Only a few days ago we wrapped up the Schubertíada, and, as I told you around this time last year, musical hangovers are here to stay. So allow me a very brief entry, and next week I should (I hope!) have the notebook for the new Liederabend season sorted and ready to begin. For this week, with my head full of music from eighteen concerts, I’ve pulled the thread of one of the encores offered by Mireia Tarragó and Wolfram Rieger, Liebeslied by Robert Schumann, to share it here with you.
Schumann published the lied in 1850 within Lieder und Gesänge II, op. 51. The five songs that make up the collection were composed over different years, from 1840 to 1849, specifically on October 28 that year, which is the day he wrote Liebeslied; that year marked the centenary of Goethe’s birth, and Schumann wrote several works based on his poems.
It seems, however –and this has only been confirmed a couple of years ago– that the poem, included in the West-östlicher Divan, is not by Goethe but by Marianne von Willemer (as are the poems Suleika I and Suleika II, for instance). I explained here a little about what Willemer’s poems were doing, infiltrated, in the Divan.
We find it in an appendix titled Noten und Abhandlungen zu besseren Verständnis des west-östlichen Divan [Notes and treatises for a better understanding of the West-Eastern Divan], specifically in the chapter called Chiffer [Codes], in which Goethe explains that he and Willemer had the same edition of Hafis’s poems and, in their letters, included codes referring to a particular page and a particular verse to say things without saying them —a tactic that Robert and Clara also seem to have used before getting married.
We will listen to Liebeslied performed by Edith Mathis and Christoph Eschenbach; it is a beautiful song that I hope will transport you to the magical atmosphere of Vilabertran.
Dir zu eröffnen
mein Herz verlangt mich;
Hört’ ich von deinem,
darnach verlangt mich;
Wie blickt so traurig
die Welt mich an!
In meinem Sinne
wohnet mein Freund nur,
Und sonsten keiner
und keine Feindspur.
Wie Sonnenaufgang
ward mir ein Vorsatz!
Mein Leben will ich
nur zum Geschäfte
Von seiner Liebe
von heut an machen.
Ich denke seiner,
mir blutet’s Herz.
Kraft hab’ ich keine
als ihn zu lieben,
So recht im Stillen.
Was soll das werden!
Will ihn umarmen
und kann es nicht.
Please follow this link if you need an English translation
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