Brahms's Magelone Romanzen and The Romantic Imperative

Brahms's Magelone Romanzen and the "Romantic Imperative"
Author(s): John Daverio

Source: The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Summer, 1989), pp. 343-365
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/763605
Accessed: 06-06-2020 20:16 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to The Journal of Musicology
This content downloaded from 134.84.192.103 on Sat, 06 Jun 2020 20:16:05 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Brahms's Magelone
Romanzen and the
"Romantic Imperative"
JOHN DAVERIO
B rahms's Opus 33 Magelone Romanzen, com-

posed between 1861 and 1869, occupy a most unusual position within
his corpus of works. So far as the music is concerned, there is a
marked departure from the idealized Volkslied style to which Brahms
aspired in most of his songs. And while most song cycle texts are
usually assembled from a pre-existent lyric cycle (e.g., Schubert's Die 343
Schine Miillerin), from a single poet's output (e.g., Schumann's Opus
24 Heine settings), or from unrelated poems fashioned into a narra-
tive or associative sequence by the composer himself, here Brahms
chose to set the interpolated verse in an old Volksmdrchen elaborated in
the form of the contemporary Kunstmdrchen, Ludwig Tieck's Wunder-
same Liebesgeschichte der schinen Magelone und des Grafen Peter aus der
Provence.l The idea of setting interpolated lyrics to music was not a
new one, witness the numerous settings of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister
poetry. But Goethe's verses are integral only to limited portions of his
Bildungsroman; in Tieck's Magelone, a lyric poem of large dimensions
is a regular feature in each of the Mdrchen's eighteen brief chapters.
Volume VII * Number 3 * Summer 1989

The Journal of Musicology ? 1989 by the Regents of the University of California
1 Tieck's Magelone originally appeared in his Volksmdrchen herausgegeben von Peter

Leberecht (1797) and was later incorporated into Phantasus, eine Sammlung von Mdrchen,
Erzdhlungen, Schauspielen, und Novellen (1812-1816). Brahms, who set all but the first,
sixteenth, and seventeenth of Tieck's verses, apparently drew on the Phantasus version.
See Max Friedlaender, Brahms's Lieder, trans. C. L. Leese (London, 1928), p. 40.
On the difference between Volksmdrchen and Kunstmdrchen, see Jack Zipes,
"Breaking the Magic Spell: Politics and the Fairy Tale," New German Critique VI (1975),
119-23; and on the position of Tieck's Magelone between the two, Edwin H. Zeydel,
Ludwig Tieck, the German Romanticist (Princeton, 1935), p. 92.
THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY
Critical assessments of the Magelone Romanzen have been mi

Most commentators agree that the settings represent an interes
but somewhat unsatisfying experiment inspired by Brahms's you
fling with literary Romanticism, and that they are in general less
cessful than the more tightly wrought Platen and Daumer s
Opus 32, of 1864. Indeed, Brahms has been faulted for his attem
exceeding the limits of the traditional Romantic Lied, for approac
Tieck's verses as operatic texts, and thus fashioning works
sprawling and undisciplined, closer in form to loosely constr
arias than Lieder.2 One study has even suggested that the except
size of the Romanzen can only be assessed in the light of the comp
identification with the hero of the tale.3
Yet no one has seriously asked the question which is crucial to an
understanding of the Magelone set; simply put: what in fact is it?
Brahms's title, "Romanzen aus L. Tiecks Magelone," in no way sug-
gests a work of such singularity and scope.4 The question of genre, in
other words, remains to be addressed, and deserves our attention for
more than taxonomic purposes. As Northrop Frye has put it, "The
purpose of criticism by genres is not so much to classify as to clarify
344 ... traditions and affinities, thereby bringing out a large number of
... relationships that would not be noticed as long as there were no
context established for them."5 Genre criticism, especially when ap-
plied to a work that intentionally blends a number of generic sources,
allows us to separate those various strands that contribute to the
work's richness, and to identify more exactly the dialectic between
traditional type and individual creation. While we would not think of
viewing the Magelone Romanzen by the standards of nineteenth-
century opera, it would seem just as wanting to see them in terms of
the song cycle tradition alone.
This essay attempts to elucidate Brahms's conception by defining
it as a musical reaction or analogue to the literary form of Tieck's
Magelone, not merely the interpolated verses, but the whole of it. To
that end, I will draw on pertinent aspects of early nineteenth-century
literary theory that might well be applied to music, in particular the
2 See Leon Plantinga, Romantic Music (New York, 1985), p. 431; Michael Mus-
grave, The Music of Brahms (London, 1985), p. 38; Jack M. Stein, Poem and Music in the
German Liedfrom Gluck to Hugo Wolf (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 139-41; Eric Sams, "Lied,
IV: The Romantic Lied," in The New Grove, ed. Stanley Sadie, Vol. lo (London, 1980),
p. 843; and Eric Sams, Brahms Songs (Seattle, 1972), p. 25.
3 Thomas Boyer, "Brahms as Count Peter of Provence: a Psychosexual Interpre-
tation of the Magelone Poetry," Musical Quarterly LXVI (1980), 269ff.
4 Romanze was Brahms's term, not Tieck's. It occurs again only in the titles of
Opus 14 and Opus 84, works that are stylistically removed from the Magelone settings.
Thus, it is difficult to say if Brahms attached any special significance to the term.
5 Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton, 1957), pp. 247-48.
BRAHM'S MAGELONE ROMANZEN
genre theories of Friedrich Schlegel, intellectual father of German

Romanticism. Just as Tieck's Mdrchen lies midway between the lyr
cycle and the Roman, or novel, so Brahms's musical setting combin
elements of the traditional song cycle (a group of musical lyrics), an
the Romantische Oper (the musical equivalent of the Roman).
It is more than likely that Brahms would have objected to th
formulation. Both in his letters and comments to friends, he ex-
pressed contradictory views on the unity of the cycle and its relation-
ship to Tieck's Mdrchen. Alwin Beckerath, in a letter to Max Kalbeck
(December 1903), reported Brahms's reaction to a performance of
the complete cycle by Frau Joachim and her daughter Josepha: "He
was, in general, opposed to the performance of all the songs as a
cycle."6 In a letter to Adolf Schubring (March 1870), Brahms main-
tained that "One should not think of the Magelone Romanzen as a
totality. ... It is only because of a certain Germanic thoroughness that
I set the poems up through the last one."7 Writing to his publisher
Rieter (November 1875), Brahms further maintained that his Ma-
gelone "... has absolutely nothing to do with the Phantasus and the
Liebesgeschichte vom Peter. Really, I have merely set the words to music,
and no one should be concerned over the landscape ... or anything 345
else."8 And on Otto Schlotke's "verbindenden Text" (a connecting
narrative written to place the lyrics within the context of the plot),
Brahms vehemently proclaimed to Rieter in a letter of 14 September
1875: "But it has nothing to do with my songs, just as little as the
whole Rittergeschichte. Don't let it be printed!!!"' Yet less than a month
later, Brahms related the following to Rieter regarding the trans-
posed versions of the songs: "Nr. 11 of the Magelone songs will nat-
urally be transposed up for soprano! All the others transposed
down."'o In the context of Tieck's narrative, the eleventh song, "Wie
schnell verschwindet," is a lament sung by Magelone after her sepa-
ration from Peter. If the Rittergeschichte really did count for so little,
why did Brahms insist on a version for soprano? Likewise, Max Fried-
laender reported that after hearing a performance of the cycle with
"verbindenden Text" in Berlin during the winter of 1886, Brahms
was dissatisfied with this "poor and shortened version of the text." He
would rather have introduced a "few words on the poems," in a new
edition "to convey to the singer and player something of the mood in
6 Max Kalbeck, Johannes Brahms, I (Berlin, 1921), p. 428; but even Julius Stock-
hausen, to whom the songs were dedicated, performed them as a cycle; see Kalbeck,
Brahms, I, p. 429. All translations are mine unless noted otherwise.
7 Johannes Brahms, Briefwechsel VIII (Berlin, 1915), p. 219.
8 Brahms, Briefwechsel XIV (Berlin, 1920), p. 256.
9 Brahms, Briefwechsel XIV, p. 250.
10 Brahms, Briefwechsel XIV, p. 253.
which he himself had composed the songs."ll Most telling of all, h

ever, is Brahms's remark to Kalbeck, "Aren't the Magelone Roman
after all, a kind of theatre?"12
These contradictory claims are of interest insofar as they rev
Brahms's ambivalence toward himself and his work. They sh
remind us that allowances must be made for contradictions in
appraisal of Brahms's compositions. After all, Schoenberg's Brahm
was only a "Progressive" by virtue of his special link with tradit
and Siegfried Kross's Brahms is but an "unromantischer
Romantiker."'3 Both characterizations point to "Brahms the Paradox-
ical," a composer who, on one hand was well acquainted with the
literary works of the early nineteenth-century Romantics-Novalis,
Tieck, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Jean Paul, Arnim-a fact to which his
library attests,'4 but who, on the other, maintained an almost obses-
sive devotion to the music of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven,
and clearly drew away from making public any presumed links be-
tween his music and the currents of literary Romanticism. On several
occasions he went so far as to obliterate evidence that would establish
such links.l5 But the paradox should not obscure the fact, for which
346 ample evidence is supplied by the music itself, that Brahms's Magelone
is indeed a dramatic unity, neither song cycle nor opera, but rather a
musical representation of Tieck's Mirchen. Brahms was merely obey-
ing the law which Friedrich Schlegel, in one of his many variations on
notions originating with Kant, formulated in a notebook fragment of
1797: "The romantic imperative demands the mixture of all poetic
types."'6
" Friedlaender, Brahms's Lieder, p. 40.

12 Kalbeck, Brahms I, p. 429.
'3 Arnold Schoenberg, "Brahms the Progressive," in Style and Idea, ed. Leonard
Stein (New York, 1975), pp. 398-441; Siegfried Kross, "Brahms-der unromantische
Romantiker," Brahms Studien I (Hamburg, 1974), pp. 25-45.
14 Kurt Hofman, Die Bibliothek von Johannes Brahms (Hamburg, 1974), passim.
That Brahms was well-acquainted with German folk tales, of which Magelone was one
of the most enduringly popular, is confirmed by his large collection of Volksbiicher
(Hofman, pp. 119-23). See also Boyer, "Brahms as Count Peter," pp. 267-68; and
Michael Musgrave, "The cultural world of Brahms," in Brahms: biographical, documentary
and analytical studies, ed. R. Pascal (London, 1983), pp. 2-7.
15 See Siegfried Kross, "Brahms and E. T. A. Hoffman," 19th-Century Music V
(1982), 193. Kross shows that the autographs of the Opus 1 and Opus 5 Piano Sonatas,
the Rondo after Weber, the Opus 8 Piano Trio, and the Opus 9 Piano Variations all
have indications (in the form of signatures or initials) pointing to Brahms's youthful
identification with E. T. A. Hoffmann's Kapellmeister Kreisler. None of the indications
made their way into the published versions of these works.
16 Friedrich Schlegel, Fragmente zur Litteratur und Poesie (1797), Fragment 586, in
Kritische Friedrich Schlegel Ausgabe [hereafter KFSA] XVI, hrsg. Hans Eichner,
(Mtinchen, 1981), p. 134.
II
In accordance with the analogical procedure that I
have suggested, we should begin with an account of the position of the
Mdrchen within the framework of early Romantic literature. The crit-
ics of the period recognized a hierarchy of genres, proceeding from
what Schlegel called "fundamental forms" such as the folk tale, idyll,
or lyric,'7 upwards toward the Roman, the ideal to which all of the
other genres aspired, the genre that would occupy a place in modern
literature comparable to that of the epic in ancient poetry. In the
aesthetic theory of poetry that Schlegel envisioned, "A philosophy of
the Roman . . . would be the cornerstone."18 It was his hope that the
Roman would surpass the limits of genre altogether by combining
epic, dramatic, and lyric qualities, thus emerging as a vast compen-
dium or Mischgedicht, a modern equivalent of the Bible. Although this
notion was echoed by Novalis and August Wilhelm Schlegel,s' it was
almost passionately developed by Friedrich Schlegel in numerous
notebook fragments of 1797, in his statement of the aims of "Univer-
salpoesie" in Athendum Fragment 116, and in the "Brief fiber den
Roman" from his "Gesprach fiber die Poesie" (1799).20 Much of what
he had to say there on the Roman as the ultimate mixed-genre work, 347
as Absolute Book, is neatly summarized in "Die Spanisch-
Portugiesische Literatur," from the Paris Lectures of 1803/04: "The
concept of the Roman, as established by Boccaccio and Cervantes, is
that of a romantic book, a romantic composition, in which all forms
and genres are blended and inextricably intertwined.... It contains
historical and rhetorical portions, and dialogues; all of these styles are
bound together and interwoven in the most ingenious and artful
fashion. Poetic types of every kind-lyric, epic, sentimental, didactic-
permeate the whole, and adorn it with luxuriant abundance and di-
versity in the richest and most brilliant manner. The Roman is a Poem
of Poems, a whole web of poems."21
17 Friedrich Schlegel, "Brief iiber den Roman" (1799), KFSA II, hrsg. Hans Eich-
ner (Miinchen, 1967), p. 337.
18 Athendum Fragmente (1797/98), Fragment 252, KFSA II, p. 208.
19 See Novalis, Das Allgemeine Brouillon (1798/99), Fragment 169, in Schriften III,
hrsg. R. Samuel (Stuttgart, 1968), p. 271; and August Wilhelm von Schlegel, Vorlesun-
gen iiber dramatische Kunst und Litteratur (1808), No. 25, in Sdmmtliche Werke VI, hrsg. E.
Bocking (Leipzig, 1846), p. 161; also Ralph W. Ewton, The Literary Theories of August
Wilhelm Schlegel (The Hague, Paris, 1972), pp. 104-06.
20 On the Roman as Mischgedicht, see Schlegel's Fragmente zur Litteratur und Poesie,
Fragments 4, 20, 69, 341, 831, KFSA XVI, pp. 85, 87, 91, 113, 156; also KFSA II, pp.
182, 336; and the commentary in Eric Blackall, The Novels of the German Romantics
(Ithaca, 1983), p. 24.
21 KFSA XI, hrsg. Ernst Behler (Miinchen, 1958), p. 106.
Schlegel was not merely rattling off a litany of high-flow

impracticable ideals; on the contrary, the tendency toward ge
mixture, even fusion, is much in evidence in the literature of the
period. Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, Tieck's William Lovell and Franz
Sternbalds Wanderungen, and E. T. A. Hoffmann's Kater Murr all mix
prose and lyric verse; Novalis's uncompleted Heinrich von Ofterdingen,
much of which is cast as a kind of prose poem, incorporates several
Mdrchen into the main narrative, and Schlegel's own fragmentary Ro-
man, Lucinde, brings together letters, allegory, rhetorical excursus,
and conventional narrative.22
Between the massive, combinative form of the Roman and the
fundamental forms lies the Mdrchen, or more properly, the Kunst-
mdrchen, which although more limited in scope than the Roman,
tended toward its ideal nonetheless. Novalis saw it as "the canon of
poetry,"23 a position that was realized in his Heinrich von Ofterdingen.
Heinrich's query, "What is poetry?" is answered in the form of two
Mdrchen, while Klingsohr's Mdrchen, surely one of the most richly
textured in all of early Romantic literature, functions as the transition
between the first two parts of the Roman.24 Novalis himself made
348 mention of the special role of the Mdrchen in Heinrich in a letter of 5
April 1800 to Friedrich Schlegel: "It would please me if you felt that
Roman and Mdrchen had attained a happy mixture, and that Part I
foreshadowed the still more intimate mixture of Part II. The Roman
should be gradually transformed into a Mdrchen."25
Quite apart from the role that it might play in enriching the
narrative texture of the Roman, the Mdrchen itself was often conceived
as a Mischgedicht; it too obeyed the romantic imperative.26 The blend-
ing of narrative and lyric verse in Tieck's Der Runenberg and Magelone,
Eichendorff's Das Marmorbild, or Klingsohr's Mirchen from Novalis's
Heinrich, stamps them each as a Roman in miniature. The combinative
possibilities of the Mdrchen were extolled by Tieck in his Phantasus,
interestingly enough in the Rahmengesprdch that follows the Magelone
tale. Lothar, one of the seven interlocutors, comments on Lope de
Vega's reworking of the Magelone story as Die Drei Diamanten, but
22 On the form of Lucinde, see Blackall, Novels of the German Romantics, pp. 39-40.
23 Novalis, Schriften III, p. 449 (Fragment 940 from Das Allgemeine Brouillon); also,
James Trainer, "The Marchen," in The Romantic Period in Germany, ed. Siegbert Prawer
(New York, 1970), p. o06.
24 For an account of the role of the Mdrchen in Novalis's Heinrich, see Blackall,
Novels of the German Romantics, pp. 121-27. The Marchen is also drawn into the nar-
rative fabric of Tieck's Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen, a feature that elicited a positive
response from Friedrich Schlegel in Athendum Fragment 418 (KFSA II, p. 245).
25 Novalis, Schriften IV, hrsg. R. Samuel (Stuttgart, 1975), p. 330.
26 On the Marchen as a mixed-genre work, see Schlegel, Fragmente zur Litteratur
und Poesie, Fragments 960, 1241, KFSA XVI, pp. 165-66, 188.
questions the suitability of the tale for dramatic presentation: "The

legend strikes me as completely undramatic."27 Whereupon Loth
retorts: ". . . but without a doubt we must allow for a type of poetry
which even the best theatre could not use, but rather one which con-
structs a stage for the imagination within the imagination; it seeks ou
works that might be at once lyric, epic, and dramatic, works that attain
a scope that is, to a degree, denied to the Roman, and which display
certain boldness that would not be suitable in any other dramat
work. This stage of the imagination opens a great new area for ro-
mantic poetry, and the Magelone tale, as well as many other old and
charming stories, might well venture to appear on it."28 For Tieck,
then, the Mdrchen might even surpass the Roman in imaginative scop
In addition to defining the formal and generic characteristics of
the Mdrchen, Tieck emphasized the special mood that it should evok
through its musical qualities. Anton, another of the Phantasus inter
locutors, finds in certain Arabian Mdrchen "a quietly progressive nar
rative tone, a certain simplicity in presentation, that captivates the so
without undue fuss or clamor like tender, dreamy music,"29 while
Rosalie notes that Novalis, as a Mdrchen writer, "both moves and in-
spires us, and causes the loveliest harmony to long resound in
soul."30
In Tieck's Magelone, the musical element is raised to the level of
structural significance. The poem which closes the Vorbericht prepares
us for a tale which is, metaphorically, an extended Lied, and further
implies that the narrator is at once poet and singer:
Ob ihr die alte Tone gerne h6rt?

Das Lied aus langst verflossnen Tagen?
Verzeiht dem Sanger, den es so bet6rt,
Dass er beginnt das Marchen anzusagen.3'
Would you like to hear the old melodies?

The song of days long gone by?
Then allow the singer, whom it has so enchanted,
To begin his recounting of the tale.
27 Ludwig Tieck, Phantasus II (Berlin, 1844/44, p. 3.

28 Tieck, Phantasus II, p. 4.
29 Tieck, Phantasus I, p. 132.
30 Tieck, Phantasus II, pp. 132-33. Novalis also drew attention to the musical
qualities of the Mdrchen in several of the Allgemeine Brouillon fragments. See Fragment
986: "A Mdrchen is actually like a dream-picture-without coherence-a mixture of
wondrous objects and events-like a musical fantasy-or the harmonious accents of the
Aeolian harp-like nature itself." (Schriften III, p. 454). See also Fragment lo01: "The
Mdrchen is totally musical." (Schriften III, p. 458).
3' Ludwig Tieck, Werke II, Die Marchen aus dem Phantasus (Miinchen, 1963-66), p.
115.
The Mdrchen itself is colored throughout by musical references,

that even Tieck's prose aspires to music. Just after Peter meets
beautiful Magelone, he wanders into a garden where he hear
inner music," at which point narrative gives way to poetic prose:
ward evening sweet music resounded in the region, and now he
down in the cool grass behind a bush, and cried and sobbed; .
music flowed through the garden like a murmuring brook, and
saw the image of the princess float atop the silvery waves, a
billowing music kissed the hem of her gown, and compelled her
follow along; ... the music was now the single movement, the
living thing in all nature, and all the tones glided so gently ove
grass and through the treetops, that it seemed as if they were se
out the sleeping goddess Love but did not want to wake her."32
lyric process is completed as Peter sings the following Lied, one
Tieck's interpolated lyrics. The progression from narrative pros
the "nature music" of poetic prose, and finally to full-blown
(which in a sense culminates in Brahms's musical settings) recur
several other points-in the passage relating Magelone's dream
in that preceding Peter's lullaby.33
350 Thus Tieck's Mdrchen hovers between folk tale and Roman, nar-
rative and lyric reflection, poetry and music, and in this last sense does
indeed cry out for actualization in tones. And it was Brahms who was
responsible for the realization of these musical implications-a real-
ization which exhibits a true sensitivity to the literary qualities of
Tieck's musical Mdrchen.
III
Music criticism has tended to view the mixed-genre

work with some suspicion, at least from the middle of the ninetee
century.34 This is, as we have seen, in sharp contrast to the views
forward by literary figures such as the Schlegels, Novalis, and Ti
for whom the Mischgedicht was a central, not a peripheral pheno
non. In Schlegel's scheme of things, it was a moral necessity for
artist to blend or fuse the various genres toward the end of crea
something fundamentally new. When he asserted that "All of
classical poetic genres are now ridiculous in their rigid purity," he
in no way denigrating the achievements of the ancients; rather, he
32 Tieck, Werke II, p. 123.

33 Tieck, Werke II, pp. 129, 140-41.
34 See Carl Dahlhaus, "Zur Problematik der Musikalischen Gattungen im.
Jahrhundert," in Gattungen der Musik in Einzeldarstellungen, Gedenkschrift Leo Sch
(Bern & Miinchen, 1973), pp. 874-80.
exhorting the modern poet to fashion an imaginatively original art-

work, and steering the critic away from an outmoded, neo-classical
ideal that demanded generic purity.35 It is my contention that the
mixed-genre work is just as central to the spirit of Romanticism in
nineteenth-century music, and that it will be helpful to develop
concept for music along the same lines as that worked out for litera
ture.
In music, as in literature, it is possible to identify a hierarchy of

genres proceeding from fundamental forms such as the characte
piece and Lied, and culminating in the genre for which the mus
critics of the early nineteenth century had the highest hopes, th
Romantische Oper. Weber, in his famous review of E. T. A. Hoffmann
Undine (1817), defined the operatic ideal as a kind of Gesamtkunstwer
but perhaps he was only paying lip service to the grandest of th
romantic pipe-dreams. We can better interpret Weber's ideal as
work in which specifically musical forms and genres were brought
together to create a complex unity, a musical equivalent of th
Roman.36
If the song cycle occupies a place in the hierarchy somewhere

between the fundamental forms and the musical Roman, then 351
Brahms's Magelone lies midway between lyric cycle and opera. Thus,
it is representative of neither genre; but while it can be seen in terms
of neither individually, it partakes of both. The mediation of the two
genres is most significant, for the Magelone Romanzen are formed from
a complex of threads that lean at times toward the song cycle, at times
toward opera, and not infrequently, steer a course between the two.
In Schlegel's terms, we find that constant play of "Mischung" and
"Verschmelzung," mixture and fusion, which is the hallmark of all
works that adhere to the romantic imperative.37
In its manner of presentation ("fur eine Singstimme mit Piano-
forte"), as well as in its general size, Brahms's Magelone conforms to
the conventions of the song cycle. Likewise, its overall tonal organi-
zation is comparable to that of other tonally unified song cycles, e.g.,
Schumann's Frauenliebe und -leben or Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte.
Magelone is organized as a tonal entity around El, with moves of a
third or fifth prominent between songs (see Table I, pp. 354-55), and
35 Schlegel, Athendum Fragment 60, KFSA II, p. 154; see also Fragmente zur Lit-
teratur und Poesie, Fragment 692, KFSA XVI, p. 143.
36 Carl Maria von Weber, Writings on Music, trans. Martin Cooper, ed. John War-
rack (Cambridge, 1981), p. 201. See also the commentary in my "'Total Work of Art'
or 'Nameless Deeds of Music'; Some Thoughts on German Romantic Opera," Opera
Quarterly IV (1986/87), 63.
37 See Fragmente zur Litteratur und Poesie, Fragments 589, 613, 797, 830, 845, KFSA
XVI, pp. 134, 136, 153, 156, 157.
this in spite of the fact that only the first six songs were conc
successively. Indeed, the larger unity which the cycle creates is
than a little remarkable, considering that after 1862 Brahms's w
on the set proceeded in a piecemeal fashion. Still, the tonal orga
zation suggests that Brahms never lost sight of his view toward
whole. The whole step separating the keys of the eighth and nin
songs suggests a division of the miniature drama into two acts.
first (Nos. 1-8) comes to a close with "Wir miissen uns trenn
Peter's farewell to his lute, while the second (Nos. 9-15) commen
with the evocative lullaby, "Ruhe, Siissliebchen." The division m
perfect dramatic sense, for the first "act" is devoted to an accoun
Peter's departure from his homeland, his meeting with Mage
and their decision to elope, while the second deals with their tra
separation, and reunion. The whole-step progression between No
("Wie schnell verschwindet") and No. 12 ("Muss es eine Trenn
geben"), two closely related songs, is continued within the second
when the opening G-minor phrase is repeated sequentially up a s
in A minor at "Nein, dies nenne ich nicht leben." Lastly, the con
tion between the E major of No. 13 ("Sulima") and the G major o
352 14 ("Wie froh und frisch"), is smoothed by the opening E-
chord (vi in G) of the latter.
The connections between individual songs, whether they be to
melodic, or mood-related, tend less toward the overt, and more to-
ward the subtle links characteristic of the song cycle. Often, as in No.
3 ("Sind es Schmerzen"), No. 4 ("Liebe kam aus fernen Landen," the
first of the "ring" songs that Peter sends to Magelone), and No. 5 ("So
willst du des Armen"), the musical connections serve as analogues to
the poetic content. Peter's ambivalence towards awakening love in No.
3, so aptly expressed by the opening line, "Sind es Schmerzen, sind es
Freuden," is echoed in No. 4, as are a number of specific poetic
images, notably "die Dammerung der Tranen" in No. 3, which be-
comes "Tranen dammerten den Blick" in No. 4. But while No. 3 and
No. 4 emanate from a kind of dream world, love emerges as a reality
in No. 5. The poetic ties are mirrored by a number of musical fea-
tures. The Db tonality of No. 3 at "Wie ist's, dass mir im Traum"
emerges as the principal tonality of the following song, just as the F
major of No. 4 at "Alle meine Wunsche flogen" returns as the key of
No. 5. Although the two "ring" songs (Nos. 4 and 5) are much con-
trasted in character, there is an important melodic feature that both
share; hardly a measure of either song is free from the musical sigh,
beckoning in No. 4, breathless in No. 5. The sigh figures prominently
later in the cycle as well; in No. 6 ("Wie soil ich die Freude") it per-
vades the whole of the dreamy middle section ("Schlage, sehnsiichtige
Gewalt"), while in No. 7 ("War es dir") it is conceived more as a

rhythmic gesture in the piano part for the middle section ("Wie ein
Sternenpaar glanzten die Augen").
No two songs are more closely related in mood than Nos. 11 and
12. Both are laments, the first sung by Magelone, the second by Peter
Similarities in meter (3 and 6, respectively), approach to melodic
construction (a tendency toward motivic repetition within phras
units), and general tone (decidedly less elevated than most of th
other Romanzen) bring the songs together as an unmistakable pair.
No. 1 1 is especially rich in associative references to other songs. Th
chromaticism at "Denn er verbliihte / In dunkler Nacht" calls to mind
Brahms's setting of "Wie Lautenton voriiberhallt" in No. 6. Likewise,
the horn calls in the piano interlude following the fourth strophe, and
permeating much of the accompaniment of the fifth, call up the open-
ing gesture of No. 1 ("Keinen hat es nocht gereut"). But whereas the
mood of the latter is heroic, the horn calls in the former (now de-
scending, and in minor) contribute to the overall mood of dejection.
So far as form is concerned, most of the Magelone Romanzen
adhere to some variety of strophic pattern, Nos. 3, 6, 8, and 15 ex-
cepted (see Table I). Thus, it is something of a misrepresentation to 353
claim that Brahms's approach to form tended largely in the operatic
direction;38 the majority of the Romanzen remain well within the
bounds of the Lied tradition. What is most noteworthy is the range of
complexity in the strophic Romanzen, extending from the relative
simplicity of Peter's lullaby, No. 9 (where the strophic design is ap-
parent in spite of the variation technique applied in the accompani-
ment) and his plaintive Lied, No. 12, to the more elaborate patterns of
No. 1 (with its much expanded closing strophes), and Nos. 7 and 14,
both of which are characterized by a wealth of varying musical ma-
terial and by piano parts that are nearly orchestral in conception. No.
1 is of particular interest, for it immediately establishes the play be-
tween opera and Lied characteristic of the cycle as a whole. Although
Kalbeck viewed this Romanze as an Overture of sorts,39 it is more
appropriate to limit the overture function to its first strophe. The
principle thematic element is reserved for the second strophe ("Berge
und Auen/Einsamer Wald"), while the first announces the song's chief
rhythmic motive in the piano part. Between these poles of relative
simplicity and complexity of design lie the patterns of Nos. 4 and 1 1,
each a setting of a seven-strophe poem. In both cases, the overriding
A B A form is built up from smaller-scale a b a units.
38 See Musgrave, Music of Brahms, p. 38; Plantinga, Romantic Music, p. 431; Sams,
Brahms Songs, p. 25.
-.J
TABLE i*
Overview of the Magelone Romanzen
Title, Date of Composition' Sung by Key Form

1 Keinen hat es noch Minstrel Eb modified strophic: xa A Ba A'
gereut (July, 1861)
2 Traun! Bogen und Pfeil Peter Cm rondo: A B A B' A'
(July, 1861)
r r r
And'e I I
3 Sind es Schmerzen Peter Ab operatic: A :11 B Ba C D
(July, 1861)
4 Liebe kam aus fernen (Magelone/ Db mod. stroph.: A Ba A Ca DC
Landen (uly, 1861) Peter)
5 So willst du des Armen Magelone F mod. stroph.: A Ba Ba A
(May, 1862)
Poco Po
Allo sost. anim.
6 Wie soil ich die Peter A oper.: A A' A" B B 'A"'
Freude (May, 1862)
7 War es dir (by March Peter D mod. stroph.: AIB A'IIC
1864; rev. by May, 1869)
Andte Allo A
8 Wir miissen uns trennen Peter Gb oper.: A Ba A'b C D C' D' A
(between July, 1861 &
Sept., 1865)
TABLE 1 continued
Title, Date of Composition' Sung by Key Form
9 Ruhe, Siissliebchen Peter Ab stroph. (variations): A A' A"

(uly, 1868)
o1 Verzweiflung Peter Cm mod. stroph.: A A' B A
(by Dec. 20, 1866)
11 Wie schnell verschwindet Magelone Fm mod. stroph.: A Ba A' Ca A" B
(? after 1859/60; publ.
Dec., 1869)
12 Muss es eine Trennung Peter Gm stroph.: A A' A"
geben (? May, 1862)
13 Sulima (Geliebter, wo Sulima E mod. stroph.: A A Ba Ca
zaudert) (May, 1862)
14 Wie froh und frisch Peter G mod. stroph.: A B A CbA'
(by May, 1869)
Langsam Lebhaft
15 Treue Liebe dauert lange Peter & Eb oper: A B A' ICa A"'
(by May, 1869) Magelone A" xa a"'
* I I = one strophe
r = repetition of previous text
superscript small letters-indicate motivic relationship with prev
'Dates of composition are based on George S. Bozarth, "The Liede
Compositional Process," (Ph. D. diss., Princeton University, 1
Tending toward the operatic in the Magelone tale is the associa

of the various poems with specific characters (see Table I). Peter,
hero is allotted most of the lyric verses; the minstrel and Sulim
each associated with one song, Magelone with two. In a sense, Pet
and Magelone share the two "ring" poems, Nos. 4 and 5; Peter wr
both of them, but Magelone reads the first again and again (she
hears Peter singing it to her in her dreams), and sings the se
upon receiving it. Finally, Peter and Magelone join for the cl
"duet."
Brahms approached Tieck's Magelone as he would have an opera
libretto. He once noted, in a conversation with his friend, the Swiss
writer and pastor, Josef Widmann, that through-composition of an
entire drama was ". . . unnecessary, indeed harmful and inartistic.
Only the high-points and those portions of the drama in which the
music could really add something of substance should be set to
music."40 Tieck conveniently supplied Brahms with his "lyric high-
points." Even Brahms's decision to omit the lyrics that figure in Chap-
ters 16 and 17 of the Magelone tale was dramatically motivated. Each
is a poem of yearning for the absent beloved, the first associated with
356 Peter, the second with Magelone. Since Nos. 11 and 12, laments for
both lovers, function similarly in the context of the tale, Brahms un-
derstandably decided against setting them to music. So much for his
claim, in the letter to Schubring that I quoted earlier, of "Germanic
thoroughness." The fact that he was un-thorough in this specific in-
stance suggests a concern that his settings project a dramatic whole (at
least for those familiar with the Mdrchen) devoid of unnecessary rep-
etition.
More significant is the manner in which the operatic elements-

implied orchestral writing, text repetition, and modified aria forms-
manifest themselves in the music. There are a number of songs in
which the accompaniment is meant to evoke decidedly orchestral ef-
fects, notably No. 5 (with its repeated-note triplets reminiscent of the
Prelude to the third act of Lohengrin), No. o1, and No. 14. The heroic
vein of many of the songs is projected through the suggestion of horn
writing. The first song opens with just such a call, and it is echoed in
No. 2 (at "dem Edlen bliiht Heil") and No. 3 (at "Wie ist's, dass mir im
Traum," and at various points throughout the Vivace close). In con-
trast to the horn calls is Brahms's more subdued evocation of the lute,
40 Josef V. Widman, Johannes Brahms in Erinnerungen (Berlin, 1898), p. 37. Wid-

man also reported on Brahms's failed operatic projects: settings of Gozzi's Kinig Hirsch
and Calderon's Das laute Geheimnis, both of them fantastic adventure tales not far
removed from the world of Magelone. See also Musgrave, "Cultural World of Brahms,"
pp. 14-15; Helmut Wirth, "Oper und Drama in ihrer Bedeutung fur Johannes
Brahms," Brahms Studien 5 (Hamburg, 1983), 134; Elaine Brody, "Operas in Search of
Brahms," Opera Quarterly III (1985/86), 24-37.
which as Peter's instrument figures prominently in Tieck's narrative.

The opening of No. 3 (with its rapidly arpeggiated chords), and prac-
tically the whole of No. 4 and No. 12 (which Peter sings to the zither)
are texturally determined by, and obvious imitations of the sound of
the hero's lute.
The question of text repetition as a sign of operatic tendencies is
more difficult to address, if only because repetition of words, at times
entire lines of poetry, is a common enough feature throughout
Brahms's Lieder output. Thus, the repetition in No. 6, at "Wie Laut-
enton voriiberhallt," has less to do with opera than with Brahms's
general approach to the Lied, in this case involving a certainly justifi-
able musical representation of "dying away." But the repetition in the
closing portions of No. 3 and No. 6 are of a different order. The last
lines of No. 6, for instance:
Frohlichen Ruderschlags fahr ich hinab,

Bring Liebe und Leben zugleich an das Grab.
are rendered in the musical setting as:
Frohlichen Ruderschlags fahr ich hinab, 357

Frohlichen Ruderschlags fahr ich hinab,
Bring Liebe und Leben zugleich an das Grab,
Bring Liebe und Leben zugleich, zugleich an das Grab.
The treatment of the text as well as the heroic tone of the vocal
writing brings this Romanze in line with the aria.
Lastly, the tendency toward the operatic can be noted in the for-
mal disposition of several of the Magelone Romanzen-Nos. 3, 6, 8, and
15-all of which take as their point of departure the Cantabile/Allegro
form characteristic of the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-
century virtuoso aria (see Table I). To be sure, this pattern was quite
out of date when Brahms set to work on his Magelone. (Max's "Durch
die Walder" from Weber's Freischiitz is representative of an expanded
version of the fundamental design; perhaps its last notable derivative,
at least in German opera, occurs in Wagner's Fliegende Holldnder, the
Dutchman's "Die Frist ist um.") But we should recall that Brahms's
operatic ideal was a Mozartean one; and that it was of Mozart's Figaro
that he related to his friend Theodor Billroth: "I simply can't under-
stand how anyone can create something so absolutely complete. It has
never been done so again, not even by Beethoven."41
41 Hans Barkan, translator and editor, Johannes Brahms and Theodor Billroth: Letters
from a Musical Friendship (Westport, 1977), p. 105.
In the Magelone Romanzen, the modified aria form can be vie

as a reaction to what are clearly the most complex poems in Tie
Magelone. In two cases, the Cantabile/Allegro disposition serves
direct analogue to contrasting thoughts or images in the poems:
No. 3, where Peter is unsure whether love will bring him furthe
or joy; and in No. 8, where he must exchange his beloved lu
which he bids farewell, for his weapons. Furthermore, the place
of these operatic Romanzen within the dramatic sequence is emin
logical. Peter sings No. 3 just as he begins to realize his lov
Magelone, and No. 6 after having banished his ambivalent fee
about their love. No. 8 brings to a close the first part of the Mag
drama with Peter's farewell, and the "duet" No. 15 brings the en
narrative to an end.
Also noteworthy is the gradual increase in formal elaboration and
integration from one operatic Romanze to the next. No. 3, with an
Andante/Vivace tempo scheme, is most obviously patterned after the
virtuoso aria. And although the tone of the opening Andante evokes
the traditional Lied, the declamatory conception of the vocal part in
the ensuing Vivace leans heavily toward the operatic. At "Bleib ich ihr
358 ferne, sterb ich gerne," Brahms even indulges in writing four mea
sures of recitative, the only spot of its kind in all of the Romanzen. The
basic pattern is expanded in No. 6 to Allegro/Poco sostenuto/Vivace.
Once again, the Romanze progresses from an evocation of the Lied to
an operatic close, this time in the manner of a bravura aria. But here
the whole is more effectively unified: at the last appearance of
"Frohlichen Ruderschlags," Brahms makes reference in both the vo-
cal and piano parts to material from the beginning of the song. This
integrating process is intensified in No. 8, where the musical setting of
strophes 1 to 6 is modelled after the Cantabile/Allegro pattern. Stro-
phe 7, however, is set as a varied repetition of the opening strophe,
and thus imparts a large-scale A B A form to the whole which, at a
stroke, turns the "opera aria" in the direction of the Lied. The overall
form, two smaller tripartite forms enfolded in a larger one, further
calls to mind the extended Lied form of Nos. 4 and 11. The same
features recur in No. 15, the most elaborate of the operatic Romanzen
the progression from Lied to virtuoso aria (replete with text repeti-
tions) and back to the Lied; the enfolding of two smaller a b a patterns
within a larger one. The general design, Langsam/Lebhaft/Langsam,
is enriched by a number of interesting details. Already in the first
strophe, Brahms contrasts material in 4 and 3 (this is, after all, a
"duet" for Peter and Magelone), only to resolve the metric conflict in
the third strophe, where the 4 material recurs, metrically trans-
formed, in 3 The central Lebhaft, dominated by a transformation of
the phrase with which the piano began the song, is likewise bound to
the material of the opening. The close of this broadly conceived Ro-
manze serves as a concise summary of the whole. Its text is drawn from
both the opening strophe and the central Lebhaft, while the musical
reference is to the opening vocal phrase. As the last measures briefly
recall the 3 material of the first strophe, the summary is complete.42 It
is difficult to imagine a more thoroughly elaborated or carefully in-
tegrated fusion of aria and Lied than that which Brahms achieved
here, in the last of the Magelone settings.
IV
This assessment of the Magelone settings might

lead to some practical suggestions for performance. The Romanzen
are concert music through and through; in large measure their ex-
pansiveness reflects the shift from private salon to concert hall which
the Lied experienced in the course of the nineteenth century. They
were, after all, inspired by public performances of Beethoven's An die
ferne Geliebte, Schubert's Die schone Miillerin, and Schumann's Dichter-
liebe undertaken by Brahms and the tenor Julius Stockhausen in the 359
spring of 1861. No less necessary than the performance of the set as
a unit is the use of some kind of spoken, connecting narrative,
Brahms's objections notwithstanding. As an Appendix, I have pro-
vided my own brief narrative adaptation of Tieck's Mdrchen, where an
attempt was made to preserve the tone and flavor of the original.
Tieck's ideal "Theatre of the Imagination" is probably not a possibility
today; we cannot assume, as Brahms did, that most concertgoers
might have read the Phantasus. The use of narrative insertions is even
in keeping with performance conventions of Brahms's day, for cycles
of far greater generic purity often incorporated them. Kalbeck re-
ports that when Brahms and Stockhausen performed Die schone Mul-
lerin in April of 1861, Johanna Berthold not only read the poems
from the cycle that Schubert did not set, but an explanatory Prologue
and Epilogue as well.43 Lastly, the dramatic quality of the Magelone
Romanzen might be highlighted if sung by several performers: two
tenors to take the Minstrel's and Peter's songs, two sopranos for those
of Magelone and Sulima. As for the songs associated with both Peter
42 This gesture also alludes to the setting of the first line of the first poem,
"Keinen hat es noch gereut," and thus rounds out the whole work. Perhaps Brahms was
paying a veiled tribute to Beethoven, whose "An die ferne Geliebte" (also in Eb) is
rounded in a similar manner.
and Magelone (Nos. 4 and 15), some choice would obviously ha

be made.
We would be mistaken in assuming that the Magelone Romanzen
were conceived in artistic isolation, that they were without precedent
in the earlier Lied tradition, or that they stand completely apart from
Brahms's other efforts at generic fusion. It has been suggested that
Brahms modelled his settings on the early ballads of Schubert,44 but
even the largest of the Romanzen do not approach the seriated struc
tures encountered in works like Schubert's "Viola" (D. 786), "Ein
Fraulein schaut" (D. 134), "Der Taucher" (D. 77a&b), or from the
Ossian Gesinge (1815/16), "Der Tod Oscars" (D. 375) and "Lodas
Gespenst" (D. 150). In any event, Brahms was more concerned wit
integrating processes; Schubert's ballads tend to be fashioned as
loosely-structured scene. If there are any precedents for the Magelone
Romanzen in Schubert's output, they are to be found in his somewhat
later settings of lyric verse, e.g., "Atys" (D. 585), or "Das Heimweh"
(D. 85 b).
Likewise, it is not difficult to discern points of contact between
certain features of the Magelone settings and other works that Brahm
360 composed in the late 185os and 186os. The opening recitative of "A
eine Aeolsharfe" (Opus 19, no. 5) as well as the harp-like figuration
prominent in the song point toward similar traits in "Sind es
Schmerzen." The Cantabile/Allegro disposition, the formal basis for
the operatic Romanzen, is encountered on a smaller scale in
"Sehnsucht" (Opus 49, no. 3), and "Unbewegte Laue Luft" (Opus 57
no. 8), and in an expanded form in the two grand arias from th
cantata Rinaldo, Opus 50, "O lasst mich," and "Zum zweitenmal seh
ich."
None of this, however, can detract from the singularity of the
Magelone Romanzen, for nowhere else did Brahms apply an all-
pervasive mediating process on such a large scale. And although the
assertion that Magelone is among Brahms's most "romantic" works is
somewhat of a truism, we should remember that the term "roman-
tisch," as employed by Friedrich Schlegel, might be limited to those
works that, in obeying the romantic imperative, aspired to the Roman
the grandest of the combinative forms. When the term is construed in
this sense, our truism begins to take on a bit more meaning.
Boston University
44 Sams, Brahms Songs, p. 26; and Plantinga, Romantic Music, p. 431.
APPENDIX
A Connecting Narrative for Brahms's Magelone Romanzen, Opus 33

Part I
Long ago, in the land of Provence, there ruled a count who had a fine,
handsome son. Peter was tall and strong, and gleaming, golden hair came
down about the nape of his neck. He was a well-skilled knight: no one could
make with lance and sword as well as he, and thus he was marvelled at by old
and young, commoner and nobleman alike.
But Peter was an introverted youth, troubled by a secret desire that he
could not name. It was as if distant voices from the forest bade him follow them.
And while fear held him back, a strange presentiment pressed him on.
Once his father held a great tournament. Among the guests was a minstrel
who had travelled in many distant lands. He approached Peter and said,
"Youthful knight, you should remain here no longer. Take to your steed and
travel in foreign countries, so that what has been unknown to you here at home
might be revealed, so that you might learn to bind the known with the un-
known." Whereupon the minstrel took up his lute, and sang:
"Keinen hat es noch gereut" 361
Upon hearing the song, Peter knew that he must depar

parents' chamber, and on bended knee asked that they gr
to make a journey of adventure.
The old count was horrified. "You are my only son," he
you perish, what will become of my lands?" His mother
wept bitterly: "A thousand perils await you! In your miser
the safety of your parents's home!"
But Peter stood fast. And as he took up his lute, which h
well, and sang the song he had heard from the old minst
moved. His father said, "Alas, my dear son, I have no cho
my blessing." And so too did he receive his mother's bless
him three precious rings, and said, "Take these and cheri
you find a maiden who loves you as you love her, give t
The next morning, Peter rode out alone. The sun had
sparkled on the meadows, and his horse trotted along m
old tune came into his head, and he sang out merrily:
"Traun! Bogen und Pfeil"
After journeying for several days, Peter came to the ci

the way he heard tell of its king and his daughter, the Fa
longed to meet her!
The king was soon to hold ajousting tournament, in wh
to take part. Here he was set against the famed knight, H
whom, to the amazement of the assembled crowds, he easily vanquishe

could he be?" the nobles murmured amongst themselves. "Who is th
young knight?"
At the banquet which followed, Peter found himself seated near t
Magelone. So touched was he by her beauty that he left the banquet h
wandered into the garden outside. He roamed as if in a dream, accom
only by the sweet, inner music of the rustling leaves and the splashin
brook. And, as if moved by some strange and powerful force, he quie
to himself:
"Sind es Schmerzen"
Now Magelone felt the pangs of love no less than did Peter. She turned
to her faithful nurse, Gertraud, for aid: "Gentle Gertraud, you must seek ou
the young knight! Learn for me his name and station!"
Gertraud arranged to meet Peter the following morning in church, and
while he would not divulge his name, he entrusted her with one of the precious
rings, and also a parchment sheet, on which he had written a song for Ma
gelone:
362 "Liebe kam aus fernen Landen"
Magelone read over the words, which seemed to echo he

again and again. That night Peter came to her in a dream, an
strains of the song as he placed yet another ring on her fin
The next day, Gertraud met again with Peter, who gave h
When Magelone received it from her nurse, she knew it as t
which she had dreamt. She also received another sheet of par
Peter had inscribed:
"Willst du des Armen"
Magelone sang the song, then kissed the rings, then read the words, a
spoke them aloud-and all the while, the image of Peter hovered before
On the following morning Peter met Gertraud for a third time in t
church, where she told him that a meeting had been arranged for him and
gelone. How the youth trembled with excitement the whole day long! Wh
tempest of nervous expectation, anxious longing, and fearful hope wrac
his soul! Even the next morning he could not calm himself. To still his passio
he reached for his lute and sang:
"Wie soil ich die Freude"
Later in the day, Peter and Magelone met in Gertraud's chamber. P

offered her the third ring as a token of his love, and Magelone placed a
his neck a golden chain as a sign of hers. "With this chain," she said, "I
you as mine, and myself as yours. Wear this so long as you love me." Peter
hurried back to his room, as if he had to tell his armor and lance of the day's
happenings. Greatly moved, he clutched his lute, kissed the strings, and began
to sing with deep fervor:
"War es dir, dem diese Lippen bebten"
But all was not destined to go smoothly for the young pair. The King
planned to give his daughter in marriage to the knight, Heinrich von Carpone.
Only one path remained open to Peter and Magelone: they must elope at once.
So, on the eve of their departure, Peter returned to his lodgings, and be-
held his beloved lute for the last time. By the way of farewell, he took it in his
hands and sang:
"Wir mtissen uns trennen"
Part II
Now that night had descended, Peter and Magelone could make their way
from Naples to the home of his parents. They travelled until morning, stop-
ping to rest on a grassy hill overlooking the sea. The weary Magelone sat be-
neath a tree, listening attentively to its rustling leaves that seemed to her like
the chattering of so many quiet voices. She spoke to her beloved: "Let your
sweet voice mingle with this mystical music of nature, so that its beauty might
thereby be completed." Peter then sang a soothing lullaby:
"Ruhe, Stissliebchen"
Magelone was now fast asleep. Peter gazed lovingly at her figure, and sud-
denly noticed that between her breasts was a small red packet. Carefully re-
moving it, he found that inside were wrapped the three precious rings. He had
just set the packet on the grass, when all at once a raven swooped down from
the tree above, snatched up the rings, and flew toward the sea. Peter pursued
the creature as far as the shore, where he saw the raven drop the packet into
the sea. Then he spotted a small boat tied to the shore, leapt inside, and began
to row furiously into the great expanse of ocean. But soon the sound of thun-
der rumbled in the distance, the wind began to howl, lightning crackled, and
Peter was lashed by a mad onrush of rain, his little boat tossed toward he knew
not where. He was overcome with despair, not because of his own fate, but be-
cause of the dangers that might befall Magelone. And he cried out, over the
tumult and bellowing of the waves:
"So t6net dann, schaumende Wellen"
Magelone, on awakening, was much troubled by Peter's absence. At first

she thought that he had abandoned her. But when she spotted his horse graz-
ing nearby, she exclaimed, "O forgive me, my beloved! How could I have
thought you unfaithful? What cruel adventure has taken you away from
For days she wandered aimlessly in the wood, until at last she arrived at
There she found shelter with a kind shepherd and his wife. Still, she y
night and day for Peter. What had become of him? Often at dusk she sat b
the hut at the spinning wheel, gazing absently toward the horizon, si
quietly:
"Wie schnell verschwindet"
Peter, in the meantime, had been captured by Moorish seamen, who too
him to their Sultan. He spent hours walking in the palace gardens, alone wit
his thoughts of Magelone. At times he could be seen with a zither in his hand
softly strumming its strings, and singing to himself:
"Muss es eine Trennung geben"
Peter found favor at the heathen court. Indeed, the Sultan's lovely daugh
ter, Sulima, had fallen in love with him. Peter, thinking Magelone was lon
dead, agreed that they should elope. But one night Magelone appeared to him
in a dream. He started up in terror: "Oh, I am a faithless wretch! What if M
364 gelone yet lives? I will not rest until I know!"
Hurriedly he made his way to the seashore, where he found his small boa
But when he was only a short distance from land, he heard the soft tones o
the zither coming from the palace gardens. And the voice of Sulima, giving the
signal for their elopement, mingled with the soft splashing of the waves, so th
Peter could hardly tell the one from the other:
"Geliebter, wo zaudert"
Gradually the song faded away into nothingness, becoming one with the
quiet murmur of the wind. Peter felt refreshed. While looking up into the
starry sky, and out into the great watery mirror stretched about him, he sang
lustily:
"Wie froh und frisch"
Peter's parents were much concerned over his long absence, especially
since the Count had held a feast, and in the stomach of a great fish that was
served up were found the three precious rings. But secretly the Countess
thought it a sign that her son would eventually return.
Peter, in the meantime, had been rescued by sailors travelling to France.
When they came to the mainland, he was taken to a shepherd's hut, where he
might rest for a few days. A lovely maiden with a lamb at her feet was sitting
before the hut, singing of her lost lover as she worked at her spinning wheel.
The voice drew Peter to the hut as if by magic. And though he did not recognize
his Magelone, dressed as she was in the garb of a shepherd girl, she knew from
the golden chain about his neck who the weary stranger really was. For two long
days she concealed her identity, but finally could bear it no longer. She donned
her noble attire, loosened her golden hair, and appeared before Peter. What
inexpressible happiness welled up in his breast as he embraced his beloved, as
their kisses were mingled with tears of joy.
Then Peter returned with the Fair Magelone to the land of his parents,
where they were wed with due pomp and ceremony, and where they lived in
peace for many years to come. On the site of a good shepherd's hut, Peter built
a summer palace, and made the shepherd and his wife caretakers. In front of
the palace, Peter and Magelone planted a tree, to which they returned every
spring, and on this spot they would sing, in a spirit of joy and thankfulness:
"Treue Liebe dauert lange"
365

Brahms's Magelone Romanzen and The Romantic Imperative

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Brahms's Magelone Romanzen and The Romantic Imperative

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Brahms's Magelone Romanzen and the "Romantic Imperative"

Author(s): John Daverio

B rahms's Opus 33 Magelone Romanzen, com-

Volume VII * Number 3 * Summer 1989

1 Tieck's Magelone originally appeared in his Volksmdrchen herausgegeben von Peter

Critical assessments of the Magelone Romanzen have been mi

genre theories of Friedrich Schlegel, intellectual father of German

which he himself had composed the songs."ll Most telling of all, h

" Friedlaender, Brahms's Lieder, p. 40.

Schlegel was not merely rattling off a litany of high-flow

questions the suitability of the tale for dramatic presentation: "The

Ob ihr die alte Tone gerne h6rt?

Would you like to hear the old melodies?

27 Ludwig Tieck, Phantasus II (Berlin, 1844/44, p. 3.

The Mdrchen itself is colored throughout by musical references,

Music criticism has tended to view the mixed-genre

32 Tieck, Werke II, p. 123.

exhorting the modern poet to fashion an imaginatively original art-

In music, as in literature, it is possible to identify a hierarchy of

If the song cycle occupies a place in the hierarchy somewhere

Gewalt"), while in No. 7 ("War es dir") it is conceived more as a

Overview of the Magelone Romanzen

Title, Date of Composition' Sung by Key Form

Title, Date of Composition' Sung by Key Form

9 Ruhe, Siissliebchen Peter Ab stroph. (variations): A A' A"

Tending toward the operatic in the Magelone tale is the associa

More significant is the manner in which the operatic elements-

40 Josef V. Widman, Johannes Brahms in Erinnerungen (Berlin, 1898), p. 37. Wid-

which as Peter's instrument figures prominently in Tieck's narrative.

Frohlichen Ruderschlags fahr ich hinab,

are rendered in the musical setting as:

Frohlichen Ruderschlags fahr ich hinab, 357

In the Magelone Romanzen, the modified aria form can be vie

This assessment of the Magelone settings might

and Magelone (Nos. 4 and 15), some choice would obviously ha

44 Sams, Brahms Songs, p. 26; and Plantinga, Romantic Music, p. 431.

A Connecting Narrative for Brahms's Magelone Romanzen, Opus 33

"Keinen hat es noch gereut" 361

Upon hearing the song, Peter knew that he must depar

"Traun! Bogen und Pfeil"

After journeying for several days, Peter came to the ci

whom, to the amazement of the assembled crowds, he easily vanquishe

362 "Liebe kam aus fernen Landen"

Magelone read over the words, which seemed to echo he

"Willst du des Armen"

"Wie soil ich die Freude"

Later in the day, Peter and Magelone met in Gertraud's chamber. P

"War es dir, dem diese Lippen bebten"

"Wir mtissen uns trennen"

"So t6net dann, schaumende Wellen"

Magelone, on awakening, was much troubled by Peter's absence. At first

"Wie schnell verschwindet"

"Muss es eine Trennung geben"

"Wie froh und frisch"

"Treue Liebe dauert lange"

You might also like