Exploring Schumann's Heine Settings
When Thomas Hampson set about to prepare his first performance of Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe, a cycle of songs based on poems by Heinrich Heine, he decided to consult the composer’s manuscript, only to find, to his surprise, that the original version, entitled 20 Lieder und Gesänge aus dem “Lyrischen Intermezzo”, was a completely distinctive work containing numerous musical and textual differences.
Intrigued by the changes which had occurred between Schumann’s composing his “great Heine cycle” in 1840 and its eventual publication in the shortened, altered version now familiar as Dichterliebe in 1844, Hampson, together with musicologist Renate Stark-Voit, began a detective hunt which led to the world premiere performances and recording of the original version.
“On his lips there played a bitterly ironic smile but it was a lofty smile
Robert Schumann, on meeting Heinrich Heine in 1828
aimed at the trivialities of life and a scorn for petty men.
Schumann: Heine Lieder
Thomas Hampson, baritone
Wolfgang Sawallisch, piano
Recorded: 1994 / Album Release: 1997
EMI Classics: CDC55598
At certain points in time [Heine's] poetry dons the mask of irony in order to conceal its usage of pain; perhaps for a moment the friendly hand of a genius may lift that mask so that wild tears may be transformed into pearls.
Robert Schumann
Resources
essay
“A Great Song Work…”: Notes on the Genesis of Schumann’s “Dichterliebe”
essay
On Schumann’s Op. 24 and Op. 53
translation
Heinrich Heine: Prolog to Lyrisches Intermezzo
translation
20 Lieder und Gesänge…
Texts and Translations
translation
Liederkreis, Op. 24
Texts and Translations
translation
Der arme Peter, Op. 53, No. 3
Texts and Translations
video
New York Philharmonic Lecture, April 2010
audio
Song: Mirror of the World
Program 5
Paris, City of Light
essay
Antonín Dvořák and the Songs of His Time
concert-program
Mendelssohn and Schumann (Oct. 1994)
concert-program
Grieg, Songs to Poems by Walt Whitman, & Schumann (Nov. 7, 1993)
concert-program
