Eichendorff's Auf einer Burg and Schumann's Liederkreis, Opus 39

Author(s): Karen A. Hindenlang

Source: The Journal of Musicology , Autumn, 1990, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Autumn, 1990), pp.
569-587
Published by: University of California Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/763536

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 Eichendorff's
Auf einer Burg
and Schumann's Liederkreis,
Opus 39*
KAREN A. HINDENLANG

obert Schumann's curious and haunting

song Auf einer Burg occupies the musical, poetic, and spiritual center
of the Liederkreis von Eichendorff. The presence of this unconventional
and problematic lied at the very heart of the Opus 39 cycle challenges
performers, listeners, and analysts. The challenge has not been met 569
satisfactorily in musical scholarship. Schumann's setting of the in-
triguing poem has been misunderstood, and the function of the ex-
ceptional song within the cycle has gone unrecognized.
In early May of 1840, about midway through his "Year of Song,"
Schumann first turned to the works of Joseph von Eichendorff. The
composer had not yet written any settings for poems by Eichendorff
(1788-1857), one of the nineteenth century's finest lyric German po-
ets, but by late June Schumann had completed the twelve songs of his
Opus 39 Liederkreis. The texts of the song cycle were not drawn from
a pre-existing poetic cycle. Schumann himself chose the twelve lyrics
from different sources. Thus the composer was free to establish his
own poetic cycle in his Eichendorff Liederkreis. Yet he did not exercise
this freedom in an obvious fashion. The poems, as selected and or-
ganized by Schumann, do not outline a story. Efforts to isolate a
continuous narrative thread running through the Liederkreis have
been defeated by the lack of a single consistent viewpoint or a chro-
nological order of events. Attempts to find such a thread may be
Volume VIII * Number 4 * Fall 1990
The Journal of Musicology ? 1990 by the Regents of the University of California

* This article developed from a paper I presented at the April

1983 meeting of the New York State, St. Lawrence Chapter of
the American Musicological Society. My thanks go to Jurgen
Thym and Ralph P. Locke of the Eastman School of Music.

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 THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

misguided, since our current conventional concept of chronolo

narrative is based on later nineteenth-century literary develop
unknown to Schumann.l
Barbara Turchin's discussion of the early nineteenth-century p
etic significance of the word Kreis concluded that the term "did n
imply, necessarily, a sequence of events." Instead, she found th
"Kreis suggests the presence of a thematic center from which t
poems radiate."2 In Opus 39, the lyrics do share many recurren
images and ideas: the forest, twilight, evening, loneliness, deceptio
love, and longing. Yet despite a tenuous relationship based on these
shared images and ideas, no single conspicuous "thematic cente
emerges from the collection of Liederkreis poems, and scholars ha
been unable to agree upon the identity of the cycle's central poetic
subject. Very different fundamental themes have been suggest
The proposals include love, strangeness and alienation, endless long
ing, and the complete relationship of man and woman.3 Despite su
specific proposals, general emotional movement may provide the c
cle's only meaningful literary organization. Two balanced arches
emotion have been discerned defining two large textual units in th
570 Liederkreis. These two progressions transform the poetic mood f
introverted melancholy to exuberant joy in the first through sixt
poems and in the seventh through twelfth.4
Though Schumann did not create an integrated poetic cycle
the familiar narrative or thematic type in the Liederkreis, he did a
range the music according to an easily recognized two-part structur
The entire work's overall tonal organization, demonstrated and dis
cussed by a number of authors, is approximately symmetrical with

Freedom from a strictly linear conception of time is found in many early ro

mantic prose works, including those by Schumann's favorite, Jean Paul Richter.
temporal organization, these nineteenth-century works have more in common w
twentieth-century literary experiments than with the norm of linear narrative est
lished by the turn of the century. See Eric A. Blackall's The Novels of the German R
mantics (Ithaca, 1983), pp. 15-20.
2 Barbara Turchin, "Robert Schumann's Song Cycles in the Context of the Earl
Nineteenth-Century Liederkreis" (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1981), p
276-77. Also, see Turchin's Chapter III, pp. 97-116.
3 See Eckhart Busse, Die Eichendorff-Rezeption im Kunstlied: Versuch einer Typolo
anhand von Kompositionen Schumanns, Wolfs, und Pfitzners (Wiirzburg, 1975), pp. 50-5
Karlheinz Schlager, "Erstarrte Idyle: Schumanns Eichendorff-Verstandnis im Lied o
39/VII ('Auf einer Burg')," Archiv fur Musikwissenschaft XXXIII (1976), 131-
Joachim Draheim, "Robert Schumann: Liederkreis von Joseph Freiherrn von Eichen
dorff Op. 39," Neue Zeitschrfitfiir Musik CXLV (1984), 24; and Jurgen Thym, "The S
Song Settings of Eichendorffs Poems by Schumann and Wolf' (Ph.D. dissertatio
Case Western Reserve University, 1974), p. 213.
4 See Karl W6rner, Robert Schumann (Zurich, 1949), pp. 214-15; Thym, pp. 219
24; and Turchin, pp. 278-80.

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 EICHENDORFF AND SCHUMANN

one central division.5 The balance appears to h

because soon after he completed the Liederkre
the original opening number with a new song
sponded to that of the concluding number.6
extends beyond the first and last songs. The
three songs are reflected in mirror image by t

I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII

f# A E G E B a a E e A F#
* ------------ ---- --------
[ L ]

In ad
by cl
excep
ship
pieces
metr
group
seven
centr
second half of the Liederkreis. If this crucial seventh number were
ineffective, its weakness would threaten the structural integrity of the
entire cycle.
Such a threat may exist, for the seventh song has been described
repeatedly as a disappointment and a failure. Extensive criticism of
the song has focused on a perceived breakdown in the wedding of text
and music, the marriage so necessary to the art of the lied and so
perfectly consummated in the cycle's exquisite fifth song, Mondnacht.
The criticism implies that the composer's skill deserted him while
setting the cycle's seventh poem. Schumann stands accused of writing
a self-conscious and awkward song, presenting a one-sided interpre-
tation of the poem, defeating the poet's intentions, undermining the

5 See Heinrich Lindlar, "Zu Schumanns Eichendorff-Zyklus," Neue Zeitschrift fir

Musik CXXIII (1962), 339; Rolf Ringger, "Zu Eichendorff-Schumanns Liederkreis:
Eine Wort-Ton Analyse," Schweizerische Musikzeitung CVI (1966), 273; Theodore
Adorno, "Zum Gedachtnis Eichendorffs," in Noten zur Literature I (Frankfurt, 1968), p.
134; Thym, pp. 216-19; Schlager, p. 119; and Turchin, pp. 312-25.
6 The first edition opened with a setting of Eichendorffs jolly Die frohe Wander-
mann: the D-Major song was withdrawn and later re-issued in Opus 77. In the second
edition of Opus 39 Schumann opened the cycle with the Ft-minor song, In der Fremde
("Aus der Heimat"). The change in key, mode, and poetic mood contributed to musical
and dramatic balance of the cycle's final version.

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 THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

poem's structure, and distorting the lyric text while matching i

inappropriate music.7
In many ways, the seventh song of Opus 39 is an anomaly. It
seems quite peculiar, especially in comparison to the other Liede
lyrics. Its musical style is unique to the cycle and atypical of S
mann's work in general. The fact that the lied is an anomaly, ho
does not mean it is a mistake. Rather, the evaluations of the son
been mistaken. Much groundless musical criticism has been fou
upon misinterpretation of the unusual poem. Thus, the equally
usual song has been misjudged, and the role of the seventh lied
einer Burg, in the Liederkreis von Eichendorff has been misapprehen
Through a fresh and thorough examination of the poem,
mann's skill in setting Auf einer Burg can be demonstrated, an
song's musical and literary function within the cycle may
plained.
Schumann adopted Eichendorffs brief and enigmatic poem with-
out any alterations. The poem (which follows with a literal line-by-line
translation) consists of four short strophes, each containing four terse
eight-syllable lines:
572
Auf einer Burg In a Castle

Eingeschlafen auf der Lauer Asleep in the watchtower

Oben ist der alte Ritter;
Druben gehen Regenschauer,
Und der Wald rauscht
durch das Gitter.
Eingewachsen Bart und Haare,
Und versteinert Brust und Krause,
Sitzt er viele hundert Jarhe
Oben in der stillen Klause.
Draussen ist es still und friedlich,
Alle sind in's Tal gezogen,
Waldesvogel einsam singen
In den leeren Fensterbogen.
Up above is the old knight;
The rain showers overhead,
And the forest rustles through
the portcullis.
Beard and hair overgrown,
Chest and ruffles turned to
stone,
He sits many hundred years
Up above in his silent cell.
Outside it is still and peaceful,
All have gone into the valley,
Forest birds alone sing
In the empty window arches.

Eine Hochzeit fahrt da unten A wedding passes by below

Auf dem Rhein im Sonnenscheine, On the Rhine in the sunlight,
Musikanten spielen munter, Musicians play merrily,
Und die schone Braut, die weinet. And the beautiful bride cries.

7 See Stephen Walsh, The Lieder of Schumann (London, 1971), p. 38; Thym, p. 204
Eric Sams, The Songs of Robert Schumann (London, 1969), p. 100; Jack M. Stein, Poem an
Music in the German Lied from Gluck to Hugo Wolf (Cambridge, MA, 1971), p. 115.

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 EICHENDORFF AND SCHUMANN

Unlike many of Eichendorffs lyrics, this po

included in a novel or novella; the lyric first w
lection of poetry in 1837. Therefore, no prose
vide valuable clues to the mysterious poem's m
Auf einer Burg displays three characteristic fea
style which assist in the interpretation of the
Sounds abound in Eichendorffs work. His wri
the multifarious sounds of man and nature, and music is a common
ingredient in his prose and poetry.9 As might be expected, in Aufeiner
Burg the forest rustles, the birds sing, and, of course, the musicians
play. Yet simple aural descriptions do not generate Eichendorffs so-
noral effects. The very sound of his language produces its own music.
The chief factor in the poet's resonant style is his habitual use of
alliteration and assonance within a line or strophe. Some instances of
assonance, the reverberation produced by the repetition of vowel
sounds, are found in Auf einer Burg. The opening lines of the poem's
first two strophes echo with the recurrence of identical or similar
vowel sounds, which then reappear in the rhyming third lines of these
same strophes. ("Eingeschlafen auf der Lauer . . . Regenschauer" in
the first strophe, and "Eingewachsen Bart und Haare ... Jahre" in 573
the second). The mesmerizing effect of these echoing broad vowels is
enhanced because the assonances occur on the strong syllables of the
monotonous underlying trochaic meter. The result is truly hypnotic
and very appropriate to the description of the ancient knight sleeping
through the centuries.
In creating his sonorous works, the poet moved beyond the sim-
ple and customary use of perfect rhymes at the ends of the lines. In
fact, he felt free to ignore rhyming conventions when it suited his
purpose. For example, as Auf einer Burg progresses towards its denou-
ement, the end-line rhymes become increasingly inexact. The gently
jarring effect of impure rhymes anticipates and emphasizes the sud-
den disturbing appearance of the weeping bride at the conclusion of
the poem. (Compare the perfect alternating rhymes of the first two

" No significant literary scholarship has been devoted solely to Auf einer Burg. A
general study of Eichendorffs poetic style is found in Hans Jurg Liithi's Dichtung und
Dichter bei Joseph von Eichendorff (Bern and Munich, 1966). Oskar Seidlin's Versuche iiber
Eichendorff (Gottingen, 1965) offers an evaluation of the poet's lyric style. English
language scholarship on Eichendorff is scarce, and much of his work remains untrans-
lated (and perhaps untranslatable). Egon Schwarz did write a helpful chapter on "The
Lyrics" in his introductory book, Joseph von Eichendorff (New York, 1972), pp. 79-101.
9 See Lawrence R. Radner, "The Instrument, The Musician, The Song: An In-
troduction to Eichendorffs Symbolism," Monatshefte LVI (1964), 339-45; and Walter
Salmen, "Eichendorffs Musikanschauung," Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik CXVII (1956),
332-35?

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 THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

strophes with lines one and three of the third strophe, and all
lines of the last strophe.)
While sonority is an important element in Eichendorff's po
space is an equally essential feature of his writing. Incredibly sp
landscapes are a hallmark of his work. The poet painted eno
scenes, creating images of vast distances which exceed quotidia
sion. Frequently his landscapes are presented from a strangely
niscient viewpoint fixed high in the air; the view simultaneously
braces an entire vista and the tiniest distant detail. In addition to this
special point of view, Eichendorffs landscapes owe much to the con-
stant and distinctive use of spatial adverbs, prepositions, and direc-
tional verb prefixes which direct the reader's inner sight across the
great distances depicted in his poems.lo In Aufeiner Burg, Eichendorf
portrays a stony knight on the stormy heights, a decaying watchtower
and a wedding party passing in the valley below. The poem's single
landscape easily encompasses these various elements. From a poin
that seems to be suspended in mid-air, the view stretches across the
whole poem: up and into the tower high above ("oben," stated twice
in the first two strophes), outside and around the watchtower ("draus
574 sen," in strophe three), and far down to the river below ("da unten
in the last strophe). Rather than presenting two self-contained and
contrasting scenes, the typical all-inclusive view sweeps through the
entire work. The resulting picture, with its impression of great space
and distance, resembles those painted by Eichendorffs contempo-
rary, Caspar David Friedrich.ll
The wedding party of Auf einer Burg is not situated in a scene
separate from the watchtower. Though it may seem impossible that
the bride's tears are visible such a great distance from the knight, th
two figures are part of the same landscape. It is not unusual for
Eichendorff's landscapes to exhibit this sort of "spatial and visual ...
disregard for the empirical possibilities of sense perception." In one
novel, for example, there are many instances of views unimpeded by
reality: a woman spots a piece of jewelry sparkling across a wide
valley, the crashing beams of a burning house are seen at an aston-
ishing distance, and a hero high on a hilltop catches the eye of a gir

1o Translation often destroys the spatial effect of Eichendorffs linguistic manip-

ulations (e.g., placing detachable prefixes denoting direction far from their verb roots)
Details on how Eichendorffs grammar contributes to his spacious scenes are in Richard
Alewyn's important article, "Eine Landschaft Eichendorffs," Euphorion LI (1957), 42-
60; reprinted in Eichendorff Heute, edited by Paul Stocklein (Munich, 1960), pp. 17-43;
and Leo Spitzer's response to Alewyn in "Zu einer Landschaft Eichendorffs," Euphorion
LII (1958), 142-52.
" Schlager, p. 115.

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 EICHENDORFF AND SCHUMANN

riding on horseback far below.l2 Such instance

faulty depth perception or accidents in perspe
scenery found in much romantic prose and po

Eichendorffs landscapes are not decorative mater

will for the sake of background or atmospher
self-contained pictures, vehicles for the transmi
emotions, but they express the ontology of man's

Quite simply, Eichendorffs unique landscap

metaphysical positions."'l To appreciate the
cance of the landscape in Auf einer Burg, a th
dorffs style must be examined.
Traces of Germanic folk tradition are ap
Eichendorffs works. These stylistic influences
Auf einer Burg: the simple syntax, four-line str
tern of a-b-a-b, and the occasional impure r
general stylistic influences, Eichendorff's writi
by specific stories from Germanic folklore.'4 It
that dictates the content of the puzzling po
profound impact of legend on this poem has b
timated, or misunderstood. Yet permeating th
and significant reference to one particular and
myth: the legend of Friedrich Barbarossa.
There was an historical Emperor Friedrich
barossa. He was a popular German ruler wh
drowned en route to Jerusalem in 1190. Accor
ever, Barbarossa is not dead. Rather, he mir
secret cavern inside a mountain called Kyff
seemingly asleep, as still as a statue on an ancie
opportunity to return and lead the German pe
need. As he keeps watch through the centur
beard continues to grow to such great lengt
mingles with the very roots of the mountain.
castle on the mountain's peak, deserted for man
ruin. Only the emperor's enormous blackbirds
12 Detlev W. Schumann, "Some Scenic Motifs in Eichend
wart," Journal of English and German Philology LVI (1957), 5
13 Oskar Seidlin, "Eichendorffs Symbolic Landscape," P
Language Association LXXII (1952), 465-81; reprinted in Es
ative Literature (Chapel Hill, 1961), pp. 150, 145, 150.
14 See Gillian Rodger, "Eichendorffs Conception of t
the Ballad," German Life and Letters N.S. XIII (1959/60), 1
zelmann, The Influence of the German Volkslieder on Eichendo
Thym, pp. 24-29.

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 THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

abode of their master. Though storms rage on Kyffhauser whe

Barbarossa is angered by the failures of his countrymen, the em
has yet to rouse himself and come to their aid. One day, the bir
leave Kyffhiuser. Their disappearance will signal the immine
turn of the king to his people.'5
All the essential elements of the Kyffhauser folk tale are pr
in Auf einer Burg: an ancient sleeping knight with his stony c
nance and ever-growing beard, the ruins of a deserted towe
rainstorms, and the birds.'6 Some writers (represented below b
scholarly extremes of an article on Opus 39/VII by Karlheinz Sch
and an introductory study of lieder by Elaine Brody and R
Fowkes) have recognized a vague relationship between the poem
the legend of Kyffhauser mountain, but they have misunderst
ignored the precision and significance of the work's specific m
logical allusions. For example:

These strophes rely on the knight, castle, and the Kyffhauser legen
as signs of the legacy of the middle ages, and the forest breezes an
singing birds as evidence of the nature worship of the romantics.'7

576 This poem is reminiscent of the legend of Barbarossa. ... What

connection may be between the legend and the present poem
unclear. Romanticism was exceedingly fond of castles, especial
those in ruins. The birds singing into glassless windows is also
romantic touch.s1

In such analyses, important symbolic components are misinterpreted

and mistakenly dismissed as typical romantic literary gestures.
Consider the bird,, for instance, within the mythological context
of the poem. Although singing birds commonly inhabit nineteenth-
century German lyric poetry, the mountain-top Waldesvogel in Auf
einer Burg do not function as conventional romantic symbols. For the
mountain described in this poem is a numinous site, sacred since
pre-historic times. Beneath the surface of the Barbarossa legend lies
an earlier layer of Kyffhauser mythology which relates that Wotan
took refuge within this same mountain when the Germanic tribes
abandoned the old beliefs and converted to Christianity. The birds in
15 For information on the legendary and the historical Barbarossa, see Peter
Munz, Frederick Barbarossa: A Study in Medieval Politics (Ithaca, 1969); and Marcel Pa-
caut, Frederick Barbarossa, translated by A.J. Pomerans (New York, 1970).
'' Though the knight is not named, his identity is confirmed by the symbolic
context. Likewise, the name of an anonymous king could be supplied in an English
poem containing references to a magical sword, a mysterious lake, and a round table.
'7 Schlager, p. 122.
'8 Elaine Brody and Robert A. Fowkes, The German Lied and Its PoetrN (New York,
1971), p. 153.

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 EICHENDORFF AND SCHUMANN

Auf einer Burg represent one of the more anc

aspects of the Kyffhauser tradition, for Barbaro
identified as the direct mythological descendants
Such magical birds are not simple "romantic touc
of romantic "nature worship," as stated above. N
of the present which animate the landscape of
stanzas" in order to contrast with the knightly "r
past" who dominates the poem's first two strophe
the only living creatures remaining on the moun
symbolic threads from the rich fabric of Kyffh
Eichendorff worked into the texture of Auf einer
Friedrich Barbarossa's appearance in a Germa
not surprising. His myth had been an important
imagination for centuries. During the upheavals
the emperor was expected to appear in defense o
Years later, during another politically difficult p
posed to return and restore German honor by
(Severe rainstorms were reported on Kyffhliuser
German defeat at the Battle of Jena.) The lege
appeal grew throughout the nineteenth centu
was removed from the scene-with no appa
Barbarossa-the legendary Emperor's mission b
lishing German spiritual, cultural, and political u
The ancient king's appearance in a work by
surprising, either. The myth's traditional sixteen
interpretations and contemporary nineteenth-cen
cations held personal appeal for the poet. A Rom
and conviction, Eichendorff faced religious in
career in the Protestant Prussian bureaucracy; he
fusing his literary work with the imagery and l
Barbarossa, in his traditional guise as the restorer
is quite at home in Eichendorff's poetic world. S
as the nemesis of Napoleon, for the crises of the
world profoundly disturbed Eichendorffs life an

19 Munz, p. 12.
20 Thym, pp. 115-16.
21 A few examples of the legend's popularity in the ninet
discussed the myth in his letters c. 1800; in 181o a music fest
hausen to honor Barbarossa; Riickert wrote a poem called Der
Grimm included the story in the Deutsche Mythologie of 181
tale in a collection of Thuringian legends in 1835; and i
erected a statue of himself mounted on a pedestal contain
Barbarossa sleeping in his secret cavern. See Munz, pp. 3-18

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 THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

his writing. The poet volunteered for military service in

Napoleonic forces, bitterly resenting the French occupation o
while he was there as a student. In the aftermath of the Nap
wars, his aristocratic family lost their beloved ancestral man
Eichendorff was reduced to working as a civil servant.22 F
Eichendorffs beautiful estate-its castle, gardens, and entire w
life-were idealized in the writer's later works as a lost paradis
Roman Catholic faith, anti-Napoleonic sentiment, nostal
the pre-revolutionary world, and obsession with the unr
dreams of a romanticized past, are evident in many of Eichen
works, not the least of which is Auf einer Burg. In this po
Kyffhauser legend provides the means for Eichendorff's char
tic poetic utterance. Friedrich Barbarossa represents the prom
the past for which Eichendorff yearned. The emperor's appea
in the poem is highly significant, not coincidental. The poem
ery relates directly and meaningfully to the myth; it is not sim
stock issue of romantic German lyric poetry.
What, then, is the role of the bride in this poem, and why
crying? Appearing without introduction in the last line with h
578 made manifest in the last word, she has caused no end of diffic
those trying to analyze the poem Auf einer Burg in order to
Schumann's lied of the same name. Many explanations ha
offered for her seemingly inexplicable final gesture. For exam
answer to Jack Stein's presumption that the woman "is probab
ing from happiness or simple nervous tension," Jurgen Thym
posed that the bride weeps because, "one may assume that the
of the petrified knight has reminded her of life's transito
Though literary scholars might question the affinity of Eich
and Heinrich Heine, Karlheinz Schlager concluded that whethe
bride cries out of joy, emotion, or fear of the eerie ruin l
above, her tears are "in any case, a moment of irritation simila
unexpected ironic endings found in many poems by Heine." R
than irony, Barbara Turchin believes it is primarily a "sense
ation" that is so "vividly expressed in the vision of the bride wh

22 An understanding of these aspects of Eichendorffs life contributes to

hension of his work. A brief biography is found in Paul Stocklein's "Joseph vo
dorff' entry in volume three of Die grossen Deutschen: Deutsche Biographie, edit
Heimpel, et al. (Berlin, 1956), pp. oo-16. His article on "Eichendorffs Perso
published in Eichendorff Heute, pp. 242-73, provides additional insights. Rel
fluences are considered in Blackall's discussion of Eichendorffs work, pp. 242
impact of the French Revolution is assessed in a discussion of Eichendorff
Diirande by Josef Kunz in Eichendorff: Hohepunkt und Krise der Sptitromantik (D
1967), pp. 9-32.

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 EICHENDORFF AND SCHUMANN

in the midst of sunshine and merriment."23 Brod

other hand, openly admit defeat:

The wedding [in Aufeiner Burg] ... reminds one of a

Eichendorff called Die weinende Braut ... [wherein
because her real lover has deserted her and the man
is not one she loves. But what that may have to do w
poem or what the wedding in the sunlight has to do
castle in the rain is obscure indeed.24

In deference to Eichendorff's poetic style, and in order to remedy

this confusion, the troublesome bride must be considered as another
integral feature of the poem's mythological milieu and symbolic land-
scape. In so doing, it should be mentioned that among the many
variant details of the numerous versions of the Barbarossa myth is a
description of the old knight in the mountain being served by an
attendant, his virginal daughter. This detail may be the source of
Eichendorff's bride. Whatever her origin, her placement is of great
importance because she is assigned a definite location. Such designa-
tions are rare, because Eichendorff's landscapes normally adhere to 5
"the general rule of geographical anonymity." The atypical identifi-
cation of an authentic site in Aufeiner Burg is significant, for in Eichen-
dorff's works "it can almost be stated as a rule that the more clearly a
description is related to a specific locality, the more visionary it turns
out to be."25 In Auf einer Burg, the bride does not travel on an anon-
ymous stream. She sails by on the German river unequaled in its
wealth of powerful historical and literary associations, the sacred river
of German romanticism and nationalism, the Rhine.
Within a symbolic landscape by Eichendorff, a view from the
Thuringian Harz mountain of Kyffhiauser all the way to the Rhine is
entirely possible. In similar literary landscapes created by the author
with characteristic disregard for actual distance, some fictional char-
acters in northern Italy have clearly seen the Danube nearly two hun-
dred miles away, while others have traveled on foot from Vienna to
the Rhine in a single evening!26 Obviously, Eichendorff does not use
place names for geographic accuracy but for symbolic impact. Rivers
in general are among his most potent images, and the Rhine in par-
ticular is one of his favorite geographic symbols. The Rhine figures

23 See Stein, p. 115; Thym, p. 116; Schlager, p. 122; and Turchin, p. 324.
24 Brody and Fowkes, p. 153.
25 Schumann, p. 568; and Seidlin, "Eichendorffs Symbolic Landscape," p. 145.
26 See Seidlin, "Eichendorffs Symbolic Landscape," p. 145-46; and Schumann, p.
568.

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 THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

prominently in Ahnung und Gegenwart, Eichendorff's first imp

prose work. In this book, the river's first appearance is intrigu

Als sie aus dem Walde auf When they came out of the
einen hervorragenden Felsen woods and stepped up upon a
heraustraten, sahen sie auf projecting rock, suddenly they
einmal aus wunderreicher saw coming from a miraculous
Ferne, von alten Burgen und distance, from ancient castles
ewigen Waldern kommend, and timeless forests, the stream
den Strom vergangener of past ages and immortal in-
Zeiten und unverganglicher spiration, the royal Rhine.
Begeisterung, den konigli-
chen Rhein.27

Evaluating this important description of the Rhine and the fol-

lowing dramatic incident, a swim which marks the story's turning
point, Oscar Seidlin writes:

The numerous ruins, covered with creepers and grass, are not scat-
tered about as picturesque props, but they symbolize lived time
which is being kept slumbering.... The river Rhine is here the
580 "stream of ages past"; it not only conveys and alludes to, but actually
is history. And the swim which the two friends take in the river
clearly indicates that scenic view here stands for historic event; for
the leap into the Rhine takes place in our novel just before the two
friends enter upon their soldierly careers.... This dive into the
Rhine . . ., is actually the hero's commitment to and leap into Ger-
man history. What is presented here as a scenic view is in reality
history, past, present, and future. Through the medium of land-
scape Eichendorff articulates again and again the perspective of
time, its pastness and future encompassed in the present.28

In Auf einer Burg, a woman, a conventional symbol for a nation,

who is also a bride, an ancient symbol for the Christian church, sails
by on the one river which represents the course of German history.
Above her is the saviour of the German people, the single figure who
could restore political stability, religious harmony, and the peace of a
vanished golden age. A new era is at hand. The wedding is prepared:
the sun shines on the beautiful bride and the musicians play merrily.
Yet, while the river flows through time, the ancient king remains
frozen in time. The bride and the knight, the expectant and the
expected, though within sight of each other, are kept apart. The
ominous birds remain on the mountain, singing among the ruins.

27 Joseph von Eichendorff, Eichendorffs Werke, ed. Richard Dietze, 2 vols. (Leipzig,
n.d.) II, 189.
28 Seidlin, "Eichendorffs Symbolic Landscape," pp. 155-56.

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 EICHENDORFF AND SCHUMANN

Barbarossa does not descend. And the bride,

weeps.
The masterful allegorical poem is all of one piece. Through rich
mythological allusions developed within a carefully designed symbolic
landscape, the bride and the knight are inextricably and tragically
bound to one another, unable to separate or unite. Eichendorffs
poem, misinterpreted by so many, was comprehended fully by Robert
Schumann. Music scholars have consistently evaluated the poem in
terms of two sharply opposed figures, scenes, or ideas: mountain and
valley, rain and sunshine, knight and bride, past and present, death
and life, Sein oder Schein. They have denigrated Schumann's setting
for not reflecting these divisions. But their literary evaluations force
contrasts upon the unified poem which contradict its basic nature.
Schumann, on the other hand, recognized the fully integrated myth-
ological symbolism of the poem and the true relationship of the bride
and the knight. He therefore set their descriptions to the same music,
using a simple strophic formula which incorporates two poetic stanzas
in each musical strophe. The musical form thus reflects the poetic
content. The strophic setting does not "defeat the poet's intention" or
"subjugate the language to the force of the musical form." The final 581
poetic strophes do not "need some fresh musical idea." The musical
repetition in the last two stanzas does not represent a "one-sided
clarification in interpreting the ambiguous imagery of the poem," or
a "strange mismatch" of text and music. Nor is it likely that the com-
poser intended the allegorical bride's music to illustrate Clara Wieck's
"painful struggle back and forth between filial devotion to her father
and love for Schumann."29
We can assume that Schumann, a well-read man of his time, was
familiar with the popular legend of Friedrich Barbarossa as it ap-
peared in German romantic literature. At the very least, Schumann
would have met Barbarossa in the famous poem by Rtickert, a poet
whose work the composer held in high esteem. Schumann clearly
recognized the presence and significance of the Kyffhauser legend in
Eichendorff's poem. Beyond simple strophic form, many other atyp-
ical features of Auf einer Burg represent appropriate and intelligent
musical responses to the poem's content and meaning.
Specifically, Schumann created a sense of timelessness and antiq-
uity in his setting of Auf einer Burg through the use of archaic musical
techniques. The piano's strict four-part imitative counterpoint, a very
unusual feature, evokes the past. Expressed primarily in half notes,
29 "Defeat," Sams, p. loo; "subjugate," Busse, p. 28; "fresh idea," Walsh, p. 38;
"one-sided," Thym, p. 204; "strange mismatch," Stein, p. 115; and "painful struggle,"
Draheim, p. 24.

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 THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

the texture has been said to resemble a ricercar.30 Traces of mo

also cast a distinctive antique light on the song, and create con
regarding its tonality and mode. Analysts disagree about the k
the lied, some writing of it as E minor, others referring to it as E?,
one saying it fluctuates between E minor, A minor, and E majo
song is manifestly in A minor, as described by Theodore Ador
Jurgen Thym.31 But uncertainty arises because the tonality is
the modal influence of E aeolian, and the song spends most of it
life avoiding the tonic.
The beginning of the lied is heard as sounding not in A but
minor. By opening the seventh song on its minor dominant, S
mann established an harmonic link with the previous song (whic
B major) and partially bridged the cycle's central tonal division.
seventh lied, only a single clear A-minor cadence appears. It is
trally placed, emphatically sounding in measure nineteen at th
of the brief piano interlude between the two strophes. Prior t
the first strophe ends in measure seventeen with a harsh c
implied harmonic functions. At that moment, the voice res
suspension by moving to the Gt leading tone from the dom
582 triad, while the bass, imitating the opening motif once again,
fifth to land on the tonic A. The resulting clash of Gt and A,
of moving towards a solution, simply remains unresolved. Whe
peated at the end of strophe two, the conflict finds an unexpe
resolution. The troublesome Gt is not removed; rather, the ton
eliminated. We are thus left with an unexpected final E-major
which has been misidentified as the completion of a Phrygian ca
and as a major tonic chord.32 Nevertheless, the ear easily recog
the unmistakable and indecisive sound of an ending on the tru
inant as the voice trails off with a tiny melisma. (The full cade
progression is completed with the sounding of the A-minor
chord in the second measure of the next lied.) The A-minor to
acts as the center of gravity for Auf einer Burg, with the song'
nant conclusion linked to its E-minor opening. Unlike any othe
in the cycle, the lied ends harmonically off in the middle d
where it began. At the beginning and end it is suspended tonal
mid-air, so to speak, and the musical effect recalls the poem's
sation of hovering in space above a vast landscape.

30 See Herwig Knaus, Musiksprache und Werkstructur in Robert Schum

"Liederkreis" (Munich and Salzburg, 1974), p. 63; and Turchin, p. 370.
31 See Lindlar, p. 273; Knaus, p. 18; Turchin, p. 312; Draheim, p. 25; Ado
89; and Thym, p. 170.
32 Turchin, p. 323.

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 EICHENDORFF AND SCHUMANN

Harsh simplicity and exceptional austerity

mann's setting of Auf einer Burg. The unique expr
flects the distilled essence of the poem, what Sch
Erstarrung," the knight's eternal living de
animation.33 For instance, the melody of the seven
is not animated or dramatic. The basically static vo
with stifling closeness to the poem's underlying t
robs the song of rhythmic drive. The vocal range
octave in a relatively low tessitura, and the dynam
hushed. Except for the final brief melisma, the te
consistently syllabic, and it is frequently ren
pitches. The accompaniment's rigid polyphonic te
flexible independent voice leading, lacks vitalit
opening motif, a falling fifth followed by a rising
imitated. Straightforward and persistent sequence
ond half of the strophic melody, while a stubborn
on C sounds through the central six measures o
adagio tempo does not enliven the sluggish harm
slow-moving accompanimental half notes lack mo
texture is thin and the accompaniment minimal.
in the cycle, Auf einer Burg stands without pi
postlude to alleviate its stark simplicity. Each of th
measures seem to contain the fewest notes possib
The severe economy of expression which dom
pansive song produces a feeling of psychologica
emotional involvement. The wind, rain, river, bir
forth no direct musical response. The bride's tear
matic musical outburst. Instead, the song sensitiv
mythological atmosphere of the poem, and nothin
and placid surface of the music. The setting re
that in some performances the lied runs the risk,
of falling apart.34 Nevertheless, the objectivity of
setting perfectly mirrors the text, for the poem A
impersonal and dispassionate. It is the only poem
material from the distant, timeless realm of myth
the other poems in the cycle, it contains neither i
dialogue. The seventh poem has no explicit or i
with whom the reader or listener can identify.

33 Schlager, p. 130.
34 Stein, p. 115.
35 "Die hexe Lorelei," found in the cycle's third song, is
ancient mythological realm inhabited by Barbarossa. A popula
manticism, the witch Lorelei was invented c. 1800 by Brentan

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 THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

What purpose might such a truly extraordinary song serve in

Liederkreis von Eichendorff? Rolf Ringger suggested that, in compar
to the sixth song, the seventh was meant to "begin the second h
the cycle] as if exhausted."36 The subdued seventh lied does con
markedly with the cycle's sixth lied, Schine Fremde, which repr
the first section's climax in terms of dynamic level, range, tem
rhythmic activity, and expression of joyful emotion. Yet the sev
circumscribed Aif einer Burg stands in exaggerated contradisti
not only to the preceding song, but also to every other song in
cycle. The contrast is so great that Auf einer Burg seems to belon
completely different poetic realm and a foreign musical world.
was this anomaly included in the Liederkreis, and why was it pla
a crucial position within the cycle?
The answer lies in the concept of dualism, or bi-centrality, w
influenced almost all aspects of early romantic art and aesth
Diptych structures, framing effects, mirror images, dual perc
levels, and the Doppelginger are common examples of the many
alistic features found in early romantic works. Schumann did no
exclusive rights to the literary device or mental process which
584 birth to Florestan and Eusebius. That type of dualism was ram
German romanticism. The most widespread of dualistic art for
the nineteenth century was the German novella with inserted
In these once very popular but now little-known literary work
prose narrative represented one artistic level while the inter
lyrics represented another. The earliest German romantic fiction
ers often placed their poetic inserts in a random fashion. The n
generation of novelists (which included Eichendorff) strateg
placed their poems so that they could articulate the structure o
prose narrative. These insertions interrupted the flow of time
narrative, providing a temporary pause and a glance into a tim
realm. Carefully inserted at critical points, the poems illuminate
larger structure of the entire prose work. Marshall Brown's eval
of the form and intent of early German romantic fiction is very
ful in comprehending this twofold literary form:

The contrast between propulsive narration and lyrical pause ... is

fundamental in the German romantic fiction. The interaction of the
two worlds is explored in countless modulations: the song [appear-
ing in a novel as a poem] may be a sudden revelation or a distraction,
an analogue or a pointed irrelevance .... But whatever the specific
circumstances, the very regularity of rhythm and rhyme constitutes
an interruption of the linear impetus of time.

3'( Ringger, p. 342.

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 EICHENDORFF AND SCHUMANN

Of romantic bicentral forms, the most widely use

and poetry: it is the prose narrative with insert
lessness characterizes the lyric interruptions of th
general.... Whatever the format, the poems give a
world that is the ground of our mortal existenc
likewise provide an indispensable higher plane
novels are mere entertainment.37

The particular dichotomy of this romantic literary form is a

model for Schumann's Liederkreis. Within the Opus 39 cycle, the style,
placement and function of Auf einer Burg parallels that of the lyric
insert within the German novella. Placed among lieder with which it
has little in common textually or musically, Auf einer Burg offers a
particular type of romantic dualism. In the song cycle, the seventh
lied acts as the secondary "higher plane" typically afforded by a poetic
insert in German romantic fiction. The song's poetic subject, a noble
and ancient legend with modern resonance, is perfectly suited to this
role. The concerns of Auf einer Burg are far removed from the con-
ventional romantic preoccupations of loneliness, love, and longing
which typify the cycle's other eleven lyrics. The ancient myth, pre- 58
sented with impersonal objectivity, contrasts with the subjective and
self-centered surrounding poems in a way which duplicates the intent
of the poetry/prose dualism of the romantic novel. The elevated and
legendary subject of the seventh poem assures that the cycle is not
"mere entertainment," and it "gives access to a timeless world."
A haunting sense of timelessness is supplied not only by the po-
em's subject. It is also achieved in the lied's music, a remarkable feat
considering that the basic medium of music is sound in time. The
poem's setting acts as an "interruption of the linear impetus of time";
it contrasts with the "propulsive narration" of the surrounding mu-
sical material. Following the sixth song's musical climax, forward mo-
mentum in Opus 39 comes to a halt with the demonstrably static
setting of Auf einer Burg. Little happens here: no rhythmic drive pro-
pels the song, no clearly defined tonal goal urges it forward, no har-
monic tension furthers its progress, no dramatic melodic line carries
it onward, and no crescendos lift it toward a climax. The musical flow
of time seems temporarily arrested; we are given a glimpse into an
unchanging world. Immediately thereafter we are jolted back to mun-
dane temporal reality with the long anticipated A-minor opening of
the eighth lied. Rapid running sixteenth figurations and articulated

37 Marshall Brown, The Shape of German Romanticism (Ithaca, 1979), pp. 212 and
208-09.

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 THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

sixteenth chords hurry us away from the timeless scene. Impe

ity is left behind: the first word of the eighth poem is "ich." (A
protagonists notes that he seems to see a castle, though it is ve
away!38)
In the romantic novel, the author's self-imposed restrictions of
form, meter, and rhyme set the poetic inserts apart from the freer
and more spontaneous language of the surrounding prose narrative.
Obviously, in a collection of twelve poems, one poem cannot contrast
with the other poems in this way. However, in setting the Liederkreis
poems Schumann provided the seventh poem with an analogous dis-
tinction. Schumann imposed very restrictive compositional proce-
dures on Auf einer Burg: strophic form, imitation, sequence, rhythmic
repetition, limited range, uniform dynamic level, and sparse accom-
paniment. These limitations are similar to those adopted when writ-
ing poetry instead of prose. The restrictions distinguish the seventh
song from all the other songs in the cycle, which are generally freer,
less controlled, and more spontaneous or prose-like.
Schumann's youthful literary ambition, his mature literary so-
phistication, and his life-long involvement with literature need not be
586 recounted here. The use of literary models in his musical work was
acknowledged long ago. His Opus 2, Papillons, is a well-documented
example; it is based specifically on the final scene of a story by Jean
Paul Richter.39 For his Opus 39, instead of adopting a specific model,
Schumann designed a musical scheme based generally on a popular
contemporary literary form, the German romantic prose novella with
poetic inserts which function as momentary and illuminating breaks
in the passage of time.4?
Close examination of the cycle's most enigmatic, controversial,
and challenging song reveals that Schumann's Opus 39 contains here-
tofore unsuspected additional evidence of the composer's sensitive
and creative musical response to the influence of romantic literature.
Schumann did not misunderstand Eichendorffs Auf einer Burg. He
did not give it an inadequate setting, or misplace it in his Liederkreis.
The perplexing features of the seventh song can be comprehended
38 "Die Mondesschimmer fliegen, als sah' ich unter mir das Schloss im Thale
liegen, und ist doch so weit von hier!" See In der Fremde ("Ich hor die Bachlein").
39 See Robert L. Jacobs, "Schumann and Jean Paul," Music and Letters XXX (1949),
250-58; and Edward A. Lippmann, "Theory and Practice in Schumann's Aesthetics,"
Journal of the American Musicological Society XVII (1964), 310-45.
40 One other writer senses a prose foundation to the selection and order of poems
in Opus 39. But rather than suggesting a generic literary model, as proposed above,
Herwig Knaus, pp. 13-14, asserts that the Liederkreis is actually based on Eichendorffs
novel Ahnung und Gegenwart. Knaus provides little detail on the supposed correlation of
the cycle and the novel, and does not discuss Auf einer Burg in this regard. Turchin
convincingly dismisses this speculation for lack of evidence, pp. 277-78.

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 EICHENDORFF AND SCHUMANN

and
andexplained
explainedby first
by first
examining
examining
the original
thecreation,
originalthe
before
before evaluating
evaluating
the composite
the composite
work of art,
workthe of
lied.
art,
An unde
the
ing
ingof ofthis
this
unusual
unusual
song and
songits and
important
its important
function in funct
the Op
cycle
cycle is is
unlocked
unlocked
by a by
literary
a literary
key which
key
is held
which
in the is stony
held h
Friedrich Barbarossa.

Aurora, New York

587
CORRECTION

The article by Geoffrey Payzant, "Hanslick on Music as Prod

of Feeling," from which Peter Kivy quoted in his "What
Hanslick Denying?" was incorrectly cited (this Journal VIII,
1 [Winter 1990], 4). It appeared in the Journal of Musicolog
Research IX, nos. 2-3 (1989), 133-45.

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