''Schwanengesang (
Swan Song
The swan song ( grc, κύκνειον ᾆσμα; la, carmen cygni) is a metaphorical phrase for a final gesture, effort, or performance given just before death or retirement. The phrase refers to an ancient belief that swans sing a beautiful so ...
)'', 957, is a collection of 14 songs written by
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
at the end of his life and published posthumously:
# Liebesbotschaft (text:
Ludwig Rellstab
Heinrich Friedrich Ludwig Rellstab (13 April 179927 November 1860) was a German poet and music critic. He was born and died in Berlin. He was the son of the music publisher and composer Johann Carl Friedrich Rellstab. An able pianist, he publi ...
)
# Kriegers Ahnung (Rellstab)
# Frühlingssehnsucht (Rellstab)
# Ständchen (Rellstab)
# Aufenthalt (Rellstab)
# In der Ferne (Rellstab)
# Abschied (Rellstab)
# Der Atlas (
Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was a German poet, writer and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of '' Lied ...
)
# Ihr Bild (Heine)
# Das Fischermädchen (Heine)
# Die Stadt (Heine)
# Am Meer (Heine)
# Der Doppelgänger (Heine)
# Die Taubenpost (alternative: D 965a) (
Johann Gabriel Seidl
Johann Gabriel Seidl (21 June 1804 – 18 July 1875)
was an Austrian archeologist, poet, storyteller and dramatist. He wrote the lyrics to "Gott erhalte, Gott beschütze unsern Kaiser, unser Land!" This was the 1854 version of the Austrian I ...
)
Background
Named by its first publisher,
Tobias Haslinger
Tobias Haslinger (1 March 1787 - 18 June 1842) was an Austrian composer and music publisher. He published works by composers including, among others, Beethoven, Bendel, Mozart, Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1 ...
, who presumably wished to present it as Schubert's last testament, ''Schwanengesang'' differs from the earlier ''
Die schöne Müllerin
' (,"The Fair Maid of the Mill", Op. 25, D. 795), is a song cycle by Franz Schubert from 1823 based on 20 poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the first of Schubert's two seminal cycles (preceding ''Winterreise'')'','' and a pinnacle of ''Lied'' re ...
'' and ''
Winterreise
''Winterreise'' (, ''Winter Journey'') is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert ( D. 911, published as Op. 89 in 1828), a setting of 24 poems by German poet Wilhelm Müller. It is the second of Schubert's two song cycles on Müller' ...
'' song-cycles by including settings of more than one poet. Seven texts by
Ludwig Rellstab
Heinrich Friedrich Ludwig Rellstab (13 April 179927 November 1860) was a German poet and music critic. He was born and died in Berlin. He was the son of the music publisher and composer Johann Carl Friedrich Rellstab. An able pianist, he publi ...
(1799–1860) are followed by six by
Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was a German poet, writer and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of '' Lied ...
(1797–1856); inclusion of the last song, to words by
Johann Gabriel Seidl
Johann Gabriel Seidl (21 June 1804 – 18 July 1875)
was an Austrian archeologist, poet, storyteller and dramatist. He wrote the lyrics to "Gott erhalte, Gott beschütze unsern Kaiser, unser Land!" This was the 1854 version of the Austrian I ...
(1804–1875), may or may not reflect Schubert's wishes. In any case, all 14 songs were composed in 1828 and the collection was published in 1829, a few months after the composer's death.
Composition and publication
The Rellstab and Heine settings were copied in a single sitting on consecutive pages of the manuscript in Schubert's hand, and Seidl's ''Die Taubenpost'' is considered to be Schubert's last
Lied
In Western classical music tradition, (, plural ; , plural , ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music to create a piece of polyphonic music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German, but among English and French s ...
— thus the basis for Haslinger's sequence, one accepted by posterity together with his conceit that a cycle exists at all. (The true cycles ''Die schöne Müllerin'' and ''Die Winterreise'' had sold well, motivating the publisher.) The title ''Schwanengesang'' is not of course the composer's but all the song titles are; Heine, for one, did not name his poems.
An uncertain cycle
On 2 October 1828, after the manuscript had been written, Schubert offered the Heine set of six songs to a Leipzig publisher by the name of Probst. We can assume, then, that Schubert, at least in the beginning, intended two separate single-poet collections. Furthermore the order of Nos. 8–13, as they appear in the manuscript, differs from that of the poems as Heine published them: 10, 12, 11, 13, 9, 8, which in any case were not consecutive, as the table below shows.
[Heine, Heinrich Buch Der Lieder][Reed, John. ''The Schubert Song Companion''. Mandolin: Manchester, 1997, . pages 259–260] It was customary for Schubert to respect the poet's sequence; the manuscript may not represent Schubert's desired order. The Seidl song, "Die Taubenpost", has no connection to the rest of the cycle and was appended by Haslinger at the end to round up all of Schubert's last compositions.
The songs
The songs of ''Schwanengesang'' as found in Schubert's manuscript:
Another ''Schwanengesang''
Schubert had earlier in his career set to music a single poem titled ''Schwanengesang'', his D 744, by
Johann Senn
Johann Chrysostomus Senn (1 April 1795, Pfunds – 30 September 1857, Innsbruck; pseudonym: ''Bombastus Bebederwa'') was a political lyric poet of the Vormärz.
Life
Johann Senn was the son of the freedom fighter, Franz Michael Senn.
He live ...
.
Liszt transcriptions
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
later transcribed the entire set for solo piano. While staying faithful to Schubert's original, he often changes the piano texture as a way of providing a personal commentary on the text and music. Liszt reordered the songs in the following way: 11, 10, 5, 12, 7, 6, 4, 9, 3, 1, 8, 13, 14 and 2.
See also
*
List of songs by Franz Schubert
The following is a list of the complete secular vocal output composed by Franz Schubert (31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828).
It is divided into eleven sections, and attempts to reflect the most current information with regards to Schubert's c ...
*
List of compositions by Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert (31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828), a Viennese composer of the late Classical period (music), Classical to early Romantic music, Romantic eras, left a very extended body of work notwithstanding his short life. He wrote over 15 ...
References
External links
Comprehensive research website Iain C. Phillips
*
Performance of ''Schwanengesang''by Randall Scarlata (baritone) and Benjamin Hochman (piano) from the
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, which houses significant examples of European, Asian, and American art. Its collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and decorative arts. It was founded ...
in
MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
format
{{Authority control
Lieder composed by Franz Schubert
Compositions by Franz Schubert published posthumously
Musical settings of poems by Heinrich Heine
Song cycles by Franz Schubert
Classical song cycles in German