THE DEUTSCHE SCHUBERT-LIED-EDITION In 1816 Franz Schubert, together with his circle of friends,decided to publish a collection of all the songs which he had so far written.Joseph Spaun, whom Schubert had known since his school days, tried his (andSchubert’s) luck in a letter to the then unquestioned Master of the Germanlanguage, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: A selection of German songs will constitute the beginning ofthis edition; it will consist of eight volumes. The first two (the first ofwhich, as an example, you will find in our letter) contains poems written byyour Excellency, the third, poetry by Schiller, the fourth and fifth, works byKlopstock, the sixth by Mathison, Hölty, Salis etc., the seventh and eighthcontain songs by Ossian, whose works are quite exceptional. The Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition follows the composer’soriginal concept. All Schubert’s Lieder, over 700 songs, will be groupedaccording to the poets who inspired him, or according to the circle of writers,contemporaries, members of certain literary movements and so on, whose worksSchubert chose to set to music. Fragments and alternative settings, providingtheir length and quality make them worth recording, and works for two or morevoices with piano accompaniment will also make up a part of the edition. Schubert set the poetry of over 115 writers to music. Heselected poems from classical Greece, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, fromeighteenth-century German authors, early Romantics, Biedermeier poets, hiscontemporaries, and, of course, finally, poems by Heinrich Heine, althoughsadly the two never met. The entire edition is scheduled for completion by 2005.Thanks to the Neue Schubert Ausgabe (New Schubert Edition), published byBärenreiter, which uses primary sources - autograph copies wherever possible -the performers have been able to benefit from the most recent research of theeditorial team. For the first time, the listener and the interested reader canfollow Schubert’s textual alterations and can appreciate the importance thewritten word had for the composer. The project’s Artistic Advisor is the pianist UlrichEisenlohr, who has chosen those German-speaking singers who represent the éliteof today’s young German Lieder singers, performers whose artistic contribution,he believes, will stand the test of time. Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828)Settings of poems by Schubert’s friends, Vol. 2 The short period of Schubert’s life was marked byrevolutionary political and social events of fundamental importance. The idealsof the French Revolution, liberty, equality and fraternity, had establishedthemselves in people’s minds. Neither the radicalisation and perversion of theevents in France itself (the bloodthirsty Terror of Robespierre, and later thecoronation of Napoleon as Emperor), nor the war that followed until Napoleon’sRussian campaign, could alter that. Rather it seemed to pave the way for a turnfor the better. Thousands enthusiastically volunteered to take part in the warsof liberation against the French occupation, among them many artists. Thedefeat of Napoleon in the battle of the nations at Leipzig in 1813 and theentry of the allied forces of Russia, Prussia and Austria into Paris werecelebrated as liberation from tyranny and foreign domination. The realisationof democratic ideals seemed possible. The Congress of Vienna (1814/15) soon brought these hopes tonothing. The creation of a real democratic nation state was prevented in thenewly formed German League to which Austria belonged; conservative politicalpowers had firm control and put in place the structures of an authoritarianstate. The Carlsbad Decrees of 1819 against political and intellectual freedombrought about a climate of repression and a police state. It was in this period of tension between hope anddisillusionment that German lyric poetry developed between 1800 and 1830, andknowledge of its historical background reveals it, naturally not exclusively,as also a reaction to current events and an expression of the mood of the time.This is also reflected in the poems by Schubert’s friends. For the reader todaythe coded meanings are not easily recognised, yet they include deliberatecommentary on the real conditions of life. In nature pictures and mythologicalmaterial these express literally ‘through flowers’ what dare not be saidopenly. This poetry did not spring from dilettante enthusiasm, and we do welltoday, if we read of wilting flowers or rushing streams, not to suspect thewriter of harmless sentimentality, but rather to ask ourselves what othermeaning there could be. The poem Die Krähe (The Crow), for example, fromWinterreise (Winter Journey) has a hidden meaning if we know that Krähe inAustrian is a generally known synonym for a police informer. Naturally it is a matter of one among many meanings. Poetrydistils individual and social experiences of life and contains a multitude ofpossible meanings. With different individual biographies too, however, we areaware of the mood of Schubert’s friends, to be gleaned directly from theircorrespondence. Probably there was in their heart of hearts an inner turmoil,polarities that seemed to be elevated by earlier generations into a higherharmony were now experienced as incompatible opposites, and this experience hasa definite contemporary historical background. The settings included here, therefore, revolve around thethemes of hope and disappointment, Utopia and disillusionment, engagement andwithdrawal, religiousness and loss of faith. In all their diversity theirsubjects have this in common. The two flower ballads Viola, D786, (Violet) andVergissmeinnicht, D792, (Forget-me-not) by Franz von Schober, one of Schubert’sclosest friends, treat the motif of the loyal but disappointed (flower-)bride,who finds peace only in death or in resignation and withdrawal. The naturesymbolism involved reveals a fundamental spiritual loss: nature is no longer aharmonic cycle but a series of tragic events, the God-given ‘good’ world orderno longer exists. At the same time the flower-ballads hold contemporarymetaphors: the violet that has ventured out too early in spring and died iseasily identifiable as an allegory of freedom. The forget-me-not that grew toolate, ending in inwardness and day-dreams may symbolize people of theBiedermeier period, retreating in disappointment from their great hopes into alimited private idyll. That these texts were much more than sentimentalmelodrama for Schubert is shown by his music, from the very start. In Viola asimple almost urgent bell motif serves as a refrain for the whole extendedcomposition, rich in colour and variety. The constantly returning, always newlyhighlighted and finally dying theme tells of departure and failure.Vergissmeinnicht is musically and thematically less concise, harmonically moredaring, more extreme in the contrast between lyrically lingering anddramatically forward-pressing passages. A long, painfully and deeply feltpassage, Strophe 13: Tränen sprechen ihren Schmerz nur aus (Tears express onlytheir own pain) shows in key, pedal-point procedure and basic rhythmic patternthe chronological and emotional closeness of the ballad to the famous UnfinishedSymphony. The often almost too long, insistent repetitions and variations ofthe central musical motif are signs of Schubert’s strong inner engagement withthe text. Thus, for example, the long description of the sleepingforget-me-not, Da im weichen Samt des Mooses (There in the gentle velvet of themoss) is expressed in wonderfully tender and under the surface highly eroticmusic as if not enough could ever happen from it. The similarly inviting andmenacing musical setting of the reflection of the flower in the water, theimage of the mythological Narcissus, is evidence of the dilemma of Schubert andhis friend. This concentration on the self sprang not from a narcissistic andexuberant love of self but was the expression of want and grief in the face ofunfulfilled hopes, ideals and dreams. However empty and hopeless their time may have seemed tothem, they were not without consolation. Art, particularly music, wascharacterized as a consoler. Todesmusik, D758, (Death Music) and Trost imLiede, D546, (Consolation in Song), also by Schober, document as well atendency towards withdrawal. In the second music is praised as a protectionagainst des Unglücks Sturm (the storm of misfortune), in the first it functionsas a comforter of the dying, that brings awareness of death in mysticalenlightenment. In the poetry of Schubert’s friends music was described as arefuge from the grauen Stunden (grey hours) of reality, and Schubert alwaysfound in these ‘music about music’ pieces an individual, absolutely compellingmusical interpretation. How very inconsistent the melting-point of Schubert’s lifewas with his philosophy of living is seen in two songs that take on opposingpositions: Bruchmann’s Schwestergruss, D762, (Sister’s Greeting) and Matthäusvon Collin’s Wehmut, D772, (Melancholy). Bruchmann starts with his account of anocturnal ghostly manifestation in a mood of religious and mystical ecstasy.The poem refers to the death of one of his sisters and Schubert probably set itfor a Schubertiad in November 1822, in order to ‘dispel, as far as possible,the ever returning, sad memory of the blessed Sybilla’ (Moritz von Schwind toSchober). The nocturnal manifestation swings between the eerie and theconsolatory and is set by Schubert in grandiose style. Collin in his poem, onthe other hand, provides a memento mori that has no knowledge of theconsolation promised by heaven. Here there appears the reverse of theglorification of death in Todesmusik and Schwestergruss, the horror vacui, fearin the face of nothingness. The final entschwindet und vergeht (disappears andpasses away), succinct and final, without belief in crossing over intosomething better on the other side, is set by Schubert with music that is asconsistent as it is inspired. A strange, simultaneously cheerful and sadlinking of both poles is provided by Collin’s Nacht und Träume, D827, (Nightand Dreams). The dreams that people enjoy in sleep, are destroyed at break ofday, but the longing for them remains: Holde Träume, kehret wieder! (Sweetdreams, come back!) Therein is the unspoken question, whether there remains formen nothing but day-dreams. There is a radical answer to this in Im Dorfe (Inthe Village) from Winterreise: Ich bin zu Ende mit allen Träumen, was soll ichunter der Schläfern säumen (I am finished with all dreams, why should I tarryamong the sleepers). The way that Schubert with the most economical meansbrings together into one reverie and profound sadness is unique. This themetouched him deeply. This was not the work of one doing a favour by setting theverses of friends who were amateur poets. They spoke the same language, hisfriends in words, he in music. An ideological forerunner of the contrasting Schwestergrussand Wehmut is Auf einen Kirchhof, D151, (In a Churchyard). Here death isdescribed as a natural event, like the setting of the sun. Like the sun thesoul will rise again and be immortal. Schubert approaches the religious naivetyof the poem with traditional techniques. The constant change between arioso andrecitative and the final stretta are as anachronistic as they are appropriateto the positive belief in redemption of the poem. Two other song texts comefrom Franz von Bruchmann, whose life, as in the case of many of Schubert’sfriends, reflects restlessness and turmoil. Born in 1798, the son of awell-to-do merchant, he trained for the law, and was very interested in theancient world and philosophy, and broke away from Catholicism. He was friendlywith Schubert and his circle, from whom he became estranged. He became a doctorof law, married and with the death of his wife one month after the birth of ason, underwent a profound personal crisis, returned to the church and enteredthe Redemptorist order. He was ordained priest and held an important position inthe order. He died in 1867 in the monastery at Gars am Inn. Im Haine, D738, (In the Wood) is a simple nature idyll,which ziehn von dannen alle Schmerzen (draws away all pain) and from which itis hoped to wipe out aller Qualen Spur (every trace of trouble). Here again isthe harsh, inhospitable present, as a background foil to the idyll. Am See, D746, (By the Lake) offers a picture of the lake, inwhich through the reflection of the sunlight so many stars seem to shine, as anallegory. The souls of men, ‘on the water’, seem reflected like heavenly‘stars’. It is fascinating to compare with this the musically and textuallyvery different setting of Goethe’s Auf dem See. The Goethe setting has apowerful freshness, immediate feeling, a new lively beginning after a shortcloudy spell. The Bruchmann setting is one of deep absorption, uneventfulcontemplation, an imperceptible musical transition from picture to allegory. Itwould be difficult to find two songs on a similar subject that show moredirectly the difference of life experience between the classical andpost-classical generation. Leiden der Trennung, D509, (Sorrows of Parting) by Heinrichvon Collin, brother of Matthäus, makes use of the image of the movement ofwater that always seeks out its way to the sea, the giver of life and place ofpeace, as a symbol for parting and return of those that belong together. It waswritten ‘in the house of Herr von Schober’, who was away for a long time. The songs included here often convey the impression that thesetting is not an addition to the existing text, but rather a conclusion, ajoining together to bring a work to completion. That Schubert far excelled ininspiration his friends, who were almost all at the best semi-professionalwriters, but mostly amateur poets in middle-class employment, is no matter.Often his music reveals intellectual qualities that lay hidden behind technicalclumsiness or grandiloquent language. The Gothic ballad sub-titled Romanze,Lieb Minna, D222, (Dear Minna), which would probably make people laugh if itwere recited today, acquires through Schubert’s music its own morbid charm. Theverse narrative of the vain waiting of the girl for her Wilhelm, who has goneto the war, has, moreover, a clear contemporary background in the wars ofliberation against Napoleon. Aus Diego Manazares: Ilmerine, D458, (From Diego Manazares:Ilmerine), also has the theme of the waiting beloved. With its concentratedmusical strength it arouses curiosity about the unfortunately unwritten moreextended setting of the text from a lost play by Franz von Schlechta. Namenstagslied, D695, (Name-Day Song), is an occasionalcomposition setting a poem by his friend Albert Stadler in honour of the fatherof Josefine (‘Pepi’) von Koller. She ‘sang and played the piano and undertookthe soprano part in the performance of Schubert’s compositions’, Heinrich vonKreissle, the composer’s first biographer in 1865, tells us. Der Knabe in der Wiege, D579, (The Baby in the Cradle), apoem by Anton Ottenwald, is far more than an occasional work. The seeminglysimple yet harmonically complex lullaby may today seem to us perhapssentimental and all too idyllic. It is true, though, that Schubert’s belovedmother bore fourteen children, of which only five reached adulthood, and thisrate of survival was the rule rather than the exception. It is easy tounderstand, therefore, how the prevailing feeling that all is good, all will begood, came about. This is the expression of anxious hope, not of certainty. ‘… mit Kranichen ein strebender Gefährte zu wandern in einmilder Land’ (… with cranes a striving companion to wander to a kinder land)comes in one of the strongest poems of Johann Mayrhofer, the most importantpoet of Schubert’s circle. With the increasingly entrenched nature of hatedexternal circumstances, about 1820, the feeling of the time shifted fromrebellion to resignation, from revolt to awareness of the general sorrows oflife and to private world-weariness. Hope for a better world was either putinto question or transferred from this world to the next. From the seeminglyunalterable conditions of the world they lived in, they turned to eternity. Between and following these extremes, however, a form ofpoetry established itself that left to one side great philosophical ideas andpolitical Utopias and limited itself to the description of the joys and sorrowsof everyday life and little, private, inviolable isolated feelings ofwell-being. This is what today we somewhat disparagingly call Biedermeier. Thatit not only spread a smug feeling of satisfaction but also knew how to bring tothe fore the quality of humour and of gentle irony, is witnessed by Franz vonSchlechta’s poems Widerschein, D639, (Reflection) and Des FräuleinsLiebeslauschen, D698, (Serenade of the Lady). The intellectual relationshipwith the paintings of Carl Spitzweg is clear. In fact Liebeslauschen waswritten after a lithograph by Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld. Schubert clearlytook the greatest delight in setting these poems. Ulrich EisenlohrEnglish version by Keith Anderson