listening. You know that, sometimes, the song I'm referring to is chosen by a reader; because we mention them in some conversation, or because we share them in some recital… This is the case with Ich trage meine Minne; I talked about it with Èric Varas, a young pianist passionate about Lied. And, being him a pianist, what could better than listening to his version of this song? Èric accompanies soprano Ulrike Haller; thank you very much to both of you for sharing with us this beautiful interpretation of such a beautiful Lied!
Ich trage meine Minne
Vor Wonne stumm
Im Herzen und im Sinne
Mit mir herum.
Ja, daß ich dich gefunden,
Du liebes Kind,
Das freut mich alle Tage,
Die mir beschieden sind.
Und ob auch der Himmel trübe,
Kohlschwarz die Nacht,
Hell leuchtet meiner Liebe
Goldsonnige Pracht.
Und liegt auch die Welt in Sünden,
So tut mir’s weh—
Die Arge muß erblinden
Vor deiner Unschuld Schnee.
I bear my love
Silent with joy,
In my heart and in my mind
With me everywhere.
Yes, that I have found you,
Beloved one,
Will delight me every day
That has been granted to me.
And though the sky is gloomy,
And the night is as black as coal,
My love shines brightly,
With the splendor of sunny gold.
And although the world is full of sin,
Which makes me sad,
The evil must be blinded
By your innocence, pure as snow.
(translation by Emily Ezust)
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