Frauen-Liebe und Leben

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File:Chamisso Adelbert von 1781-1838.png
Adalbert von Chamisso in 1831

Frauen-Liebe und Leben (Woman's Love and Life) is a cycle of poems by Adelbert von Chamisso, written in late 1829 and early 1830. They describe the course of a woman's love for a man, from their first meeting to her widowhood. The poems were widely popular and set to music by many composers, including Carl Loewe and Franz Lachner. Robert Schumann's song cycle on the text is the most widely known.

Text

Adelbert von Chamisso wrote the cycle of nine poems in late 1829 and early 1830.<ref name=RH/>Template:Rp It was first published in Franz Kugler's Skizzenbuch (Sketchbook, 1830) as "Frauen Liebe und Leben". They were part of a "Musical Appendix" where Kugler set Chamisso's words to music.<ref>Kugler, Franz. Skizzenbuch. Berlin: G. Reimer, 1830. 255ff.</ref> Kugler socialized with Chamisso and dedicated the Skizzenbuch to him.<ref name=RH/>Template:Rp Amadeus Wendt soon included the poems as "Frauen-Liebe und Leben" in his Musenalmanach (Muses' Almanac), which was published in 1830 for the following year.<ref>Wendt, Amadeus. Musenalmanach: für das Jahr 1831. Leipzig: Weidmann, 1831. 73–84.</ref>

In 1831, the poems were published twice in the first editions of Chamisso's poetry and his complete works.<ref>Chamisso, Adelbert von. Gedichte von Adelbert von Chamisso. Leipzig: Weidmann'sche Buchhandlung, 1831. 11–22.</ref><ref name=RH>Hallmark, Rufus. Frauenliebe und Leben: Chamisso's Poems and Schumann's Songs. Cambridge University Press, 2014.</ref>Template:Rp The cycle was widely admired in Germany, particularly by young women.<ref>Sagarra, Eda. A Social History of Germany, 1648-1914. Taylor & Francis, 2002. 414.</ref>

The nine poems in the cycle are untitled.

  1. "Seit ich ihn gesehen" [Since I first saw him]: The woman is blinded by her love for the man she has met.
  2. "Er, der herrlichste von allen" [He, the most marvelous of all]: She believes only the worthiest woman will capture his love.
  3. "Ich kann's nicht fassen, nicht glauben" [I cannot grasp it, nor believe it]: She is astounded the man would choose a woman as lowly as her.
  4. "Du Ring an meinem Finger" [Thou ring upon my finger]: She is transfigured by his love and vows to serve him.
  5. "Helft mir, ihr Schwestern" [Help me, you sisters]: She asks other women to help her prepare for her marriage and laments leaving their company.
  6. "Süßer Freund, du blickest" [Sweet friend, you look]: She blissfully tells her husband that she is pregnant.
  7. "An meinem Herzen, an meiner Brust" [Against my heart, against my breast]: The new mother relishes nursing her child.
  8. "Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan" [Now you have caused me the first grief]: She laments the death of her husband.
  9. "Traum der eignen Tage" [Dream of my own days]: She blesses her granddaughter.

Chamisso classified the cycle as lyric narrative poems. His decision to write from the woman's perspective was also in the German tradition of role-playing poems (Rollengedichte).<ref name=RH/>Template:Rp The poet's wife, Antonie, was nineteen years younger than him and the foster daughter of his friend Eduard Hitzig. She is supposedly the model for the woman in Chamisso's cycle.<ref>Stokes, Richard. The Complete Songs of Hugo Wolf: Life, Letters, Lieder. Faber & Faber, 2021. 43.</ref>

The heroine's subservience and naivety have been summed up as "an elegant view of how the more authoritarian paterfamilias hoped to be regarded by his wife, and particularly how he assumed she would greet his death".<ref name=Walsh>Walsh, Stephen. The Lieder of Schumann. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972.</ref>Template:Rp She has also been dismissed as "a doormat".<ref>Desmond, Astra. Schumann Songs. British Broadcasting Corporation, 1972. 32–6.</ref> Chamisso filled a gap in contemporary poetry by writing from a woman's perspective. Likewise, the songs composed to his poems gave female singers a rare opportunity to sing first-person material.<ref name=KM/>

Adaptations

File:Moritz von Schwind - Schubert mit Freunden beim Heurigen.jpg
(from left) Franz Lachner, Schubert, and Eduard von Bauernfeld at a heuriger in Grinzing

Frauen-Liebe und Leben's first appearance in print were as lyrics for Franz Kugler's songs. Dozens of the cycle's poems were individually set to music by other composers.<ref name=RH/>Template:Rp Chamisso was a botanist by trade, and he was stunned by the fondness composers had for his verse. In 1832, he wrote to a friend, "People sing my songs, they are sung in the salons, composers scramble for them, children recite them in school, my portrait appears after Goethe, Tieck and Schlegel as the fourth in the row of contemporary German poets."<ref>Günther, Friedrich Joachim. Sammlung von Musterbriefen deutscher Schriftsteller und von Aufgaben zur Nachbildung für hohere Bildungsanstalten der weibliehen Jugend. Bleicherode: Eduard Ruediger, 1864. 86.</ref>

In September 1836, Carl Loewe set the poems as Frauenliebe, Op. 60, for mezzo-soprano and piano. Only the first seven were published together during his life.<ref>Loewe, Carl. Frauenliebe: Liederkranz von Adalbert von Chamisso. Berlin: H. Wagenführ, 1837.</ref> The ninth song was published in 1869. In 1904, Breitkopf & Härtel published the eighth song for the first time in a complete edition of Loewe's works.<ref>Frauenliebe: Liederkranz von Adalbert von Chamisso, in Template:IMSLP, Gesamtausgabe der Balladen, Legenden, Lieder und Gesänge, vol. 17. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1904. vii, 32–60.</ref>

Around 1839, Franz Lachner composed Frauenliebe und -leben, Op. 59, for soprano, horn or cello, and piano. He returned to the text in 1847 and created an arrangement for soprano, clarinet, and piano.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Robert Schumann

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File:Robert Schumann 1839.jpg
Robert Schumann in 1839; lithograph by Josef Kriehuber

Template:ListenRobert Schumann set Chamisso's poems on July 11 and 12, 1840.<ref>Daverio, John. Robert Schumann: Herald of a "New Poetic Age". Oxford University Press, USA, 1997. 194.</ref> His manuscripts are still extant. They mostly outline the voice part on single staves, with just a few bars of piano postlude at the very end of No. 8.<ref>Schumann, Robert. Frauenliebe und -leben, and Drei Gesänge, op. 31 (drafts): autograph manuscript, 1840 July. Morgan Library & Museum.</ref> He dedicated the cycle to Oswald Lorenz.<ref name=KM/>

1840 was Schumann's "year of song" in which he wrote numerous lieder and several song cycles: Liederkreis, Op. 24, Liederkreis, Op. 39, Frauen-Liebe und Leben, Op. 42, and Dichterliebe, Op. 48.<ref>Tunbridge, Laura. Schumann's Late Style. Cambridge University Press, 2007. 14.</ref>

Chamisso's text mirrored Schumann's personal life at the time.<ref>Sams, Eric. The Songs of Robert Schumann. Faber & Faber, 2011. 128f.</ref> He had been courting Clara Wieck, but her father refused permission for the marriage. Schumann compared Clara's father to a character in Chamisso's poetry.<ref>Schumann, Clara, and Schumann, Robert. The Complete Correspondence of Clara and Robert Schumann. Austria, P. Lang, 1994. 205.</ref> Clara sued her father in order to marry without his permission. She won just five days before Schumann drafted Frauenliebe und Leben.<ref name=Solie>Solie, Ruth A. "Whose Life? The Gendered Self in Schumann's Frauenliebe Songs", Music and Text. Cambridge University Press, 1992. 219–240.</ref>Template:Rp

The composer's major editorial decision was to jettison the ninth poem in the cycle. He made several minor changes to the source material, reversing lines and changing words. In both the second and third songs, Schumann repeats the first stanza as a coda. In the sixth song, he omits the third stanza.<ref name=RH/>Template:Rp

  1. "Seit ich ihn gesehen": Larghetto in BTemplate:Flat major.
  2. "Er, der Herrlichste von allen": Innig, lebhaft [Intimate, lively] in ETemplate:Flat major.
  3. "Ich kann's nicht fassen, nicht glauben": Mit leidenschaft [With passion] in C minor.
  4. "Du Ring an meinem Finger": Innig in ETemplate:Flat major.
  5. "Helft mir, ihr Schwestern": Ziemlich schnell [Rather fast] in BTemplate:Flat major.
  6. "Süßer Freund, du blickest mich verwundert an": Langsam, mit innigem Ausdruck [Slowly, with heartfelt passion] in G major.
  7. "An meinem Herzen, an meiner Brust": Fröhlich, innig [Happy, heartfelt] in D major.
  8. "Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan": Adagio in D minor with a postlude in BTemplate:Flat major.

The postlude returns to the initial key and reprises material from the first song.<ref>Tischler, Hans. The Perceptive Music Listener. Prentice-Hall, 1955. 157–165.</ref> The quotation emphasizes the cyclicality of the material.<ref name=Kravitt/> The device yielded frequent comparisons to Ludwig van Beethoven's 1816 song cycle An die ferne Geliebte.<ref>Krehbiel, H. E. "Prefatory Note". An die ferne Geliebte, by Ludwig van Beethoven. G. Schirmer, 1929. iv.</ref><ref name=KM/>

The prevalence of the word "innig" (intimate/inner) in the tempo markings is typical for the composer's songs.<ref>Cooper, Martin. "The Songs", in Schumann: A Symposium. Edited by Gerald Abraham. Oxford University Press, 1955. 103f.</ref> Schumann illustrates the narrator's simplicity with clean vocal lines and an almost spare piano part. The accompaniment is so frequently chordal that the cycle is hymnlike. Instead of elevating Chamisso's mediocre verse, Schumann seemed to succumb to it.<ref name=Walsh/>Template:Rp Nonetheless, the cycle has been called Schumann's "greatest achievement in song".<ref>Stein, Jack. Poem and Music in the German Lied from Gluck to Hugo Wolf. Harvard University Press, 1971. 119.</ref>

Clara Schumann frequently performed the piano part in the cycle.<ref name=Kravitt>Kravitt, Edward F. The Lied: Mirror of Late Romanticism. Yale University Press, 1996. 18f, 201.</ref> When she heard Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient perform the cycle in 1848, she concluded, "I cannot imagine 'Du Ring an meinem Finger' more beautifully sung".<ref>Litzmann, Berthold. Clara Schumann: Ein Künstlerleben: Nach Tagebüchern und Briefen, 3 vols. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1907. II, 118f.</ref> The German baritone Julius Stockhausen added the cycle to his repertoire in 1862. He also taught it to his students.<ref name=KM>Muxfeldt, Kristina. "Frauenliebe Und Leben Now and Then". 19th-Century Music, vol. 25, no. 1, 2001. 27–48. Template:Doi</ref><ref>Stockhausen, Julius. Julius Stockhausen: Der Sänger Des Deutschen Liedes. Edited by Julia Wirth. Frankfurt am Main: Englert und Schlosser, 1927. 497.</ref>

Discography

Schumann
Loewe
  • Brigitte Fassbaender and Cord Garben, Carl Loewe: Lieder - Frauenliebe (Deutsche Grammophon, 1988)
  • Karin Ott and Jean Lemaire, Carl Loewe: Frauen-Liebe Und Leben, Balladen (Ex Libris, 1988)
Lachner
  • Evelyn Tubb, Lesley Schatzberger, Richard Burnett, The Journey of Love Through Life: Lieder by Schumann, Schubert, Spohr, Lachner (Serendipity, 1996).
  • Aríon Trio, Schubert & Co. (Antes Edition, 1998).

References

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Further reading

  • Ingo Müller: "Eins in Allem und Alles in Einem: Zur Ästhetik von Gedicht- und Liederzyklus im Lichte romantischer Universalpoesie". In: Günter Schnitzler und Achim Aurnhammer (Hrsg.): Wort und Ton. Freiburg i. Br. 2011 (= Rombach Wissenschaften: Reihe Litterae. vol. 173), pp. 243–274.
Scores

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