We’re reaching the end of July and the end of this batch of songs of the Same poem, one more song series: another song with a poem that is the same, yes, but not quite. Let me explain.
You may remember that at the beginning of the season I devoted three consecutive weeks to discussing Tragödie by Robert Schumann, with poems by Heinrich Heine. A work which, as I said back then, I’m still not sure whether to consider a three-part song (only one part is usually performed, oddly enough), a mini-cycle (with all three songs sharing the same catalogue number, also odd), or something else entirely. Faced with this uncertainty, I referred to it as a triptych, which fits the structure of the work without committing us to anything.
The central part of the triptych is Es fiel ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht, and Heine himself says that the poem is not his, but rather a traditional song he had heard along the Rhine. Well: the poem I’m bringing you today is the text of that traditional song. If you look back at Heine’s poem, you’ll see that it is practically identical to the first three stanzas of the traditional song, as if he had simply touched it up. The traditional song also has a fourth stanza, the one beginning with the line “Auf ihrem Grab Blaublümlein blühn.” This is exactly how the third poem—and the third song—of Tragödie begins, but from that line onward Heine departs from the traditional text and offers his own; this time, an original one. So: the same poem, yes, but not quite.
I thought it would be interesting to round off those October posts by listening to the traditional song, which appears to be an Alsatian song compiled in 1807. The text, although also included in Des Knaben Wunderhorn, would be the version collected by Anton Wilhelm von Zuccalmaglio, who is the one that preserves the fourth stanza. The performers are mezzo-soprano Christine Müller and pianist Götz Payer, and I haven’t been able to find the author of the harmonisation.
It’s a very sad story, but even so, I hope you enjoy the song.
Es fiel ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht.
Er fiel auf die zarten Blaublümelein,
sie sind verwelket, verdorret.
Ein Knabe hatte ein Mägdlein lieb,
sie flohen gar heimlich von Hause fort,
es wusst’s nicht Vater noch Mutter.
Sie sind gewandert hin und her,
sie haben gehabt weder Glück noch Stern,
sie sind verdorben, gestorben.
Auf ihrem Grab Blaublümlein blühn,
umschlingen sich zart wie sie im Grab,
der Reif sie nicht welket, nicht dorret.
A frost fell one night in spring.
It fell upon the tender little blue flowers,
they have withered, wilted.
A boy loved a young maiden,
they fled from home in secret,
neither father nor mother knew it.
They wandered here and there,
they had neither luck nor a guiding star,
they perished, died.
On their grave little blue flowers bloom,
entwined gently as they lie in the grave,
the frost does not wither them, does not wilt them.
