As a born melodist, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s creative voice, though devoted extensively to instrumental works, lent itself beautifully to vocal music, as we hear in his many operas and approximately 100 songs. The latter were primarily in the style of the Russian romance: a song genre extremely popular in 19th-century Russia that revolved around the joys and torments of love and was designed for the growing Russian educated class. The explosion of Russian song writing in the second half of the century was also a response to the flowering of Russian poetry, from the great Alexander Pushkin to eager amateurs from the rising middle class and the aristocracy.
Tchaikovsky was less concerned with the artistic quality of the verse he chose to set than whether it evoked a strong personal response in him. As Christian Wildhagen writes, a striking feature of his songs “is the way in which the composer identifies wholeheartedly with the message of the poems, with the result that many of his songs are personal confessions.” Tchaikovsky also frequently gilded his songs with opulent piano parts.
In these songs of love longed for, fulfilled, and remembered nostalgically, “It was in the early spring,” with its impetuous forward momentum, recalls the excitement of young love mirrored in the beauty of a perfect spring morning. This song was composed in June 1878 during Tchaikovsky’s first summer spent at the country estate of his patroness Nadezhda von Meck; in this luxurious place with all his needs catered to, the composer wrote with ease and enthusiasm. An early song, “Why?” sets the great German poet Heinrich Heine in Lev Mey’s translation. Each line is a question beginning with “Why?”, and each rises higher than the previous one, fueling the urgency. Tchaikovsky sets the singer’s final phrase, too, as a melodic question, hovering softly and without resolution. “Amid the din of the ball” comes from 1878, the year Tchaikovsky completed Eugene Onegin. As we hear often in his ballets, the composer was a master of waltz music, and this haunting waltz triste describes the memory of a beautiful woman glimpsed at a ball, whose image now revolves ceaselessly in the singer’s mind. The poet is Aleksey Tolstoy, a distant relative of the famed novelist.
Searching in vain for poems to set after he completed his “Little Russian” Symphony in 1872, Tchaikovsky decided to write his own verse for the rarely heard “So what, then?” In this ambiguous song, the piano part has a playful, teasing quality that undercuts the harsh words decrying the lover’s cruelty. From 1875, “I should like in a single word” sets another Russian translation of Heine by Lev Mey. The impetuous rush of the first two strophes with their imagery of the wind eases in the third verse with tender thoughts of the beloved.
Tchaikovsky composed “Amid Sombre Days” in May 1893 as part of his Op. 73, and these six songs were the last completed works before his death that November. The poems were by the 24-year-old Ukrainian Daniil Rathaus, who had sent them unsolicited to the composer the previous summer; Tchaikovsky liked them so much he set them during breaks from composing the “Pathétique” Symphony. Despite the grim title, this is a rapturous paean to love remembered, though the lovers are now separated. The singer’s rapid, breathless phrases are framed by an ecstatic piano prelude and postlude.
From Op. 60, “The mild stars shone for us” touches on another popular Tchaikovsky theme: nostalgia for a love long past. The song begins placidly with a steady repeated-note accompaniment, recalling the two lovers in their youth sitting by the sea in spring with everything before them. But in the last two strophes, time has passed, and their love has vanished; the singer grieves bitterly for what he can never forget.
“The Sun Has Set” (also from Op. 73) and “Does the day reign?” are rapturous songs of love fulfilled, something the beleaguered composer rarely experienced in his life. The latter is an impassioned declaration of love, inflamed by an extravagant piano part.
“I don’t believe I have more talent for song-composition than for any other genre in music. From whence does it come, then, that the song plays such a prominent role in my output? Quite simply for the reason that I, like other mortals, on one occasion in my life (to quote Goethe) was brilliant. The brilliance was: love. I fell in love with a young girl with a wonderful voice and similarly wonderful interpretation. This girl became my wife and life’s partner … She has been for me … the only true interpreter of my songs.”
With these words, Edvard Grieg paid tribute to his wife, Nina, a lyric soprano who introduced many of his songs, always with her husband at the piano, to European audiences. A joint portrait of them by Peter Krøyer shows her radiant face, round and charmingly dimpled, as she sings while Grieg accompanies diligently at a candlelit piano.
With Nina as his muse, Grieg wrote some 140 songs over the course of his career. Because most are in Norwegian, they are primarily performed by Scandinavian singers and have never won the wide appreciation they deserve. The German lied, especially as espoused by Schumann, however, was an important influence on Grieg, who revered that composer as a mentor for all his music.
Grieg had strong literary interests: He was widely read in several languages and was a vivid writer himself. In the 1880s, he turned to the German language and created six songs to verse by a half dozen notable poets, his Op. 48. From them, Piotr Beczała has chosen four songs.
To a short poem by Heinrich Heine, the opening song, “Gruss” (“Greeting”), presents a sparkling introduction to a cycle focusing on love poetry in all its aspects. Emanuel Geibel’s poem “Dereinst, Gedanke mein” (“One day, my thought”) is set with superb restraint for both voice and piano, perfectly embodying the words “You shall be at rest.” It is only briefly disturbed by memories of past emotional trauma.
The most striking of these songs are the last two. “Zur Rosenzeit” (“At Rose-Time”) sets a poem by Goethe. Though the title suggests something light and sentimental, this is in fact the most tragic of the songs. The flowers serve as imagery for the lover’s rejected devotion. Sobbing syncopations in the piano, heavy use of dissonance, and restless modulations are all masterfully used to express the singer’s anguish. By contrast, “Ein Traum” (“A Dream”) is a song of love fulfilled: A dream becomes reality. Buoyed by the piano’s excited triplets, the singer twice rises to high A-flat in a cry of joy and triumph.
Beczała has also selected Grieg’s most famous song, “Ich liebe dich” (“Jeg elsker Dig,” in the original Danish). Setting verse by Denmark’s revered Hans Christian Andersen, it is one of the composer’s earliest songs, written in 1864 when he was living in Copenhagen. Now engaged to Nina, Grieg poured all his ardor and commitment into this gorgeously melodic song, which shows his lyrical gifts were already in full bloom in his early 20s.
The rugged Tatra Mountains of southern Poland were composer Mieczysław Karłowicz’s favorite place to wander and draw creative inspiration. In his words, “Lying here on a fragrant meadow on a wonderful July day, I received an impression that is totally alien to the inhabitants of the lowland areas: an impression of boundless freedom … Here, amidst surrounding mountains, I felt so small, a tiny particle really, that I was seized by the desire to strive for things great and noble.” Tragically, he also died in those mountains at the age of 32, killed by an avalanche while skiing.
The son of a respected Polish linguist and musician, Karłowicz was allied with the Young Poland movement of the late 19th-century: a group of artists in various disciplines that sought to combine the latest musical trends coming from German lands with Polish traditions. During his brief career, he wrote some stunning orchestral tone poems that were influenced by his admiration for Richard Strauss and his passionate love for Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. And in 1896–1897, while still only about 20 and studying music in Berlin, he created some 22 songs.
Three of these songs set verse by Karłowicz’s favorite poet, Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer (1865–1940), who was one of Young Poland’s leaders. Significantly, Przerwa-Tetmajer also shared Karłowicz’s love for the Tatras, and his poetry mingled evocations of the natural world with the deep melancholy typical of the Young Poland aesthetic, “It Goes Over the Fields,” however, expresses the ecstatic joy both poet and composer experienced in the mountains.
Most of these songs are very brief, extremely lyrical, and possess a beautiful balance between their vocal and piano parts. Over in a minute, the uncanny “In the Calm of the Evening” seems to contradict its portrait of calm before rest with an agitated accompaniment depicting the far-off sound of a rushing river that sooths the singer to sleep. Setting verse by Adam Asnyk, the sly “The Enchanted Princess” tells a fairy tale gone wrong. The piano’s ethereal tinkling paints the gauzy image of the princess slumbering in a myrtle grove. Though she dreams of a knight who will come to rescue her, reality crushes her fantasy. The piano abruptly turns dramatic as it describes the incapacity of the would-be hero to complete his task. A Schumann-esque postlude rounds out this fractured tale. The haunting “I Remember Quiet, Clear Golden Days” by Tetmajer rocks irresistibly like a fondly remembered lullaby as the singer yearns to regain the paradise of childhood.
Words meant as much as music to Robert Schumann. Son of a book publisher, the composer was a passionate reader from his earliest days. And with the Neuezeitschrift für Musik journal, which he began publishing in 1834, Schumann became one of his era’s most prominent writers on contemporary music. Thus, it is surprising that he did not turn seriously to composing songs until 1840, when he was 30.
In that year—now known as the Liederjahr—one of his bursts of manic creativity fueled the composition of more than half of his approximately 250 songs, including his great cycles Dichterliebe, the two Liederkreis by Heine and Eichendorff, Frauenliebe und -leben, and Myrten. It was a triumphant year in every way, for in September—after a five-year struggle with her father—Schumann at last married his beloved Clara. Indeed, his year of song may have been instigated by his desire to show Friedrich Wieck that he could indeed be a solid breadwinner for his daughter, song-writing being one of the most potentially lucrative fields for a composer in that period.
With his strong literary roots, Schumann was discriminating in his choice of poems, drawing on the most accomplished lyric poets of his day. He selected verse from more than a half dozen, including his favorite Friedrich Rückert, to create the 26 songs of Myrten (Myrtles), the flower traditionally associated with weddings. Filled with expressions of his love for his bride-to-be, Myrten was presented to Clara in a specially bound volume on the day before the ceremony. Mr. Beczała has chosen four songs from this cycle.
Myrten’s opening song is “Widmung” (“Dedication”), perhaps the most beautiful of all Schumann’s songs, with its ecstatic melody proclaiming the composer’s joyous, unquestioning love for Clara. The poem is by Rückert, and its references to the pain of living despite committed love add to its strength. Pianist and singer share complementary roles in “Der Nussbaum” (“The Walnut Tree”), set to a poem by Julius Mosen. The singer’s short, repetitive phrases are linked together by the piano’s continuous arpeggio figures, imitating the wind swaying the branches of the walnut tree. And the simplicity of the vocal line matches the inarticulateness of the maiden dreaming of her love.
Another song of lyrical modesty sets Heinrich Heine’s portrait of “Die Lotusblum”: the lotus blossom that is too shy to unveil its face in brilliant sunshine, but waits for evening and the ascent of its lover, the Moon, to reveal its beauty. Beginning low, its tender vocal melody gradually rises to describe the flower’s unfurling in the moonlight. Coming later in the cycle, another Heine poem, “Du bist wie eine Blume” (“You are like a Flower”) focuses on a woman who is like the lotus flower—meek, pure, and beautiful. Schumann’s floating melody is indeed beautiful, but seems to restrict Clara to a subservient role too small to encompass her formidable gifts.
Composed in November and December 1840, Schumann’s Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner (Twelve Poems by Justinus Kerner) is unjustly one of his least-known song collections. Kerner was a fascinating figure; not only a poet, he was a doctor who dabbled in psychic phenomena and unorthodox medical treatments based on herbalism. Unlike many Romantic poets, his verse was rooted in a secure and happy home life and a fundamentally healthy personality. And that’s what we find in the song “Wanderlied,” which opens this Schumann segment. This robust song in B-flat major extolls the desire to wander—not to escape unhappiness at home, but to experience adventures abroad. In more introspective moments, it affirms that even when he is far away, the wanderer feels reassuringly connected to his homeland.
In his Op. 27 songs, Schumann again turned to Rückert for another floral tribute, “Jasminenstrauch” (“Jasmine Bush”). Unlike the lotus, the jasmine flourishes during the daylight and sleeps at night, perchance to dream. On a tissue of delicate arpeggios, Schumann weaves one of his loveliest miniatures.
Though known primarily for his mastery of the keyboard and the symphony orchestra, Sergei Rachmaninoff was also a devoted songwriter, creating some 85 songs throughout the Russian period of his career. His phenomenal gift for creating memorable, heart-stirring melodies enriched his vocal lines, and his virtuosity as a pianist ensured the accompanist was also given a major role. Sadly, after his flight to the West in 1917, he never returned to song writing.
The six songs of Op. 4 were Rachmaninoff’s first to be published in 1893. “Oh, stay, my love, forsake me not!” was probably written about a year earlier, at the same time as his First Piano Concerto, and its opening piano notes recall that work’s slow movement. This song may have been inspired by the adolescent composer’s infatuation with Anna Ladyzhenskaya, the wife of an older friend. Propelled by agitated piano triplets, this impassioned song hurtles to a ringing vocal climax. From 1891, “Morning” is an entranced lovers’ dialogue in which Dawn tenderly greets the Day, its eternal companion. The subtle beauty of this song is enhanced by the play between two beats and triplets throughout.
“Silence of the secret night” was the earliest song, composed in 1890 when he was a 17-year-old student at the Moscow Conservatory and revised two years later. Rachmaninoff scholar Barrie Martyn calls it the composer’s first vocal masterpiece, and it is a gorgeous example of passionate Russian lyricism. A lovely falling motive is introduced softly by the piano at the beginning, echoed by the singer as he enters, then thundered forth in big chords by the piano at the song’s climax. The words are by A. A. Fet. The fourth song, “Sing not to me, beautiful maiden,” sets a poem by the great Alexander Pushkin. Taking his cue from its reference to Georgian songs, Rachmaninoff clothes it in the exotic melismas of the Russian oriental style, clearly influenced by Borodin.
Aleksey Tolstoy’s poem “Oh thou, my field” likens a failed corn harvest to the collapse of all the poet’s hopes and dreams. The imagery of barren fields inspires Rachmaninoff to create a haunting song in Russian folk style with its characteristic descending phrases and irregular meters. The singer’s sorrow climaxes in cries of “Ah!,” voiced on soaring melismas cresting to high B-flat. Beginning in agitated G minor, the last song, “How long, my friend” vividly paints the anguish of a lover separated from his beloved. In the second half, Rachmaninoff transforms the key and mood to G major as the lovers are finally reunited. The singer’s lines now fly aloft and culminate in an ecstatic high B-flat cry of joy.
—Janet E. Bedell