Frauen-Liebe und Leben


Frauen-Liebe und Leben is a cycle of poems by Adelbert von Chamisso, written in 1830. They describe the course of a woman's love for her man, from her point of view, from first meeting through marriage to his death, and after. Selections were set to music as a song-cycle by masters of German Lied, namely Carl Loewe, Franz Lachner, and Robert Schumann. The setting by Schumann is now the most widely known.

Chamisso's poems

There are nine lyrics in the cycle, to which Chamisso gave the title Frauen-Liebe und Leben. It was first published in 1830, and twice in 1831 in the first editions of his poetry, and of his complete works.
Schumann in his cycle did not set the final stanza of No. 2 with its sudden change of mood. He also left out the last poem, No. 9 'Traum der eignen Tage', which is addressed to the now aged protagonist's granddaughter. Loewe set all nine poems in full, although only the first seven were published together.

Nomenclature

The original published titles of the poem-cycle and the song-cycles are:
The Schumann work has been edited and published several times since 1840, and all the current reliable music publishers still use the original 1840 published title, Frauenliebe und Leben, as do a majority of secondary sources discussing Schumann's song cycle. However, Frauenliebe und -leben has been used in a minority of recently published secondary sources, and also on some LP and CD covers. This latter spelling is a 'correct' style of written German using the ergänzungsstrich, although it does not accurately reflect the work's published title.

Schumann's setting

Schumann composed his setting, Frauenliebe und Leben in 1840, his year of song' in which he wrote numerous lieder and three other complete song cycles: Liederkreis, Op. 24, Liederkreis, Op. 39 and Dichterliebe, Op. 48. There are eight poems in his cycle, together telling a story from the protagonist's first meeting her love, through their marriage, to his death. They are:
  1. 'Seit ich ihn gesehen'
  2. 'Er, der Herrlichste von allen'
  3. 'Ich kann's nicht fassen, nicht glauben'
  4. 'Du Ring an meinem Finger'
  5. 'Helft mir, ihr Schwestern'
  6. 'Süßer Freund, du blickest mich verwundert an'
  7. 'An meinem Herzen, an meiner Brust'
  8. 'Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan'
Schumann's choice of text was very probably inspired in part by events in his personal life. He had been courting Clara Wieck, but had failed to get her father's permission to marry her. In 1840, after a legal battle to make such permission unnecessary, he finally married her.
The songs in this cycle are notable for the fact that the piano has a remarkable independence from the voice. Breaking away from the Schubertian ideal, Schumann has the piano contain the mood of the song in its totality. Another notable characteristic is the cycle's circular structure, in which the last movement repeats the theme of the first.
The composer's initial MS sketches, dated 11 July 1840, are still extant. They mostly outline the voice part on single staves, with just a few bars of piano postlude at the very end of No. 8.

Recordings

There have been many recordings of Schumann's setting.
Possibly the first was that of
During the 1930s the principal versions were those of
Recordings by
are noticed in 1951.
These recordings are listed on CD in 1996:
's Frauenliebe, for mezzo-soprano and piano, was published as his opus 60 in 1836. He called it a Liederkranz, rather than a Liederkreis.
Although Loewe set all nine of Chamisso's poems in September 1836, only the first seven were published together during his lifetime. No. 9, 'Traum der eignen Tage', was published separately in 1869, and No. 8 remained in MS until 1904 when it was included in the Breitkopf & Härtel complete edition of his works.

Recordings

made a setting entitled Frauenliebe und -leben for soprano, horn and piano as his Op. 59 ; he made another arrangement for soprano, clarinet and piano, published in 1847 as his Op. 82.
Like Schubert's Auf dem Strom, D. 943, it is part of the small repertoire of solo vocal music ensemble with horn. Lachner's youngest brother, Vincenz Lachner, wrote a song 'Waldhornruf' for tenor, horn and piano.

Recordings