Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian
composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras.
Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast
oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works
(mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of
piano and chamber music. His major works include the
art song "Erlkönig", the Piano Trout Quintet in A
major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the
"Great" Symphony No. 9 in ...(+)
Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian
composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras.
Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast
oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works
(mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of
piano and chamber music. His major works include the
art song "Erlkönig", the Piano Trout Quintet in A
major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the
"Great" Symphony No. 9 in C major, a String Quintet,
the three last piano sonatas, the opera Fierrabras, the
incidental music to the play Rosamunde, and the song
cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise. He was
remarkably prolific, writing over 1,500 works in his
short career. His compositional style progressed
rapidly throughout his short life. The largest number
of his compositions are songs for solo voice and piano
(roughly 630).
No matter how many times one hears this song, it always
comes as a surprise. It seems astoundingly modern,
prophesying the Wagner of Tristan und Isolde, or
perhaps French impressionism (which was the impression
of Alfred Einstein). The opening ‘ambiguous
elevenths’ remind Richard Capell of Herr, was trägt
der Boden hier from Hugo Wolf’s Spanisches
Liederbuch. Verbal imagery of scarcely moving breezes
(‘Nicht ein Lüftchen regt sich leise’) inspired
Richard Strauss to similar chromatic chords phrased in
pairs in Ruhe meine Seele, another C major song which
begins far away from its home tonality. Not for the
first time in the Rückert settings, as well as the
Goethe songs from the West-Östlicher Divan, the
oriental background encourages Schubert to experiment
with something new and exotic. Completely different
from the construction of the other Rückert settings on
this disc, Dass sie hier gewesen! is also unlike any
other Schubert work. There are longer songs containing
seemingly improvised recitatives and similar snatches
of arioso—fragments of melody that do not quite
flower into a full-blown melody, but there has been
nothing so exquisitely proportioned as this, a
seemingly loose, even avant-garde, structure exactly
attuned to the structure and meaning of a tiny
poem.
To put this poem to music, Schubert starts in harmonic
mid-air with diminished sevenths decorated with
accented passing-notes. In these, the emotions of
sexual longing are squeezed and pressed like perfume
atomizers. The chords are phrased away in the same
delicate, sighing-swooning way that we have encountered
in Geheimes (there the crotchet+quaver figure rises
toward the quaver rest; here it falls). It is clear
that Schubert has imagined the wind as coming from the
East, as much as simply from the east: this is no merry
sea breeze but something heavy with the fragrance of
‘östliche Rosen’. The opening vocal phrase
(‘Dass der Ostwind’) contains an exotic diminished
interval—C sharp-F; this falls to E and, after a gap
of a quaver rest, to D and C sharp on ‘Düfte’. We
thus have a fragmented melody, a tentative tune spiced
with a flavour of the orient. The phrase ‘hauchet in
die Lüfte’ (where the first syllable is elongated by
the exhalation of the singer’s breath) is doubled in
both hands of the accompaniment. The music feels its
way as if depicting the blind, the awe-struck, those
who are emotionally isolated or in the deepest thought.
The straining eye or ear are relatively common in
lieder, but here, uniquely in song, we have the
quivering nostril. At ‘dadurch tut er kund’ the
haze of harmony turning around on itself and stopping
the music in its tracks seems confused, the lack of
harmonic orientation a metaphor for something in the
air, something not yet identified. The halting gait of
the word-setting depicts the effort involved in
identifying the intruder. And suddenly, oh sweet
delight, the scents make sense
Source:
Hyperion(https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dw.asp?dc=W
1742_GBAJY0003505)
Although originally composed for Voice & Piano, I
created this Interpretation of "Daß sie hier gewesen"
(That the east wind breathes scents D.775 Op. 59 No. 2)
for Flute & Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
