Selections from Schwanengesang

Schubert may not have invented the lied as a genre, though he developed it to a degree of sophistication that was never eclipsed. At the peak of his popularity, Schubert composed the probing song cycle Winterreise (Winter’s Journey), which elicited favorable reviews across the German-speaking lands. Indeed, it was venerated as a distinctly German cultural treasure from the start. His later collection titled Schwanengesang (Swansong) is not a unified cycle. In fact, Schubert’s plans for the ordering and grouping of songs were superseded by the publisher, who also invented the poetic title—fitting in hindsight perhaps, but hardly what Schubert envisioned. The collection appeared just a few months after his death.
Three poets are represented by the texts of Schwanengesang. In addition to Heine and Seidl, the first seven songs are all by Ludwig Rellstab. Rellstab had presented these same texts to Beethoven in 1825, though the latter never got around to setting them to music. The poems then passed to Schubert either from Beethoven directly or via his personal secretary after his death in March 1827. The four poems we hear today share similar conceits: the expressive power of distance, communion with nature, water, the sun and stars above.
Schubert opens the collection with the ebullient “Liebesbotschaft” (Love’s Greeting), which by virtue of its key (G major) and depiction of the brook-as-messenger recalls the youthful “Wohin?” from Die schöne Müllerin (1824). The song’s third stanza speaks of dreams, and Schubert responds with lovely, sinking cadences that lead gradually downward before surging again. The hint of “Wohin” connects as well to song no. 3, “Frühlingssehnsucht” (Longing in Spring), where the opening stanza closes with that pivotal question “where to?” At the corresponding moment in every stanza, Schubert pulls up the reins with a chromatic digression in long held notes. Only such recurring questions give pause to the breathless emotion of new love.
The most popular song from Schwanengesang, having risen to the level of becoming the iconic German art song, is the powerful “Standchen” (Serenade). Schubert massages subtle changes between major and minor to shift between hesitation and abandon. How wonderfully the piano’s short echoes create room for the words to breathe! It projects the rapture one might also expect from song no. 7, “Abschied” (Farewell). But despite the composer’s faltering health, this leave-taking foregoes all nostalgia and lamentation, favoring instead a sunny E-flat major and the galloping rhythms of the hero’s horse “joyfully pawing the ground.” The only glimpse of Schubert’s inner world, I believe, is the brilliant modulation to C-flat major, where the poem’s gaze turns to the stars above.

(c) Jason Stell