SubmittedFriday, 03 May 2019
Wolf’s genius here approached a classic clearness of form
The Italienisches-Liederbuch (1890-96) is quite different. The character of the songs is very restrained, and Wolf’s genius here approached a classic clearness of form. He was always seeking to simplify his musical language, and said that if he wrote anything more, he wished it to be like Mozart’s writings. These Lieder contain nothing that is not absolutely essential to their subject; so the melodies are very short, and are dramatic rather than lyrical. Wolf gave them an important place in his work: «I consider them,» he wrote to Kaufmann, «the most original and perfect of my compositions.»
As for the Michelangelo Gedichten (1897), they were interrupted by the outbreak of his malady, and he had only time to write four, of which he suppressed one. Their associations are pathetic when one remembers the tragic time at which they were composed; and, by a sort of prophetic instinct, they exhale heaviness of spirit and mournful pride. The second melody is perhaps more beautiful than anything else Wolf wrote; it is truly his death-song:
Alles endet, was entstehet. Alles, alles rings vergehet.[190]
And it is a dead man that sings:
Menschen waren wir ja auch, Froh und traurig, so wie Ihr. Und nun sind wir leblos hier, Sind nur Erde, wie Ihr sehet.[191]
At the moment he was writing this song, in the short respite he had from his illness, he himself was nearly a dead man.
[Footnote 190:
All that is begun must end, All around will sometime perish.
[Footnote 191:
Once we were also men Happy or sad like you; Now life is taken from us, We are only of earth, as you see.
Chiunque nasce a morte arriva Nel fuggir del tempo, e’l sole Niuna cosa lascia viva…. Come voi, uomini fummo, Lieti e tristi, come siete; E or siam, come vedete, Terra al sol, di vita priva.
(Poems of Michelangelo, CXXXVI.)
this was: Wolf’s Genius Here Approached A Classic Clearness Of Form
go to next chapter: his genius was recognised
