And then came "Widmung"

In Clarence Brown's Song of Love (1947), Paul Henreid as Robert Schumann introduces the newly composed "Widmung" to Katharine Hepburn as Clara; later Henry Daniell as Liszt plays his version, and finally Clara has her turn with it. (All the piano-playing is by Arthur Rubinstein, whom we'll hear playing the Liszt version straight through in the click-through.)

by Ken

Among the great creative feats on record, I'm not sure that any surpasses what is often referred to as Robert Schumann's Year of Song, 1840, the year in which he married Clara Wieck, which we talked about back in April 2010. As Eric Sams has put it, "In the 12 months beginning 1 February 1 1840 he wrote over 160 vocal works, including at least 135 of the 246 solo songs in the complete Peters Edition."

Near the head of the list is the collection of 26 songs published as Schumann's Op. 25, Myrthen (myrtles -- "European evergreen shrubs with white or rosy flowers that are often used to make bridal wreaths"), which the composer presented to Clara as a wedding gift and of course dedicated to her. And at the head of Myrthen is "Widmung" ("Dedication"), the exhilarating song we previewed Friday night.

SCHUMANN: "Widmung" ("Dedication"), Op. 25, No. 1


Baritone Hermann Prey, with pianist Leonard Hokanson (1975)

German text by Friedrich Rückert

You my soul, you my heart,
you my joy, o you my pain,
you my world in which I live,
my heaven you in which I soar,
o you my grave in which
I have buried my sorrows forever.

You are rest; you are peace;
you were destined for me by heaven.
That you love me makes me feel worthy;
your glance has transfigured me;
you lift me, loving, above myself --
my good spirit, my better "I"!

You my soul, you my heart,
you my joy, o you my pain,
you my world, in which I live,
my heaven you, in which I soar --
my good spirit, my better "I"!

AS I MENTIONED FRIDAY NIGHT, IT WAS A RECITAL
THIS WEEK BY PIANIST ANNE-MARIE McDERMOTT . . .

. . . that set me to thinking about "Widmung," in both its original form and the bravura solo-piano expansion of it created by Liszt. This is all leading up to my threatened reflections on that recital and an attempt to describe, if not explain, the effect Ms. McDermott's performance of the Liszt version had on me -- though I'm beginning to wonder whether we're going to get to that.

First we have to deal with a pretty basic issue about Schumann's setting, and I thought first we'd hear it again, but from a woman's point of view.


Soprano Elly Ameling with pianist Dalton Baldwin (1980)

You my soul, you my heart,
you my joy, o you my pain,
you my world in which I live,
my heaven you in which I soar,
o you my grave in which
I have buried my sorrows forever.

You are rest; you are peace;
you were destined for me by heaven.
That you love me makes me feel worthy;
your glance has transfigured me;
you lift me, loving, above myself --
my good spirit, my better "I"!

You my soul, you my heart,
you my joy, o you my pain,
you my world, in which I live,
my heaven you, in which I soar --
my good spirit, my better "I"!

Although actually I prefer the live performance above, here -- in consideration of the clip's technical limitations -- is the studio recording of "Widmung" that Elly Ameling and Dalton Baldwin made some years earlier.


Elly Ameling, soprano; Dalton Baldwin, piano. Philips, recorded c1976

In Friday night's preview I expressly chose Jessye Norman's video performance for its breathless, even breakneck rendering of the "A" section of this simple-ish A-B-A song, in marked contrast to the performance we heard earlier by Hermann Prey and especially Elly Ameling's performances above. Not quite as exhilarating their way, is it? (I think every performer grasps that for the "B" section, dealing with "rest" and "peace," a slowdown -- though unmarked -- is appropriate.

Of course the faster tempo requires a willing-and-able vocal apparatus. In our next two performances, baritone Wolfgang Holzmair takes it about as quickly as he dares, while the fine Finnish baritone Jorma Hynninen gives it full voice at even quicker pace. (Note that we have two truly outstanding pianists here, by the way, both known for significant solo-piano careers. Hynninen was especially fortunate in his collaboration, in most of his song recordings, with Ralf Gothóni.)


Wolfgang Holzmair, baritone; Imogen Cooper, piano. Philips, recorded December 1998

Jorma Hynninen, baritone; Ralf Gothóni, piano. Tactus Oy, recorded c1978

WHICH PACE DID SCHUMANN WANT?

I honestly don't know. I have two editions of the song, neither notable for scholarly scrupulousness. The tempo marking on one is Animato ("animated"), while the other has the same marking that Liszt carried over to his version: "Innig, lebhaft." For innig my Langenschedit German-English dictionary offers "tender, affectionate; ardent, fervent; heartfelt, sincere," while for lebhaft we can straightforwardly read "lively." How exactly is the performer supposed to combine what might almost be taken as contradictory directions?

Coming up we've got a performance that, without sacrificing lebhaft-ness underlines the Innigkeit, with a vocal suppleness and tonal radiance that for me makes this a dream performance of this great song. The Fischer-Dieskau performance with Jörg Demus, which I'm dating at "c1960," would thus presumably have been recorded at almost the same time as the Tannhäuser in which he sang the Wolfram that I've latterly surprised myself by enthusing fairly wildly about. Some 14 years later, when he recorded the later version I've included, as part of his four-volume anthology of all the Schumann songs he deemed suitable for male voice, his upper range wasn't nearly as full and free.


Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Jörg Demus, piano. DG, recorded c1960

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Christoph Eschenbach, piano. DG, recorded 1974

"WIDMUNG" ARRANGEMENTS DIDN'T END WITH LISZT


In October 1919, two years after he made a triumphant American debut at Carnegie Hall (the photo is from November 1917), a now-18-year-old violin phenom named Jascha Heifetz recorded an arrangement of "Widmung" for violin and piano by the violinist-conductor-composer Leopold Auer. Although Heifetz would continue recording for well over a half-century, he never rerecorded the piece.

SCHUMANN (arr. Auer): "Widmung"

Jascha Heifetz, violin; Samuel Chotzinoff, piano. Victor/RCA/BMG, recorded Oct. 13, 1919

LISZT-VERSION PERFORMERS TEND TO OPT
FOR INNIGKEIT, AT LEAST TO BEGIN WITH


Yevgeny Kissin has always been fond of the Liszt "Widmumg." This clip is from July 2010; there's an earlier one, in wretched sound, that's a lot quicker.

As I noted Friday night, Liszt's rendering of the song can't be called a "transcription," which would describe a straight transfer of the material from one medium to another. What Liszt did was to add an expansion to both the original and the repeat of the "A" section -- in the Rubinstein performance below, that's roughly 0:43-1:26 and 2:41-end.

Some editions (but not others) include a metronome marking for the tempo at the start -- how authentic I have no idea -- which is pretty moderate. Certainly the performance tradition calls for a fairly moderate (Ameling-ish) opening "A" section. But the expansions of "A" pile on so much sonic whoopee, especially the one for the repeat of "A," marked fff, that performers tend to accelerate accordingly and build to a tingly climax.

SCHUMANN (arr. Liszt): "Widmung"

Arthur Rubinstein, piano. RCA/BMG, recorded Mar. 11-12, 1947

NOW ABOUT THOSE RECITAL REFLECTIONS

Oops! It's already written, but the way this whole post has grown, that really amounts to another post. So I'm going to make it another post. Tune in next week.

#