Many years ago, in 1966, I fell in love with a German girl, if the emotions felt by someone so confused as I was at the time can be indicated by the sublimest word in the language. It was during the year I spent studying abroad in Freiburg, Germany, 1965-1966. During a semester break, she invited me to stay a few days at the family home in Bad Pyrmont, Germany, a town near Hameln, of Pied Piper fame, not far from the city of Hannover.
One evening. we listened to some recordings from the family phonograph--vinyl recordings, of course. I was transfixed by a recording of lieder by Schumann, as performed by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Gerald Moore at the piano. One lied especially, In der Fremde--which I liberally translate as "Far From Home," moved me to the point of tears. It has remained with me all these fifty odd years; I have played it in my head countless times; it has never failed to reverberate along that remarkable pathway, possessed by everyone, that leads from mind to heart.
The poem Schumann set to music is by Josef von Eichendorff, which follows:
In der Fremde
Aus der Heimat hinter den Blitzen rot
da kommen die Wolken her;
Aber Vater und Mutter sind lange tot,
Es kennt mich dort keiner mehr.
Wie bald, ach wie bald, kommt die stille Zeit
Da ruhe ich auch; und über mir
Rauscht die schöne Waldeinsamkeit,
Und keiner kennt mich mehr hier.
Far From Home
From my home behind red, blazing skies
Clouds are heading this way;
But father and mother have long since died,
No one knows me there today.
How soon, ah! how soon comes that quiet time
When I'll rest as well--and above me shall stir
woods' solitude, woods' solitude, sublime,
And no one will still know me here.
Later, after we had returned to Freiburg, I told my girlfriend how much I not only loved the music, but the poem as well. She told me that Eichendorff was no longer respected in academic circles. She thereupon said something like, "'Hinter den Blitzen rot'--Was soll das bedeuten? Quatsch!" ("'Behind red lightning'--What is that supposed to mean? Nonsense!") But "Blitzen" can mean flashes as well as lightning; here it signifies the intense, changing brief lights of the sunset. Thus, instead of "behind red lightning" I translated the phrase as "behind red, blazing skies" which I think is much closer to Eichendorff's intent.
Eichendoff's poems are deceptively simple. They are able to suggest much with few words, the true mark of a poet. He is also a master of the last line--a rare gift. I still admire this poet, and sometimes defend him before my girlfriend in occasional dreams, despite the fact that she has been united with the solitude of the woods for the past fifteen years.
Schumann, who had a remarkable sense for poetry, composed a truly exceptional lied to the text of this poem. Listen to the magical way he repeats, "When I'll rest as well" and the haunting repetition of that untranslatable noun "Waldeinsamkeit," which I approximate with "woods' solitude".
In this edition of "Music is Music" we will discuss three recordings of this geat lied.
1. Bryn Terfel
Bryn Terfel, the renowned Welsh bass baritone, made this recording at an early age. His truly beautful voice is readily apparent. It seems to me, however, that he is singing the notes more than he is interpreting the text. His pronunciation is very good; a significant part of his career has involved performances of German repertoire, especially opera.
The first two expositionary lines of the text are followed by the main theme of the poem, death. He sings the second two lines in almost the same way he sang the first two. "Wie bald" ("How soon") seems to me best sung with a degree of joyful anticipation, especially on the "bald," death coming as a relief to the poet's loneliness and suffering. Listen to how he repeats "die schöne Waldeinsamkeit," with little increase in intensity. This phrase should "hit home;" --that is, the singer should make us hear what the poet feels--subject to interpretation, of course, In my view, the phrase cries out to be sung as an emotive, internal response to the declarative sentence that precedes it. The fermata on the final "kennt" ("knows") at the end of the song is sung flawlessly, yet as if it were a note in a sonata--there is no sense of the transition from earthly loneliness to that of cosmic unity. Being unknown and lonely has obviously been a major aspect of the protagonist's life; its resolution here should be revealed to the listener, not solely through an emphasized high note, but with a nuanced interpretation of the meaning of the text as well. The lied is beautifully sung, however; Terfel is a first-rate musician.
2, Hermann Prey (1929-1998)
Marvelous!
Prey understood and poignantly interpreted this great poem. He sang this late in his career and knew a good deal--although he was a great comic actor on stage as well--about tragedy and impending death. It shows. Perhaps it is unfair to compare this version sung by a mature artist to that of Bryn Terfel, who was in his early twenties at the time. The difference, however, astounds.
The lied is a very intimate art form, combining (ideally) great poetry with great music. Lieder are therefore best sung before a small audience, in a salon or at home among friends. Prey chose a living-room-like setting to perform Schumann's Op. 39, of which In der Fremde is the first piece of the series. Unlike Terfel, he is not wearing a tuxedo. Prey seems to be singing in a private room before one honored guest, you, the listener, or, more specifically, before your very soul
This is a low-key, emotional performance, portraying with soft tones the melancholy nature of the subject. The accompaniment stikes me as being a tad too slow, but this is a matter of taste. Notice, after the expositionary first two lines of the poem, his subtle rendering of "Father" and "Mother," which crescendos to a gentle emphasis on "lange," indicating that there has been a lot of water that has flowed under the bridge, and that the world-weary swimmer is ready to be swept out to sea. Notice how he sings "Und über mir rauscht die schöne Waldeinsamket" more loudly and how he so poignantly and subtly trails off into reverie on the last two syllables of "Waldeinsamkeit," namely "Einsamkeit" which the listener can easily infer has been a major defining problem in the protagonist's life. The repetition of "die schöne Waldeinsamkeit" conveys perfectly the protagonist's reflection on his impending death, a resolution of his loneliness and isolation, yet bitter nevertheless. The final high-note on "kennt" is extraordinary.
Marvelous!
3. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (1925-2012)
This is the recording I listened to with my girlfriend in Bad Pyrmont so many years ago. The most exquisite factor of this recording is the singer's extraordinary timbre, his beauty of tone; this is an example of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the late great baritone, at the very height of his artistry. (I remember hearing Fischer-Dieskau sing the role of Falstaff in a production at the Vienna State Opera conducted by Leonard Bernstein, in 1966. I had a Stehplatz, a standing room place; from my perspective at the very back of the orchestra, one couldn't see the conductor. "What was that jetting up into view like a silver fountain?" I soon asked myself. Bernstein being Bernstein, I was amused to watch his head periodically bop into view as he jumped up and down.) The role of Falstaff was far too large for Fischer-Dieskau's voice; in the lied, however, he was a great master.
Beauty of tone, certainly, but a very effective interpretation as well. While Prey's was more subdued, Fischer-Dieskau's interpretation gives us more dramatic variation--it's like a mini-opera. Notice how sorrow takes over when the protagonist sings about his parents, long since dead. After this, the singer changes tone: he anticipates "that quite time" with joy. Schumann ingeniously repeats phrases, such as "da ruhe ich auch," giving the singer an opportunity for heightened expression, an opportunity which this singer utilized masterfully. On the second "auch" Schumann raises the third note of the minor scale, thus changing, albeit briefly, minor to major. Fischer-Dieskau's muted singing of this note provides a contrast, as if the protagonist has both positive and negative reactions to the approaching quiet time. Beautiful! Notice as well the gentle crescendo to "Waldeinsamkeit"--and notice the subdued wail on the "ein" when he repeats that word. While this repeat is a melancholy reflection in Prey's interpretation, in Fisher-Dieskaus's one feels the buried sorrow of the protagonist's resignation. Fischer-Dieskau's high-note on "kennt" conveys deep sorrow of a man who has long since discovered that his life raft is composed of straw.
Gerald Moore, the pianist here, was one of the greatest accompanists of all time. When one listens to his playing here, one agrees with this assessment.
A double marvelous for this performance--What a beautiful way to say good-bye!
Previous editions of this series, all available on my blog:
1. Music is Music: Farther Along
2. Music is Music: Feeling Good
3. Music of Transformation: An Analysis of a Spiritual
4. Schubert in Five Songs Part l
5. Schubert in Five Songs, Part ll
6. Music is Music: Gospel
7. Music is Music: der Schmied
8. Music is Music: Throw it Away
9. Prometheus
10. Music is Music: Beautiful Hurts
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