The trees of Schubert's and Schumann's

Lately I have been completely carried away by Schumann's Myrten, Op. 25 (Myrtles) - a song cycle presented to Clara as a wedding gift (myrtle is the German symbol of marriage). The cycle's strong sense of unity and the variety of emotions it contains have filled my mind's eyes (and ears) with wonder and pure joy. Some of the lieder have just been replaying themselves repeatedly in my head, uninvited.

Among the 26 lieder in the cycle, I am especially fond of Der Nussbaum (The Nut Tree). A humble maiden sleeps beside a nut tree, accompanied by gentle summer wind and the rustling leaves, dreaming of a possible marriage. It is interesting to see how the poet, Julius Mosen, introduces the maiden in third person, so as to convey the delicacy of the scene:

Paired together, [the blossoms] whisper,
Inclining,
Bending
Gracefully their delicate heads to kiss.

They whisper of a maiden who
Dreamed
All night
And all day of, alas, she knew not what.

They whisper - who can understand
So soft
A song?
Whisper of a bridegroom and next year.
[Trans. Richard Stokes; from booklet accompanying The Songs of Robert Schumann - Vol. 7 (Hyperion), pp. 38-9.]

In the very thorough CD booklet, Graham Johnson rightly points out that the persistent repetition of the opening motif in this lied conveys the maiden's (i.e., Clara's) obsession with her perhaps over-fantasized love (p. 41). While the delicacy of the music is quite obvious, I also hear a tinge of childishness along with purity when the soprano begins the melody with those repeated Bs, and when she rises later, in the same phrase, to the high B, echoing the opening motif from the piano. After all, Clara Wieck was still a child when Schumann composed this song in 1840.

Johnson also interestingly notes that Der Nussbaum, and also Schubert's Der Lindenbaum, were sung by many choral societies in the 19th century as patriotic part songs (p. 39). Why were the Germans so obsessed with tress as a music-cultural symbol of their own? (The Christmas song O Tannenbaum now comes to mind as well). Perhaps this may be related to another of their obsession: the idea of a lonely person wandering around. Were the German wanderers lonely and nostalgic to the point that they had to associate every tree in Die Schwarzwald with a painful memory in order to pass time?

Even though both Der Nussbaum and Der Lindenbaum are about romantic love, the two lieder are rather different in mood. Schumann's is delicate, feminine, and Schubert's, poignant, masculine. But in both, the tree is seen by the narrator as a source of hope. In the last stanza of Schumann's lied,

The maiden listens, the tree rustles;
Yearning,
Musing
She drifts smiling into sleep and dreams (p. 39).

The maiden must be dreaming of her husband she heard from the whisper among the blossoms of the nut tree! In Schubert's lied, the wanderer exclaims in the last stanza:

Now I have many hours
Spent far from yonder place,
Yet still I hear it rustling
"Here will you find your peace!"
[p. 50 of booklet accompanying Franz Schubert: Lieder - Vol. 3 (Fischer-Dieskau/Moore), Deutsche Grammophon].

Does the lime tree turn the wanderer's nap into an eternal sleep?

Perfunctory performances

There are at least two musical pieces, a perfunctory performance of which would not only not do a disservice to the composer, but would actually be preferred. The first is obviously Saint-Saens's "Pianists" from his Carnival of the Animals, depicting two pianists learning to play a scale-like passage. The performers are supposed to deliberately miss some of the notes in the beginning, and then, show gradual "improvements" along the way. I can still remember attending a live performance of the Carnival by the Boston Chamber Music Society: the ascending scale in the opening was as mechanical and uneven as it could be, and the resulting effect was absolutely hilarious. It reminded me of the years when I struggled to play scales and arpeggios evenly, a stage of learning that almost every pianist is condemned to go through. Putting such an episode amidst pieces for "the animals", Saint-Saens has perhaps inadvertently emphasized the artificiality of what we consider as fine art. Is he trying to say: it is more "natural", and thus, closer to the beasts, if pianists can play scales with less refinement?

The second example I am thinking is less well known, but equally noteworthy: Schumann's "Familien-Gemaelde", from his Four Duets (Op. 34). I came across this little piece while listening to Graham Johnson's remarkable cycle of Schumann songs (Songs of Robert Schumann; Vol. 7; Dorothea Roeschumann/Ian Bostridge/Graham Johnson; Hyperion). Here, perfunctoriness is preferred, in the sense that a very musical or refined rendition would take away the homely, domestic atmosphere that Schumann wants to impart. In this duet, we hear a simple, albeit attractive, melody with an equally simple chordal accompaniment. Listening to this duet, we can almost see a snapshot of the everyday musical life in Schumann's family: after dinner, Clara sits down in front of a slightly out-of-tuned piano; two of the Schumann children then volunteer to sing before an audience consisting of a few friends, and then, Robert, the composer, is urged to be the page turner of Clara. The performance is then concluded with cheers from the audience admiring the charm of the singers' voices as well as Schumann's music.

This duet, and perhaps many other lieder of Schubert and Schumann, was meant to be consumed domestically by the rising middle class. It was a time without televisions and CD players; such Biedermeier pieces fulfilled their need of entertainment. We have long passed the age in which composers would still write quality music for amateurs or connoisseurs.

By the way, I cannot recommend the Graham Johnson series of Schumann songs more highly. I truly think he deserves to be called the "King of Accompaniment" of this era.