DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Horizons, v. 6, issue 3, whole no. 22, March 1945

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Horizons, v. 6, issue 3, whole no. 22, March 1945

Page 11

Music for the Fan

The tremendously vast field of the art song is one unexplored by a lot of people who know about the other forms of great music - it's rather hard to understand why this should be so, since the great songs are so easy to perform or purchase in recorded form. Anyone who takes any interest at all in music ought to be acquainted with the basic three hundred great songs, and a perfect starting point is the "Winterreise", in my opinion the best of the three great song cycles of Franz Schubert.
The "Winter Journey" cycle contains two dozen songs, whose words were written by a minor German contemporary of Schubert, Wilhelm Muller. Though hardly of tremendous poetic value, the words are infinitely better than the utter nonsense and doggerel which most great composers pick out. The poems are connected, in the sense that a "plot" runs through them, although Schubert changed about their order in setting them to music, probably improving the set in the process. It might also be noted that they weren't composed uninterruptedly; half of them were written quite a while after the first dozen. Schubert, so the story runs, wrote four or five of them in one morning.
The cycle differs from the equally tragic "Die Schone Mullerin" group, in that the tragedy has taken place at the beginning, and the songs are almost without exception gloomy or at least cheerless in mood. This atmosphere of despair thickens in the most remarkable manner as the "Winterreise" cycle progresses, however - and the further along you get, the greater the songs become.
Detailing all the compositions isn't necessary. The first few are not so famous; it is the fifth that strikes the first touch of complete genius. And it's very hard for us to realize just what this song - "Der Lindenbaum" - means in Germany. It has gained equal footing with the best German folk songs, and is more popular there than the most famus Stephen Foster melodies in this country.
The first real break in the frigid and bleak atmosphere - and the only touch of warmth in the whole cycle - comes with the eleventh song, "Fruhlingstraum", the effect of which can be properly understood only when it's heard in its proper place in the entire cycle. From here on, the songs grow greater and greater, and take on, even if they're in slow tempo,an extraordinary vitality and rhythmic pulsation. "Die Post" does in two pages as much as Beethoven did in ten minutes with the same rhythmic pattern in the opening of his seventh symphony; then the mood changes to an eerie one, with "Der Greise", inwhich the unhappy lover finds frost upon his hair and beard, and tries to delude himself into believing he has grown old enough to forget emotion, in strange, stalking intervals. Ever darker becomes the words and music, in "Die Krahe", one of Rubenstein's favorites. And don't forget "Der Sturmische Morgen", which is so short that it's ended almost as soon as it begins, but packs into a few seconds more real descriptive music than a half-dozen other composers put together have eachieved in attempting to depict nature in a bad humor.
The last five songs are the greatest in the set, among the greatest in all music. "Der Wegwiiser" could very easily be termed the greatest song ever written, in fact. Schubert uses the very simplest, barest of means in it - the repeated note that runs through his "Wanderer" fantasy, the C major symphony, and many of his other greatest works. There is something terrifying about the song, if performed and sung by great artists, as the traveller beholds the sign-post that shows only one route - that to death. More placid is the next song, but just as subtle in the musical detail - "Das Wirtshaus", "The Inn", is a cemetery, which the desperate traveller finds already full.
One last effort to be gay appears in the lively "Mut". But attempt instantly collapses into the very depths of German introspection in "Die Nebensonnen" which is outstanding for the simple reason that no one has ever been able to figure out what the poet meant by the words; the best guess is that two of the three suns of which he speaks are the eyes of the traveller's beloved.

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Music for the Fan The tremendously vast field of the art song is one unexplored by a lot of people who know about the other forms of great music - it's rather hard to understand why this should be so, since the great songs are so easy to perform or purchase in recorded form. Anyone who takes any interest at all in music ought to be acquainted with the basic three hundred great songs, and a perfect starting point is the "Winterreise", in my opinion the best of the three great song cycles of Franz Schubert. The "Winter Journey" cycle contains two dozen songs, whose words were written by a minor German contemporary of Schubert, Wilhelm Muller. Though hardly of tremendous poetic value, the words are infinitely better than the utter nonsense and doggerel which most great composers pick out. The poems are connected, in the sense that a "plot" runs through them, although Schubert changed about their order in setting them to music, probably improving the set in the process. It might also be noted that they weren't composed uninterruptedly; half of them were written quite a while after the first dozen. Schubert, so the story runs, wrote four or five of them in one morning. The cycle differs from the equally tragic "Die Schone Mullerin" group, in that the tragedy has taken place at the beginning, and the songs are almost without exception gloomy or at least cheerless in mood. This atmosphere of despair thickens in the most remarkable manner as the "Winterreise" cycle progresses, however - and the further along you get, the greater the songs become. Detailing all the compositions isn't necessary. The first few are not so famous; it is the fifth that strikes the first touch of complete genius. And it's very hard for us to realize just what this song - "Der Lindenbaum" - means in Germany. It has gained equal footing with the best German folk songs, and is more popular there than the most famus Stephen Foster melodies in this country. The first real break in the frigid and bleak atmosphere - and the only touch of warmth in the whole cycle - comes with the eleventh song, "Fruhlingstraum", the effect of which can be properly understood only when it's heard in its proper place in the entire cycle. From here on, the songs grow greater and greater, and take on, even if they're in slow tempo,an extraordinary vitality and rhythmic pulsation. "Die Post" does in two pages as much as Beethoven did in ten minutes with the same rhythmic pattern in the opening of his seventh symphony; then the mood changes to an eerie one, with "Der Greise", inwhich the unhappy lover finds frost upon his hair and beard, and tries to delude himself into believing he has grown old enough to forget emotion, in strange, stalking intervals. Ever darker becomes the words and music, in "Die Krahe", one of Rubenstein's favorites. And don't forget "Der Sturmische Morgen", which is so short that it's ended almost as soon as it begins, but packs into a few seconds more real descriptive music than a half-dozen other composers put together have eachieved in attempting to depict nature in a bad humor. The last five songs are the greatest in the set, among the greatest in all music. "Der Wegwiiser" could very easily be termed the greatest song ever written, in fact. Schubert uses the very simplest, barest of means in it - the repeated note that runs through his "Wanderer" fantasy, the C major symphony, and many of his other greatest works. There is something terrifying about the song, if performed and sung by great artists, as the traveller beholds the sign-post that shows only one route - that to death. More placid is the next song, but just as subtle in the musical detail - "Das Wirtshaus", "The Inn", is a cemetery, which the desperate traveller finds already full. One last effort to be gay appears in the lively "Mut". But attempt instantly collapses into the very depths of German introspection in "Die Nebensonnen" which is outstanding for the simple reason that no one has ever been able to figure out what the poet meant by the words; the best guess is that two of the three suns of which he speaks are the eyes of the traveller's beloved.