Uralte Wasser : Gesang Weylas Hugo Wolf

Du bist Orplid, mein Land!
Das ferne leuchtet;
Vom Meere dampfet dein besonnter Strand<
Den Nebel, so der Götter Wange feuchtet. Uralte Wasser steigen
Verjüngt um deine Hüften, Kind!
Vor deiner Gottheit beugen
Sich Könige, die deine Wärter sind 

You are Orplid, my land ! Shining in the distance, from the ocean rises your sunlit shores,  mists refreshing the cheeks of the Gods.  Primeval waters rise, rejuvenating around your hips, Child ! Before your Divinity kneel kings, who are your Guard of Honour. 

Gesang Weylas, Eduard Mörike (1804-1875).  In his student days, Mörike and his friends created visions of Orplid, a fantasy island in the South Pacific, rising from the ocean, shrouded in mists, which deposit life-giving moisture. A metaphor for creative renewal.  The island's remoteness is symbolic, too, for it exists in the imagination, its culture and history artistic invention. What little we know about it comes from fragments Mörike later used in his novel Maler Noten, started in 1830, published but never complete, continuing to inspire the poet to the end of his life.  Boxes within boxes. The Orplid themes occur in a play enacted by Noten the Painter and his friends, some of whom aren't true friends at all.  The novel deals with dreams, art, wandering, sexuality and betrayal. Everyone ends up mad and/or dead.  These themes connect to real events in Mörike's life. As a young man, he met a mysterious woman, whom he called Peregrina (a name which means wandering).  Possibly she was a gypsy, and seems also to have had some kind of religious mania.  She disappeared, leaving Mörike enthralled in abject fascination.  Thus the connections with Maler Noten where Noten is haunted by a mysterious curse : love and art, mixed with danger and delusion.

The introduction to Hugo Wolf's Gesang Weylas (1888) replicates the sounds of a harp,, an illusion to Classical Antiquity where gods moved among mortals in pristine landscapes.   The mood is noble : the voice rises on the word "land"as if a halo were glowing round it. Depth  and richness in the word "Uralte", the emphasis on "Ur", so ancient it's before recorded Time.  But emphasis on "Wasser" too, the life-giving force that continues, eternally.  "Uralte Wasser steigen". Three words in the phrases, each one significant, marked carefully.  The last king of Orplid is dead, bu the goddess Weyla, is eternal.  Even kings must kneel before "Deiner Gottheit" for Orplid, land and/or conceptual vision is greatest of all. 

Eduard Mörike - Karwoche

Eduard Mörike Karwoche (Holy Week)

O Woche, Zeugin heiliger Beschwerde!

Du stimmst so ernst zu dieser Frühlingswonne, 

Du breitest im verjüngten Strahl der Sonne

Des Kreuzes Schatten auf die lichte Erde, 

Und senkest schweigend deine Flöre nieder; 

Der Frühling darf indessen immer keimen, 

Das Veilchen duftet unter Blütenbäumen

Und alle Vöglein singen Jubellieder. 

O schweigt, ihr Vöglein auf den grünen Auen! 

Es hallen rings die dumpfen Glockenklänge, 

Die Engel singen leise Grabgesänge; 

O still, ihr Vöglein hoch im Himmelblauen! 

Ihr Veilchen, kränzt heut keine Lockenhaare!

Euch pflückt mein frommes Kind zum dunkeln Strauße, 

Ihr wandert mit zum Muttergotteshause,

Da sollt ihr welken auf des Herrn Altare. 

Ach dort, von Trauermelodieen trunken, 

Und süß betäubt von schweren Weihrauchdüften,

Sucht sie den Bräutigam in Todesgrüften, 

Und Lieb' und Frühling, alles ist versunken!

O week ! Witness of the Passion of Christ, you seem so grim in joyful Springtime. The sun's rays awaken new growth, but you cast the shadow of the Cross over the earth as it warms. 

You cast a silent shroud while Spring renews life all round.  Sweet violets waft their scent under trees laden with blossom, while birds sing songs of jubilation.    

Be still, you birds of the verdant meadow. Heed the muffled church bells ring. Angels are singing songs of mourning  Be still, you birds in the blue heavens ! 

Violets, don't display your lovely looks, or pious children will pick you for sorrowful wreaths.  You'll then be brought to the house of the Mother of God, and wither on the altar of the Lord.  

And there, intoxicated with tearful melodies, and suffocated by the heavy perfume of incense, you will seek your bridegroom in the vaults of the tomb. Life, and Spring , all forsaken !

Auf eine Christblume Real life Eduard Mörike Magic

Auf eine Christblume : a poem by Eduard Mörike , set by Hugo Wolf at Percholdtsdorf in April 1888, encapsulates so much of the spirit of Mörike  that it's worth deep contemplation.  One evening in October 1841, Mörike  came across a rare bloom in a wintry graveyard, shining white and glorious in the gloom.  It was all the more miraculous to him because he had never seen such a flower before, especially in such a grim setting.  Being of an erudite bent like his friend the doctor/poet Justinius Kerner, he rushed home to check his botanical treatises and find out what the bloom was.  It was Helleborus Niger, the Christmas Rose, a flower of deep woods, rarely known in cultivation at the time. Here it was flowering out of season and out of context.  Mörike  put it in a glass just outside the window for he felt it needed to breathe out in the moonlight and in the free, open air.

 Next morning he found that the wind had ravaged it and it was no more than a lieblisches Geist ( a lovely ghost)..The poem grows out of the botanical journal, referring to the plant's natural habitat hidden deep in the woods, and commenting on the wonder of finding it in a windswept cemetery.  It is lily-like and exotic, yet hardy enough to brave the grim winter barrenness. Then Mörike's characteristic curiosity - whose grave was it growing on? how was it planted? He then connects the mystery of finding the flower with the wider realms of magic and wonder. Deep in the woods he finds the image of the crystal-clear pool, a "Heimat zaubbereich" ( epicentre of magic). This "Kind des Mondes, nicht der Sonne", so unlike other ordinary plants; is ephemeral and spreads its invisble magic by a heavenly scent which seems to emanate from no less than the robes of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mörike was a Lutheran pastor but he was known for his heterodox tolerance and married a Catholic.  Many of his poems show a fascination with the Virgin Mary, not necessarily in a purely theological context, as here where there's a strange juxtaposition of conventional piety  and pagan earth magic.

Mörike  enters a secret spirit world of elves and mystery. An elf, on his way to a wild midnight party, gazes in wonder at the glory of the mystical flower.  Then the poet makes another leap into transcendence. Now we are with the butterfly, another ephemeral being, hibernating in winter, waiting for spring, emerging from its chrysalis and flying bravely into the sun. It may never taste the wonder of the Christblumes's nectar, for by then the fragile flower will be no more.  Or will it? As Mörike says: Wer aber weiss? Perhaps, when the gaudy joys of summer are gone, and the butterfly too becomes a ghost, it might be drawn, in spirit, by the magical scent of the flower. This for me is a truly cosmic metaphor. A long ago commentator, von Weise, in his interpretation of this poem, says the mystery of all being is revealed in the image of this flower

As is typical of Mörike, there are metaphysical aspects to the poem. The flower emerges in the depths of winter, against all odds, braving darkness and freezing temperatures. The flower Mörike found was in an old graveyard, a cemetery so neglected that he couldn't figure out whose grave it was growing from. As a poet, he assumed that the grave may have been that of a young man or maiden,who died before their time, becoming immortalized, symbolically, in a fragile flower. In a sense that's a metaphor for all human life: a cycle of regeneration that never ends. 

I originally wrote this piece nearly twenty years ago. Amazingly, it's lasted fine. I was then working on ancient archives in a very hot part of South China,  Exhausted, and with no music or poetry around me, I unexpectedly came across an early edition of Mörike's poems!  It was like a sudden flash of magic, so uncanny that it took me a while to realize it wasn't a dream.  Opening the book to the page with Auf eine Christblume with its crisp, frosty imagery was like a sudden, sharp shock. In steamy, subtropical South China no Christblume will ever grow, though we have frangipani instead, and other exotics like Michaelia Alba (pikake)  whose  minute, unseen  flowers  fill the air with heady perfume,. So much like the mystery of the Christblume.  Pondering on the last two stanzas, I reflected on the mystery of how things which don't seem to have anything in common can find a correspondence, even if its on another plane than surface reality.  Good old Mörike! Magic does happen.

Hugo Wolf Wigmore Hall Kirchschlager Henschel Drake

Julius Drake's latest Hugo Wolf Songbooks recital at the Wigmore Hall featured Angelika Kirchschlager and Dietrich Henschel. These singers have very different voices indeed, so Drake's programme made the most of the contrast.

 The logic behind the song selections revealed itself as the recital progressed, but the evening started with five Mörike songs which Kirchschlager sings so well. Her distinctive, warm timbre adds depth to Wolf's songs, bringing out the sensuality fundamental to their interpretation.  When Kirchschlager sings Wolf, there's nothing precious or effete, even when, as in Erstes Liebeslied eines Mädchen, the girl is so young that she cries "Grief ich eine Schlange" while less innocent ears know what she's really snared in her net. Kirchschlager's forte is natural graciousness.  She's ideal in Wolf because she's subtle, capturing the delicate charm beneath which Mörike shields dangerous thoughts. In Das verlassene Mägdlein, Wolf writes turbulence into the piano part, expressing the emotional tempest the servant girl feels even though she's attending dutifully to her job.  On this occasion, Kirchschlager was singing into words, as if the songs were a vehicle for hochdramatischer grand opera. She's good enough that she was still enjoyable, but it's not her usual style, nor one particularly suited to these songs.

Perhaps this concert was an experiment in turning Wolf's songs into theatre.  It's perfectly reasonable to group Wolf's settings of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister poems into a kind of narrative. The saga is so well known that most listeners understand where the songs belong. Kirchschlager, Henschel and Drake presented the three Harfenlieder songs (plus Spottlied)  with the three Mignon songs, and Philine and Kennst du Das Land.  

This was a welcome chance to enter into the world of the strange old harper and Mignon. Mignon is very young, but has a horrible backstory of abuse.  Kennst du das Land is one of the most beautiful songs ever written, but part of its impact comes from the intense emotions it evokes, emotions almost too extreme to be expressed by a child. Sorrow is central to her personality. "Nun wer die Sensucht kennt, weiss, was ich leide!". The rcihness of Kirchschlager's voice suggests that there are mysteries to Mignon's personality which we may never know. When she sings the downward phrases at the end of Mignon 1 ("und nur ein Gott"), her voices seems to swoon. Julius Drake shows how the phrase is replicated in the piano part, the piano reinforcing what Mignon cannot tell. 

In some repertoire, a voice like Dietrich Henschel's is an advantage. Recently he sang Bernd Alois Zimmermann's  Ich wandte mich um und sah an alles Unrecht (Ecclesiastical Action) for Vladimir Jurowski at the Royal Festival Hall (read review here) where the harsh, apocalyptic subject requires a singer who can sing forcefully, often in tricky, disjointed phrases. Henschel sang that well, but singing Wolf is a different prospect.. Henschel was acceptable in the Harfenspieler songs, because  Goethe deliberately contrasts the ravaged Harper with the angelic Mignon.  In the earlier part of the recital, with other Goethe settings, like Prometheus and Grenzen der Menscheit his singing as marred by excessively wide dynamics. Phrases were pulled out of shape, harsh vibrato overcompensating for dry tone.  It didn't help that Julius Drake pounded ferociously.  He's one of the best pianists for song but here gave his singer no quarter. Henschel's good enough to know when things aren't going well for whatever reason. When Kirchschalger finished singing Philine, Henschel remarked on the final lines "Jeder Tag hat  seine Plage, und die Nacht  hat ihre Lust". Everyone has bad days sometimes. He then approached Spottlied with gruff good humour, defusing some of the bitter envy in the text, which is a perfectly valid interpretation. 
 
Hugo Wolf been called the "Wagner of the Lied" but this refers to the way he rethought the relationship between poetry and song. Indeed, Wolf's sensitivity to miniature nuances precludes Wagnerian treatment. While it was good to hear the Wilhelm Meister songs together, they aren't music theatre but songs to be sung as lyrically as is reasonable.  The encore was Leopold Lenz (1803-62) Nun wer die Sensucht kennt., for two voices and piano.