neumeyer, organic structure and the song cycle - schumann's dichterliebe (mts 4, 1982)

Society for Music Theory

Organic Structure and the Song Cycle: Another Look at Schumann's "Dichterliebe"Author(s): David NeumeyerSource: Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 4 (Spring, 1982), pp. 92-105Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society for Music TheoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/746012 .

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Organic Structure and the Song Cycle: Another Look at Schumann's Dichterliebe

David Neumeyer

Those theorists who in the 1830s and 1840s attempted to bring into music analysis and criticism principles of the philosophical system of Hegel were the first to advance seriously the notion of organic unity in music. Certainly one of the most influential of these theorists was Moritz Hauptmann, whose Natur der Harmonik und Metrik1 is an attempt to define the philosophical-logical basis underlying both the prevailing phys- ical explanations for music theory and also the practical tech- niques of composition. In his inimitable way, Hauptmann never makes clear the connection between his essential principle of organic unity and the larger-scale aspects of composition (or apprehension). As he says, his purpose is to discuss only the very general (i.e., the precompositional, the universal) and the very particular (e.g., how the nature of the triad determines chord-to-chord successions, or how the realization of an abstract formulation of correct chord succession is transformed into a progression with a voice leading).2 The closest he comes to

1 Moritz Hauptmann, Die Natur der Harmonik und Metrik (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Hirtel, 1853). Translated from the second edition (1873) as The Nature of Harmony and Metre by W. E. Heathcote (London: Novello, Ewer, and Co., 1888).

2The Nature of Harmony and Metre, 170.

consideration of large-scale structure is in the section on enharmonic change, which in fact deals mostly with the "modu- latory organization of a piece."3

We see [today] productions shapeless, rhapsodical, without intelligent building up of periods, without organic unity of manifold contents .... But the works that have been able to keep in lasting favour have ever been such as ... preserve order of rhythm and modulation; i.e., which wear their beauties set in the beauty of the whole.4

The "order" Hauptmann advocates is effectively limited to the general harmonic plan of the traditional binary design or sonata movement, with motion to the dominant at the half and "miscellaneous" modulations restricted to the opening of the second half. This constitutes the "beauty of the whole." Any unusual details of modulation within this plan, unless they threaten to destroy the shape of the whole, constitute the special or peculiar "beauties" of that particular composition.5

3The Nature of Harmony and Metre, 170. 4The Nature of Harmony and Metre, 169. 5The importance of Hauptmann's appeal to an ideal of harmonic-rhythmic

architecture and the subordination (i.e., hierarchic differentiation) of "miscellaneous" or "peculiar" modulations to Schenker's eventual formulation of a



Organic Structure and the Song Cycle 93

Several of Hauptmann' s students felt it their duty to explain to his readers what it was their mentor was about, and, especially, to make those connections to practical music with which he himself was not concerned. One of them-Otto Baehr- reduced Hauptmann's requirements for harmonic organization to the following:

We demand of every musical composition a certain definite inner unity, which reveals itself in that the whole piece is governed by a single tonality.6

Thus, organic unity is associated with key unity, but no spe- cific plan of modulation (so long as it is "orderly"). This reformulation allows Baehr to consider music with harmonic

plans other than those modelled on I-V-I (e.g., works by com-

posers of his own generation) without abandoning the demand for "order of rhythm and modulation." It also allows him to make comments on cyclical or multipart compositions, to which the single key requirement is also made to apply. Baehr is unable to carry this particular rule very far, however; he praises Mozart for beginning and ending his operas in the same key, but admits that "in later opera composers this unity of key is not maintained."7 Because of Baehr's generally positive-if sometimes cautious-stance with respect to the music of his contem-

poraries, it is evident that this comment is not so much disparag- ing as it is an admission that he simply did not know what to do with music he accepted but which did not conform to his principle of "one piece, one key."

diatonic background should not be underestimated. In a broad sense, Schenker' s theory is based not only on Fux and C. P. E. Bach, but equally on a marriage of the objective-idealistic harmonic theory of Hauptmann-in part as filtered through his students and other interpreters -with the fundamental-bass "Stufen- theorie" of Simon Sechter.

6Otto Baehr, Das Tonsystem unserer Musik (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1882), 122.

7Das Tonsystem unserer Musik, 122 (footnote).

That length was in itself not to be regarded as detrimental to organic structure-or key unity-is shown by the following comment:

This feeling for the whole composition, to which we are readily accus- tomed in short and simple pieces, is certainly made more difficult, the longer the composition and the wider the range of its developments. But I still believe that even in the longest compositions [this feeling] is intrinsic to us-though rather less plainly set in our consciousness.8

Some thirty years later, August Halm took a view of organic unity as expressed in "order of rhythm and modulation" that was essentially that of Hauptmann and his students, expanding it into demonstrations of the complex, but integrated, interwork-

ing of formal design and harmonic-tonal patterns, even in cyclical symphonic works.9 Halm's contemporary, Heinrich Schenker, on the other hand, avoided multimovement structures, but for individual pieces or movements developed a more

convincing, systematic analytic method by taking extended

patterns of harmonic organization and combining them with melodic or voice-leading patterns in hierarchical structural rela-

tionships, eventually producing his limited set of universal

stereotypes for organic unity in music: his "fundamental structure" or Ursatz. All other structuring factors were regarded as subordinate to this fundamental structure: formal design, motivic organization and development, text or dramatic structure. We read, for example in Free Composition:

[Richard] Wagner ... objected to the recapitulation [inLeonore Over- ture No. 3] because [such] a repetition does not bear out the events of the drama .... His error is obvious. In music, the drama of the fundamental structure is the main event.10

8Das Tonsystem unserer Musik, 145. 9See in particular Halm's Die Sinfonie Anton Bruckners (Munich: George

Mueller, 1913; 2d ed., 1923; reprint ed., Hildesheim: Georg Olms,1975). l0Heinrich Schenker, Free Composition, translated by Ernst Oster (New

York: Longman, 1979), 137 (footnote).



94 Music Theory Spectrum

Behind the "drama of the fundamental structure" lies the obvious requirement of key unity.

Only occasionally is Schenker willing to consider organic structure across more than one movement, and that only when key unity is threatened. This is the case with "incomplete" movements, those with closes on a non-tonic degree. For example, he discusses the second keyboard suite by Handel, which has four movements in the sonata da chiesa plan: the first is an adagio in F, but with an unusual full close in a minor; the second is an allegro plainly in F; the third, an adagio in d with a Phrygian cadence to its dominant; the fourth, a fugue, again securely in F. Schenker calls the two adagios "introductions" and says there are in fact only two movements-not four- "since the two introductory pieces exhibit no true fundamental line.""l Because harmonic closure is lacking, the incomplete movements must be connected to their complete successors, which lend to the former an explanation adequate in the terms of Schenker's organic structural stereotypes. By this means, incomplete movements can, in other words, be salvaged. It is significant, however, that harmonic closure is not sufficient in itself: the fundamental line-the Urlinie or essential upper- voice melodic component-must also achieve closure. On this point, Schenker says in a footnote:

If recent musical products have almost no end or seem to find no end, it is because they do not ... arrive at a genuine 1; without this i a work is bound to give the effect of incompleteness.12

For the attempt to extend Schenker's method to analysis of multimovement cycles, these two of its fundamental assumptions (already cited) are especially pertinent: 1) organic unity is linked to key unity (but demands closure in the fundamental line as well as harmonic closure); 2) the harmonic-contrapuntal fundamental structure overrides any other structuring forces.

l Free Composition, 130. 12Free Composition, 129 (footnote).

Problems arising from these assumptions-and possible solutions-can be demonstrated using the familiar, but difficult, case of Schumann's song cycle Dichterliebe.

A conspicuous obstacle to analysis is the fact that the first and last songs are not in the same key-Baehr's relatively modest ideal requirement for cyclic unity. To make matters worse, the first song is tonally ambiguous. Schumann's other cycles, however, do at least achieve this minimum level of tonal unification: in the Heine Liederkreis, Op. 24, songs 1 and 9 are in D; in Myrthen, Op. 25, songs 1 and 26 are in Ab; in the Eichendorff Liederkreis, Op. 39, song 1 is in f0, ending in F#, and song 12 is in F#; in Frauenliebe und -Leben, the first song is in Bb and the final song, though it begins in d, in fact closes with a reminiscence of the first. Only Dichterliebe among the major song cycles fails in this respect.13

Of the piano character-piece cycles, all butKreisleriana open and close in the same key. The first and last numbers of Car- naval, for example, are in Ab; and-perhaps because of the A. S. C. H. motto-the internal numbers never wander very far away, either (all are in keys of two to four flats). Kreisleriana, on the other hand, begins in d, but its eighth, final number is in g.

No clear message can be said to come from this. Schumann, in general, keeps the traditional beginning and ending in the same key of baroque and classic-era instrumental music, but it is impossible to tell whether he associated that key unity with an organic or cyclic structure. One would tend to think not, since the exceptions -Dichterliebe and Kreisleriana - are no less

13The fact that the first song begins and ends with a dominant seventh chord on C# and the last (sixteenth) song is in Ct/Db might be thought to present some sort of link of this kind across the cycle. This interpretation is not at all convincing, however: for reasons presented below, the Ct dominant seventh chord of song 1 cannot be understood to be an independent harmonic entity, representing a "structural" harmony. In its context, it is dependent on the second song, so that, if one wants to use purely tonal or harmonic arguments, it would be better to compare the second song to the last.




cyclical in character than any of the other compositions cited above. If this is the case, we should then be very wary indeed of

simply trying to expand Schenker's method-which relies on

key unity-from single pieces to multipart cycles. Patterns of key succession within the cycle do not provide any

better basis for judgment, either. Certain habits with respect to tonal changes from number to number seem to have prevailed among composers of sets in the early nineteenth century. Specif- ically, key successions by second were avoided, but those by third, fourth, or fifth (the relationships being diatonic or chromatic, with or without mode change)14 were used freely. For instance, in Kinderszenen, Op. 15, the sequence of keys is as follows: G, D, b, D (ends on V7), D, A, F, F, C, g#, G, e (ends on iv), G. These changes are mostly diatonic, except between numbers 6 and 7, 9 and 10, which are chromatic. Numbers 10 and 11 are in the rare relationship of the second (g# to G), but Schumann smooths this over with a non-tonic opening on e (vi in

G). If there is a model for Schumann's song cycle key succes-

sions, it is to be found in the earlier piano cycles, not in the song cycles of Schubert. In Schone Miillerin and Winterreise, second successions occur eleven times (nor, by the by, does either cycle begin and end in the same key). Schumann's keyboard character-piece sets are plainly based on the conventions of dance collections-we need only think of what Papillons and Carnaval, for example, owe to the waltz-and it is on those works of his own that Schumann bases his song cycle tonal schemes. The waltz sets of Schubert-to cite what could be

possible models-use key successions very much like those of Schumann's cycles: freely chosen successions by third, fourth, and fifth. In 159 waltzes of seven sets, only twice do successions by second occur.15 In the major song cycles of

14In the diatonic relationship, the tonic triad of the second number is in the key of the first; in chromatic relationship, it is not.

15Those instances are: in D. 365, nos. 18 and 19 (A to G); D. 145, nos. 2 and 3

Schumann, only once does a second relationship occur: between the fourteenth and fifteenth songs of Myrthen (relationship: d to e). Dichterliebe roughly balances successions by third with those by fourth or fifth, almost all being diatonic. The only feature perhaps unusual is that there are no parallel key relationships or repetitions, except between the deleted 12b and 13:16

1. ft orA (?) 2. A 3. D 4. G 4a. Eb 4b. g 5. b 6. e 7. C 8. a 9. d 10. g 11. Eb 12 . Bb 12a. g 12b. Eb 13. eb 14. B 15. E 16. ct/Db (Nos. 4a, 4b, 12a, and 12b are songs contained in the original version but deleted before publication.)

Our first conclusion, then, must be negative: neither key unity (i.e., beginning and ending in the same key) nor intra-cycle key succession patterns support the idea that an expanded harmonic- contrapuntal structure in itself represents or generates organic

(B to a). A possible third case-D. 969, nos. 4 and 5 (G to a)-is problematic, because no. 5 only begins in a; it closes in C. The seven waltz sets examined are D. 145, 146, 365, 734, 779, 924, and 969.

16The numbering of the songs is adopted from Arthur Komar, ed., Schumann: Dichterliebe (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971).




structure in the keyboard or song cycles of Schumann. This is plain from the fact that those sets which most people would be willing to agree are merely collections (like the majority of Schubert's waltz sets) or that have the barest sort of narrative integration (like Schumann's Fantasiestucke, Op. 12) do not differ in any significant way with respect to key unity or succession from those works which most people would probably agree are in fact integrated cycles (like Carnaval or Frauenliebe und -Leben). For this reason, Arthur Komar's interpretation of organic unity in Dichterliebe, based on supposed patterns of progression in the key successions, must be rejected, along with his assertion that a song cycle in which the individual songs can be transposed at will constitutes a "dubious musical totality." 17

The implication is that tonal and harmonic patterns alone have the capacity to create an organic multimovement structure. I am not in any way convinced that the extension of Schenker's method outside the bounds of the single movement-or distinctly paired movements-is warranted, because I am far from persuaded that structural cohesion in a multimovement work is to be understood solely in harmonic-tonal terms or that a supposed tonal-harmonic pattern must necessarily have precedence over narrative or psychological factors. The constant, shifting tension between "collection" and integrated "cycle" one feels not only in Schumann's work but also in that of his contemporaries cannot be resolved on the tonal-harmonic plane alone.

The sources for Dichterliebe suggest that at the time of composition its status as collection or cycle was not yet fixed in Schumann's mind. In the sketch manuscript, he made melodic sketches (for the most part) for the first seven poems of Heine's Lyrisches Intermezzo, in order; but he changed his mind on the

17Arthur Komar, "The Music of Dichterliebe: The Whole and its Parts," in Schumann: Dichterliebe, 63-93, especially 63-66, 77-81. The quotation is from

page 63. I can, on the other hand, agree that something is probably lost if the key successions from one song to the next, at least, are not maintained, but whether what is lost is of a "structural" character, I am not at all sure.

second day of composition (May 25, 1840), deciding to set only certain poems. Again in the sketch manuscript, he wrote in a list the numbers of those he had chosen, sketches for a few of which appear in the manuscript as numbers 9-12. But he changed his mind again and set only nine of the poems from the list, adding four others to these and the original seven to produce a set he titled Zwanzig Lieder und Gesange. Only in 1844, after prepa- rations for publication had begun, did Schumann delete four songs and change the title to Dichterliebe, which Rufus Hall- mark suggests may have been chosen by analogy with Frauen- liebe und -Leben;18 that is, the voice of the bride answered by the voice of the groom.

From this history, it would seem that Schumann never did quite solve the problem of whether his Op. 48 was a collection of songs or an integrated cycle--Zwanzig Lieder und Gesdnge or Dichterliebe. The few changes he made just before publication do not in themselves constitute an argument in favor of "cycle," and certainly not "cycle" in the sense of an organic structure. On the other hand, narrative or dramatic aspects of organization were already present in the original (1840) version, and we might very well interpret Schumann's several changes of direction during composition as stages in the process of perfect- ing a cyclical, narrative-based structure. As Hallmark observes, Schumann, through his choice of poems to set, did modify- reinterpret-the narrative already in Heine's poetic cycle.19 Schumann emphasizes the character of his own interpretations, his own reading, in the several piano postludes, in one case producing a significant musical reminiscence which has almost narrative force and whose sense distinctly differs from that of the text in the song to which it is appended. The piano postlude

18Rufus Hallmark, The Genesis of Schumann's Dichterliebe: A Source Study (Ann Arbor: UMI [University Microfilms] Research Press, 1979), 125. The summary of the compositional history given in this paragraph is taken from

pages 110-114. 19The Genesis of Dichterliebe, 119-20.




of song 16 ("Die alten b6sen Lieder") quotes part of the postlude to the twelfth song ("Am leuchtenden Sommer- morgen"), a simple device of recall similar to-but more subtle than-the quotation of the first song in the last of Frauenliebe und -Leben. This reminiscence at the close of Dichterliebe can readily be construed to be a personal comment about the narrative from the composer himself; that is, a meditation on the flowers' address to the poet which ends the text of song 12: "The flowers/look with pity on me:/'Do not be angry with our sister,/you sad, pale man.' "20 Unlike Heine's poet-knight, who in the last poem burys his love and his suffering in the ocean, Schumann has not given up, despite the difficult cir- cumstances surrounding his courtship of Clara Wieck. The postlude in the major after the minor of the song proper mitigates the element of bitterness undoubtedly present in the text and adopts a tone of "coming to terms with the situation."

If an expanded harmonic-contrapuntal or tonal structure is inadequate and the narrative aspects seem to suggest only a loose sort of integration, we may ask if there is any means by which Dichterliebe can be interpreted in terms of a model of organic unity, or are we finally obliged to abandon that aesthetic criterion to an unresolvable "collection-cycle" dichotomy (and by extension imply the same of other cyclical works by Schumann and his contemporaries)? I suggest that Dichterliebe can be understood to be an integrated whole and that as a clue to an appropriate procedure we should look to Stephen Pepper's criticism of Roger Fry, an organic structural theorist of the visual arts and Schenker contemporary who is especially well- known for his monograph on Cezanne.21 Fry excluded what he called "literary [i.e., representative, dramatic, and symbolic]

20The Genesis of Dichterliebe, 120. 21Stephen Pepper, The Basis of Criticism in the Arts (Cambridge, Mass.:

Harvard University Press, 1946; 6th printing, 1965); Roger Fry, Cezanne: A Study of his Development (London: Macmillan, 1927; reprint ed., New York: Noonday Press, 1958).

values" from criticism of the visual arts, to which Pepper counters:

If the "literary" values integrate in their feeling references with the plastic values, or vice versa, they are intrinsic materials of the work of art .... A critic who judges a work of art which in fact is an integration of both types of values, by following out the references of one type only, is bound to be frustrated when one of these types leads into the other for its organic fulfillment.22

In other words, when the closed analytic system-in our case, Schenker's method applied to single movements-is confronted with a situation outside its capacities-here, the problem of oragnic structure in multimovement forms-the way to proceed is to add other pertinent structural criteria and develop an expanded, but again closed methodology. Thus, for the song cycle and other expanded vocal works (including opera?), we need to add to Schenker's harmonic-tonal and voice-leading model as expressed in the Ursatz the narrative or dramatic criteria, and from this develop a broader analytic system which can treat these two as co-equal structural determinants. The multipart vocal work, then, is understood as organically unified on a higher plane, as it were, since the combination of the harmonic-tonal with narrative-dramatic aspects should poten- tially allow an adequate interpretation of organic structure which either aspect alone could not achieve. Only in this way, I suggest, can we hope to deal with the song cycle within the confines of a theory based on the principle of organic unity.

Rather than try to analyze the whole of Dichterliebe here in terms of such a higher-level integrated methodology (which, if it is to be at all systematic, will require some time to work out), I will attempt only to give some idea of what can be gained from the "equalizing" of text and music, from treating organic structure as a balanced interaction of narrative and tonal progression (or networks of references), by exam-

22The Basis of Criticism in the Arts, 91-92. Emphasis added.




ining the first two songs of Dichterliebe. These are good subjects for this purpose, in part because they are readily understood as a connected pair with a single fundamental line contained in the second song (following Schenker's model, cited earlier, of paired movements in the Handel Suite). The first song, then, is only a prologue: the poetic and tonal action both, so to speak, begin in song 2. This interpretation has the added advantage that we can grapple with certain questions of inter- song structural connections without, however, having to con- front the presently unanswerable question whether we may link the Ursaetze of two songs with completed harmonic- contrapuntal structures (and, if so, how).

There are several precedents for the Dichterliebe 1/2 pair in Schumann's earlier cycles. In Kinderszenen, for example, numbers 4 and 5 ("Bittendes Kind" and "Gluckes genug") are paired by virtue of key and of an incomplete close in the former (see Example 1). Similarly, numbers 12 and 13 ("Kind im Einschlummer" and "Der Dichter spricht") are plainly meant to be connected (see Example 2). The harmonic-contrapuntal structure of this 12/13 pair, then, is to be understood as in Example 3. Note that in both cases narrative considerations dictate the incomplete close of the first piece. In no. 4, the dominant seventh is a query, the child's entreaty. In no. 12, the child, so to speak, falls asleep on the subdominant, which chord very effectively gives the feeling of stopping in media res, but without the tension of V or V7, which would be inappropriate. In a real sense, this subdominant is a substitute for the tonic, as the complete cadence progression which undoubtedly is the basis for Schumann's elliptical one makes clear: Example 4. In no. 13, the poet is left to make a final comment directly to the listener.

Of several pairings which occur in the earlier song cycles, that of the eighth and ninth songs of the Heine Liederkreis is of the most interest. The eighth song ("Anfangs wollt' ich fast verzagen") is in d, the ninth ("Mit Myrthen und Rosen") in D, the former ending with a question in the text, which Schumann

expresses with a Phrygian cadence to the dominant: Example 5. Both the dominant seventh of "Bittendes Kind" and the

Phrygian cadence of "Anfangs wollt' ich fast verzagen" are factors in the close of Dichterliebe's first song. To begin with, Schumann revoiced the elements we associate with the stereotypical Phrygian cadence: the voicing in Dichterliebe is in Example 6a; the traditional model from which it derives is in Example 6b, (In fact, the rearrangement of the upper parts in this cadence type is by no means lacking in the baroque literature. At the end of the second movement of J. S. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 6, for instance-see Example 7a-the cadence chords are essentially as shown in Example 7b.)23

Schumann changes the effect of the cadence not only because he uses it several times earlier in the song (which is uncharacter- istic), but also because he adds the seventh to the final chord. Since Schumann knew he wanted this ending at the time he made the melodic sketch for "Im wunderschonen Monat Mai" (the present measure 26-the last-stands by itself at the end of the sketch with the notation "Schluss" above it),24 he must have

23The reading given here applies to the immediate voice-leading movements from the last beat of the penultimate measure to the closing chord. In fact, at the level of the entire movement-i.e., actually the II/III pair-Bach did lead the voices in the stereotypical manner, 6-8 in the outer parts:

mI. ? ( (@ 0 fift h A

6 -8

9: ^C No __

B!: IV vi "1II"

24The Genesis of Dichterliebe, 34-35.




Example 1. End of Kinderszenen, no. 4, and beginning of no. 5

ri . . tar. dan.

A I- r' : . 7* iJ - (I^~i. i/ U II J .

I I

( _>~~~~~M, b*j rb_ L

t r , _$ |

40 11a 4- IJ 11F ( _________________________ - r,i .w - ~ -I c 3 i r 6 l -

r ,.. si; r F r S t z ^s~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gliickes genug

M. M. :132 r

'11 I~ tr~ i r -Pi . J ?' J v 4 t1 --t 4 --T-t-ta-I1 - I I

5.

"Th\4 i 1 AP: 1 '-

I I r 7 Ir p'

I i

~f

i I td W -

(t ; , ,. If I v , ' v o - , ; : *

I

.1 -

-F -- au uo-f ,#

-

. (




Example 2. End of Kinderszenen, no. 12, and beginning of no. 13

Der Dichter spricht M. M. J=112

el t I , I . I- - ,

( 7"Jt J i -_ i 4 '.0 J! I D 4, r tj T, _ '

,itr ( 13. r

- .I I-

I _' , -_ -ef

-I I I -,i P)

_

rl d 4

rr p , . j

1 1

I." - - I ~ 11-loo, I ~ r~ I ~ff? - IYZ.3

Example 3. Fundamental structure of Kinderszenen, nos. 12/13 Example 4. Complete cadence from which close of Kinderszenen, no. 12 derives

G: vi ii V I V I

I -~ I I 1

V"-6t _ ':?' i.- -. -- ---

Jd I -

I

e: V I

I




Example 5. Heine Liederkreis, Op. 24, no. 8

mf

- I --tr rr r n',-ir r r ir Anfangswolltich fast ver-za-gen, und ichglaubt, ich

j~,X~.,̂T' ' rr~tE" ! rit. r it.

_ _j- T nit. , tit. ,

wrrr Ir r T r rhl i '-'- t i r JI i triigesnie, und ichhab es doch getragen,- a- berfragtmich nurnichtwie? nichtwie?

|_it - .p rit .

L \1'j jj j j >. j j4j U 71

f

Example 6. a. Close of Dichterliebe 1 (voice leading); b. Phrygian voice leading of the final chords

a) b)

from:

A' * *?- :-- #' f _^^__._ j--

- H

-

A

A




Example 7. a. J. S. Bach, Bradenburg Concerto No. 6, BWV 1051, close of second movement; b. voice leading of the final chords

seen in the poem something that suggested a querying or inde- terminate ending and a reason to link the first two songs as a

pair. I suggest the following: Schumann may in fact have set out to compose a cycle or collection of songs that would constitute a direct parallel to Frauenliebe und -Leben (as was mentioned

above). If the latter is the voice of the bride, then Schumann may have wanted to write an equally positive expression of love and matrimonial sentiment from the groom's point of view. Thus, he

ignored Heine's prologue to theLyrisches Intermezzo and began with the first poems, setting them in order. He only stopped when he encountered a significant change in tone; that is, when Heine plainly interjected his poetic knight's regret and grieving for a lost love. Schumann eventually went ahead with the "lost love" theme, but in general he chose from among the

remaining poems those that minimize negative sentiments; and he not only softened the effect of, but nearly contradicted, the final poem's burying of love in the ocean by adding to the

postlude of the setting the quotation from song 12. The original title may well reflect Schumann's dissatisfaction that he could not reinterpret Heine's text any further.

If we accept the view that Schumann began with a positive expression of love in mind, then "Im wunderschonen Monat Mai" is an apt prologue to the whole: in the fashion of the

narrator, the poet announces that this is to be the groom's confession- "Then I confessed to her/my longing and desire."' The C# dominant seventh chord leaves this prologue open for the action to begin in earnest, as it does in the second song with the direct speech of the poet (groom) to his love (bride). At the same

time, this chord preserves a faint sense of irony or of doubt.25 The images of opening (or coming forth or up) in the first

poem- "buds opening," "love rising in the heart," "love's confession made"-are also contained in the second poem, which begins "out of my tears spring forth/many flowery blooms." Furthermore, the second song comes to the point in

25On this point, and on Schumann's role as careful editor in his choice of poems to set, see The Genesis of Dichterliebe, 119-120. Schumann may simply have wanted to allow the piano to echo the sense of the last line of text-''mein Sehnen und Verlangen." If so, there might even be an autobiographical refer- ence: at the time, Schumann was waiting for the conclusion of court proceedings that would allow him to marry Clara Wieck over her father's objections.




the statement "and if you love me." The groom's confession is "resolved"-or, better, transformed-into his hope (for Schumann a firm hope) of the bride's positive reply. That doubt is not altogether banished is shown by the fact that the voice in song 2 ends on the second scale degree, leaving the piano to supply the final tonic. The third song, then ("Die Rose, die Lilie"), is the ecstatic song of love requited.

In Example 8, I have used Schenker's procedure for pairing movements and interpreted the harmonic-contrapuntal structure of song 1 as a prefix to that of song 2. The principal melodic event in song 1 at a structural level is the middleground neighbor-note figure C#-D-C#.

Some corrections need to be made, then, in the opening measures of Schenker's now very familiar analytic graphs of song 2.26 Schenker placed the first structural note (3) on the first Ct and regarded the A-major triad in measure 2 as a chord passing between IV and V. If the first songs are paired, however, we can recognize in the portamento "tear droplets" of measure 1 a subtly expressed harmonic progression: a resolution of the Ct dominant seventh from song 1 to f# (as vi in A major) and repetition of the neighbor-note figure C#-D-Ct in the small via the subdominant. The first structural tonic chord and the first instance of 3, then, are in measure 2.

The "question" of the first song, harmonically embodied in the Ct seventh chord, is "resolved"- but at the same time "continued" -in the poet's tears (and the ft triad). This feeling unit of question and tears, however, then "opens outward" into the images of hope: flowers, nightingales, the chance that love be requited (the secure key of A major in song 2). This is an example not only of the wonderful subtlety of which Schumann

26Free Composition, Figure 22b. See also Allen Forte, "Schenker's Concep- tion of Musical Structure," Journal of Music Theory 3 (1959), 1-30; reprinted in Maury Yeston, ed., Readings in Schenker Analysis and otherApproaches (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 3-37; sections dealing with Schenker's graph of song 2 are also reprinted in Schumann: Dichterliebe, 96-106.

was capable, but also of that integration of feeling references of which Pepper speaks. Note especially that the integration of text

expression and harmonic-contrapuntal structure transcends each alone-the former is not a delightful ornament to the latter, but in fact here strongly affects the latter's interpretation, including the determination of some of its controlling elements (e.g., the placement of the first note of the fundamental line). Both are equally significant and tightly interwoven as structural determinants.

To the question of the key of song 1, we may follow Schenk- er's rule here and assert that the song pair 1/2 is in A major. At the same time, the fact that the fundamental line is contained in song 2 correctly preserves a sense of the tonal ambiguity of the first song which would be lost if that song were graphed by itself (because of the constraints of the method, we would have to choose a single key).27 Even if the harmonic-contrapuntal struc-

27Schenker's partial graph of song 1 is presented as an example of non-tonic

opening and plainly shows that he thought the key to be A:

A ( = 3 2

_ ..1 j 1)

(= III ---v - I)

(Free Composition, Figure 1 lOc, 2).

There is no indication, however, of what Schenker thought of the song's ending. For another view, see Komar, "The Music of Dichterliebe," 66-67, 77 ff. Komar also concludes that song 1 is in A, but his opinion is based on his problematic interpretation of the structural role of key successions. Hallmark's position is not clear: he stresses ambiguity at one point (The Genesis

of Dichterliebe, 35-36), but assumes the song is in A at another (142). For an extended, but curiously uncommitted, analysis of various aspects of song 1, see Peter Benary, "Die Technik der musikalischen Analyse dargestellt am ersten

.n ft ILt -

-__ _ BCT A < J-




Example 8. Dichterliebe 1/2, analytic graphs (in part)

I A:

not: A: [ vi IV IL

r%i~ O j, -.1- Stt t~~~~t----:~ 0-1 0-

ture is only a middleground feature in the song pair, bias toward one key orientation-f- or A-must still enter. I have favored f# somewhat (through its dominant, of course), because I find that treating the tonal emphasis of the piano prelude and postlude frame as more significant than the internal move to A is more satisfying than the reverse, which would make the close simply gratuitous--or worse, not just "open," but inexplicable. Still, if obliged to do so, I would think of the first song, taken by itself, as in both ft and A-an indefinite harmonic relation of the third.28 (It has, however, been the argument here that the first song should not be taken by itself.)

Lied aus Robert Schumanns 'Dichterliebe'," in Benary, ed., Versuche musikalischer Analysen (Berlin: Merseburger, 1967), 21-29. Benary asserts tonal ambiguity as the interpretation of song 1, but nevertheless seems to favor ft (26).

28As is well-known, nineteenth-century composers frequently mingled the

Analytic methods based on procedures (or presumed ideals) of harmonic design and phrase structure in eighteenth-century instrumental music will not bear extension to multipart, cyclic vocal forms; considerations of narrative or dramatic progression are not trivial, but in fact can be structural determinants- generators of organic unity-co-equal with formal design or a harmonic-contrapuntal structure. Dichterliebe is especially use- ful in this regard, because it shows that key unity is not neces- sary to an integrated song cycle; whatever the manner of tonal

characteristics of parallel major and minor modes, but they also sometimes mingled the relative modes, as Schumann has done here. There are at least two

precedents in his earlier works: the sixth number of Carnaval (one of the Florestan numbers), which mixes g (also established mostly by its dominant) and Bb; and the fourth number of Kreisleriana, which wanders about the same two keys, avoiding either tonic chord clearly expressed in a controlling context and finally closing with a full cadence on the dominant in g.

A 3

I




integration may be, it has not been identified yet. Schumann's choice of poems to set from Heine's collection, his modification of the sense of the narrative, including the important role of the several postludes (especially in songs 12 and 16), and the subtle cross-fertilization of text expression and details of compositional means (as demonstrated above in the song pair 1/2), all suggest in addition that the composer's reading of a text is a critical factor in the binding and blending of a poem and its musical setting.



neumeyer, organic structure and the song cycle - schumann's dichterliebe (mts 4, 1982)

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