German Romantic poets have been fortunate – putting aside that they are all dead – to have had their work immortalized in song.  German poetry flowered at a time when the powerhouses of Austro-German music took time out from the heavy work of composing symphonies, concertos, string quartets, and piano sonatas to focus immense talents on the creation of Lieder, miniature compositions in which a poem is set to music.

Mozart and Beethoven set songs, but it was Franz Schubert (1797-1828) who established the Lied as a distinctive product of Austro-German music.  He set over 600 poems for voice and (mostly) piano accompaniment.  You can get a sense of how Schubert worked his magic by listening to An die Musik, which runs about two and a half minutes, or if you prefer something a little less somber and philosophical, try Die Forelle[1], which runs less than two minutes.  As a newcomer to most of this music I have been particularly taken with Auf dem Wasser zu singen, which you can enjoy for an investment of less than four minutes of your time.

German has produced beautiful poetry, which is (to me at least) a surprise In light of the guttural sounds of which the language is capable, and considering the stiff and formal stereotypical image of the German character that many of us carry in our heads.  In an essay[2] in which he skewers the German tongue, Mark Twain puts satire aside for a moment to make the point:

There are some German words which are singularly and powerfully effective. For instance, those which describe lowly, peaceful, and affectionate home life; those which deal with love, in any and all forms, . . . ; those which deal with outdoor Nature, in its softest and loveliest aspects — with meadows and forests, and birds and flowers, the fragrance and sunshine of summer, and the moonlight of peaceful winter nights; in a word, those which deal with any and all forms of rest, repose, and peace; . . . and lastly and chiefly, in those words which express pathos, is the language surpassingly rich and affective. There are German songs which can make a stranger to the language cry. That shows that the sound of the words is correct — it interprets the meanings with truth and with exactness; and so the ear is informed, and through the ear, the heart. [Emphasis in original.]

He might have been describing the poem “Gestillte Sehnsucht” – “Stilled Longing” – by Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866), which Johannes Brahms set to music in the early 1880s.

In the first of four verses, the poet places us in a woodland scene at sunset.  After stopping to note the wind whispering through the trees and the soft song of the birds, the poet gets down to the real business at hand, an examination of his emotions.  In the second verse, he addresses them directly.  How long will you feelings of longing persist?  When will you rest?  When will you sleep?  The remaining two verses tell us that these feelings will go on his whole life through.  I feel, therefore I am.

Each verse has six lines; the last two lines of each verse are a refrain that explores the meaning of those whispering winds and birds.  Each appearance of the refrain provides a slightly different answer as the poem unfolds.  So powerful are the poet’s feelings that he never takes time to identify the object of his longing.  For all we know, it might be nothing more than a serving of schnitzel mit nudeln, and poems to food are not unheard of (e.g., Robert Burns’ “Ode to a Haggis”).  But from what we know of the Romantic poets, the longed-for subject is likely to be a fair member of the opposite sex.  Still, it would have been considerate to let the reader in on the secret.

Brahms wrote his song for contralto, viola, and piano, an unusual combination.  It is one of two for the same forces written for his friends Joseph Joachim, a famous violinist and violist, and his wife Amalie, born Schneeweiss[3], (“Snow White”), a noted contralto.  When the couple had a child, a boy whom they named Johannes, Brahms composed a lullaby for contralto, viola, and piano, intending to distribute the parts to the two Joachims with himself at the keyboard.  That song, Geistliches Wiegenlied (“Spiritual Lullaby”), was not published at the time of composition.  Later, the marriage went on the rocks when Herr Joachim accused Frau Joachim of infidelity, apparently without evidence or reason.  Brahms wrote a second song for the same voice and instruments, perhaps hoping to repair the marriage of his friends.  He published the two songs in 1883 as his Opus 91, designating the later song – Gestillte Sehnsucht – as Opus 91, Number 1 and the lullaby as Opus 91, Number 2.

Brahms conceived the song in A-B-A format, or more accurately A+ refrain – B + refrain – A + refrain, which meant that the poem had one verse too many.  He jettisoned the third verse and set verses 1, 2, and 4.

The song opens with an extended introduction by the viola accompanied by the piano, which hints at some of the melodic riches ahead.  After nearly a full minute, the contralto enters and sings the first four lines of the opening verse to a melody of round autumnal ripeness.  The two lines of the refrain are set to an ambling rhythm, lightly syncopated, that ends all three verses.

The mood changes with the second verse.  The emotions accompanying the poet’s address to his feelings generate shorter phrases and an unsettled melody until the refrain returns us to a place where we can breathe more freely.  Even so, echoes from the storm inside the poet’s breast turn the end of the refrain to a minor key.

The final verse returns us to the sunset-tinted melody of the first.  At the end of the refrain, the viola, which has conducted a dialogue with the contralto throughout, works with the piano to take us home.  Just before the final note, the viola and piano hit a dissonant chord, which is resolved as the piece fades to silence.  Perhaps this was Brahms expressing his hope that the discord in the Joachim marriage would be resolved equally harmoniously.  (It wasn’t.  They divorced.)

The song is so ravishing and there are so many lovely voices singing it on record that a listener would not go wrong by selecting the first version that YouTube throws out or the first download that Amazon suggests.  I have listened to every recording I could find.  Music lovers are truly fortunate to have so many beautiful voices available to sing such a moving song.  My clear favorite is a recording made in 1939 by Marian Anderson, accompanied by William Primrose, viola, and Franz Rupp, piano.

Most of the singers who present this piece have big operatic voices.  Their training and inclination is to project their voices to the back of a large hall.  The concert hall approach is out of place when the singer is asked to interpret a quiet moment, a poet alone with his thoughts as the setting sun bathes a forest in its glow.  Using high notes to shake the rafters seems to be second nature to many operatic singers, but to my ear the method doesn’t work when it comes to music as intimate as Gestillte Sehnsucht.  This criticism applies particularly to Marilyn Horne, Janet Evans, and Ann Murray.

The second line of the song is a key point for distinguishing the back-of-the-hall ladies from the others.  The line reads: “How solemnly the forest stands!”  The singer is asked to begin the line on a high note.  It seems that for many singers, a high note is a loud note.  But a quiet moment in which the poet is awed by the beauty around him should be presented to the listener at something less than full operatic volume.

Another tendency is to overwork the second verse, where the poet in his anguish addresses his feelings of longing.  In too many versions I hear instead Sieglinde running through the forest in Act Two of Die Walküre.  As the curtain comes down on Act One, Sieglinde is preparing to commit the dual sins of adultery and incest with the twin brother with whom she has just been reunited.  When I say “preparing to commit” I don’t mean that she is standing in front of a mirror a-wishin’ and a-hopin’.  If at the original performance the Act One curtain had come down a minute later than it does, the opera would have been banned by the censors and the world would have been denied the remaining twelve hours of the Ring cycle[4].

Once Act Two is underway, Sieglinde, whose longings were so recently un-stilled, is racing through the forest wracked with guilt.  As the old saying goes, commit incest in haste, repent at leisure.  That’s the emotional pitch of Sieglinde at that point in the drama.  That level of emotional turmoil is over the top in Brahms’s song.  Yet so many singers of Gestillte Sehnsucht overdo things that I have developed an informal “Sieglinde Index” to evaluate them.  I can’t listen to a recording when the Sieglinde Index starts to red-line into the “High” zone.  That leaves out Iris Vermillion (who I wanted to make my favorite for the sake of her name), Alice Coote, even Kirsten Flagstad (one of the greatest Wagnerian sopranos, superb in this song apart from the four lines in question).

I have come back repeatedly to Marian Anderson, Kathleen Ferrier, Jessye Norman, Anne Sofie von Otter, and Angelika Kirchshlager[5].  Ms. Norman offers her powerful voice – you sense that she could use it to engrave cold steel if she wanted to – in the service of an introspective performance.  Her Sieglinde Index is moderate.  She has so much power in reserve that she can hit her high notes without strain and without excessive volume.  As against that, she is a dramatic soprano, not a contralto.

Kirchshlager’s performance is outstanding, with a moderate-to-high but still acceptable Sieglinde Index.  Unfortunately, she takes the song at a speed I feel is too fast.  Von Otter’s performance likewise is beautiful.  She adopts a moderate tempo, about halfway between the fastest and slowest performances.  Her Sieglinde Index is acceptable.  And both of these superb singers are mezzos, not contraltos.

Anderson and Ferrier were both true contraltos.  My objection to Kathleen Ferrier’s performance is that, like Kirchshlager, she is too fast.  She moves through the song in some five minutes, where singers such as Anderson and Norman take more than seven.

Anderson’s reading of the song is superb.  Her musical bearing is restrained, patrician.  The emotional content of the music flows out of her without any need for embellishment.  What she provides is less an interpretation than a rendering.  Her accompanists are equally fine.  This most musically reserved performance is also for me the most moving.  She makes the song her own by simply presenting it, not selling it.  The 1939 sound is much better than I would have expected and does not get in the way at all.

It is impossible to listen to Marian Anderson without thinking of her compelling personal story.  We can take pride in the enormous racial progress our country has made since Ms. Anderson’s time, but the vicious stupidity that characterized so much of the treatment she experienced is shameful.  She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1897.  Her musical talents were first noticed through her church.  When she applied to the Philadelphia Academy of Music, the admissions clerk refused to accept her application, saying “We don’t take colored.”

Two incidents underscore the depth of her talent.  After the Academy turned her down, she sought a private teacher.  She auditioned for a voice coach named Giuseppe Boghetti[6].  This was a man who earned his living by evaluating voices in the cold-blooded way that a baseball scout might evaluate a curve ball.  As she began to sing for him, the beauty of her voice overwhelmed him.  He broke down in tears.  Some years later when she was touring Europe, Arturo Toscanini heard her sing and told her that a voice such as hers is heard once in a hundred years.

Yet when in 1939 her supporters tried to arrange a concert at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., a private venue owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution, the DAR refused to book the concert.  They could not abide an African American singer on their stage.  The DC city government had a hall available but refused to offer it because it did not have segregated bathrooms (which believe it or not was a code violation, like having bad wiring).  The Colonial Dames – P.G. Wodehouse’s name – did finally allow her to sing at Constitution Hall in 1943.  With bombs falling and the future of American civilization at risk, it was easier for them to look past the racial divide, apparently.  I was curious whether the DAR was still in existence.  I found an active website that announces that they welcome members – those who can trace their ancestry to a participant in the American Revolutionary War – of all races, creeds, and colors.  Mazel tov.

Her treatment and her response provide important examples for our time and place.  When she was denied admission to the Philadelphia Academy, denied the opportunity even to apply, she did not go off to her safe space.  She showed more tenacity in the face of genuine hostility than many of our contemporaries display in the presence of real or imagined micro-aggressions.  She squared her shoulders, developed her talent, and brought her gifts to appreciative audiences all over the world.

She was magnanimous.  When she finally performed at Constitution Hall in the middle of the Second World War, she took the stage and she sang.  If she felt a desire to lecture the audience in the manner of the script-readers of Hamilton fame, she overcame it.  Her nobility of character and talent contrasted with the base stupidity of those who had denied her a forum.  Her detractors live in footnotes in the story of her life.

She had a successful concert and recording career, first in Europe and eventually in her native country, but her operatic work was limited to the minor role of Ulrica in Verdi’s “Masked Ball”.  Perhaps the lack of an operatic resume is why she sings this song with such intimacy, without projecting drama to the imaginary back row of the theater.  That can’t be the entire explanation; any number of great operatic performers were also superb singers of Lieder.  In this instance, the singer and her accompanists made artistic decisions that fit perfectly with the mood and tone of the song.  It is a measure of the achievement of the composer and the musicians that the full beauty of the song is revealed by a performance that holds so much power in reserve.

[1] I was listening to different performances of this song on YouTube the other day.  I like to read the listener comments.  One person said that he would love to have a particular female singer standing on his washing machine.  I don’t expect to understand every nuance of listener comments, but this one went right by me.  The mystery deepened as other comments talked about washing machines and dryers.  The light dawned when one commenter said that she was “blown away” when she first heard the song.  It’s what her Samsung washer and dryer play at the end of a cycle!

[2] “The Awful German Language”.

[3] Joachim had converted from Judaism as an adult, but even so his family objected to the marriage because the bride wasn’t Jewish!

[4] “Wagner’s music is much better than it sounds.”  Mark Twain

[5] There are a number of unusual arrangements of the song on YouTube.  Some of these substitute a cello for the viola.  I don’t think the cello works here, but this hardly matters because the singers in these versions tend not be up to the song’s demands anyway.  An exception is the German mezzo Angelika Wied, who provides a near-perfect rendition of the song that in my opinion is ruined by the substitution of a cello for viola – it’s the instrument, not the performer.  Other novelties substitute the cello for the voice.  One YouTube commenter: I never liked the lyrics anyway.  Another try is to substitute a string chamber orchestra for the piano.  The most intriguing novelty approach I found was a rewrite that substituted a male baritone for the contralto and a clarinet for the viola.  That version almost worked.  The problem with all of these novelties is their presumption.  Brahms knew what he was doing.  He doesn’t need help.

[6] He was born Joseph Bogash to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents.  A trip to Italy convinced him that he could improve his prospects in the music business by italianizing his name.