How to Set a Poem to Music: The Rosetta Stone-Part 3

DAILY DOSE of BEETHOVEN (August 20, 2020)

We have discovered amazing similarities in the way that Schubert and Beethoven approached Goethe's poem, which yet differ from standard iambic pentameter. Let us introduce a third composer, Robert Schumann. His setting is in a minor key. Surely it will break the mold!

https://youtu.be/JvMEckjuAYQ

It begins with a piano introduction: already different. However, at the third line, "Ein sanfter Wind", we have a key change, and the 3/8 time is expressed in three triplets of 16th notes. "Kennst du es Wohl" is drawn out by repeating it. he also is realizing the score within the poem!

All of this is too much to be mere coincidence. Great poems are musical, and each poem has an embedded score. That doesn't mean there is only one way to realize it. It does mean that great composers will hit upon commonalities that are determined by the poem.

1. Vowel values. All three composers identify the "Ro" of Citronen as a high point. Even if it isn't the highest note in the phrase, it is emphasized!

2. The metrical values are astoundingly similar! Instead of relentless iambic pentameter, they all choose an almost identical meter.

_ u u _ u u u _ u _
Kensst du das Land, wo die Ci tro- nen bluh'n?

Was that based on reciting the poem, or singing it? There is a lot of work to be done, and we suggest a mixture of both, but it is beautiful.

ROMANTIC COMPOSERS

We conclude this 3-part series by presenting you with 3 "Romantic" era versions for comparison. We will not comment, but leave it up to you to comment, on the relative merits, or lack thereof!

1. Liszt
https://youtu.be/bPl2t71cpIM?list=RDbPl2t71cpIM

2. Hugo Wolff
https://youtu.be/ZMe22tHvG4c

3. Tchaikovsky
https://youtu.be/xCHWm8J08Rg