DownWithTyranny!: Sunday Classics preview: This is no happy wanderer Schubert presents to us

SCHUBERT: "Der Wanderer" ("The Wanderer"), D. 493

Poem by Georg Philipp Schmidt von Lübeck

I come down from the mountains.
The valley streams;
the sea roars.
I wander, silent and joyless,
and my sighs always ask, "Where?"
Always "Where?"

[1:56-2:57]
The sun seems so cold to me here,
the flowers faded and life old,
and what they say is empty sound.
I am a stranger everywhere.

Where are you? Where are you, my beloved land?
Sought for, dreamed of, but never known!

The land, the land, so green with hope,
the land where my roses bloom,
where my friends go wandering
where my dead rise up
the land where my language is spoken,
o land, where are you?

I wander, silent and joyless,
and my sighs always ask, "Where?"
Always "Where?"

In a ghostly whisper it calls back to me,
"There where you are not,
there is your joy!"

by Ken

We'll come back to the boldface highlighting in a moment. It happens to be our reason for listening to "Der Wanderer" this week, but it's a justly popular Schubert song in its own right, with a gravity that's beautifully captured by Gerald Moore in the above performance. This is not a happy wanderer.

HERE'S A NOTE FROM WIKIPEDIA

There is, by the way, an earlier version of this setting as well as a totally unrelated Schubert song called just "Der Wanderer" (D. 649, to a poem by Friedrich Schlegel).

The song begins with a recitative, describing the setting: mountains, a steaming valley, the roaring sea. The wanderer is strolling quietly, unhappily, and asks, sighing, the question: "where?"

The next section, consisting of 8 bars of a slow melody sung in pianissimo, describes the feelings of the wanderer: the sun seems cold, the blossom withered, life old. The wanderer expresses the conviction of being a stranger everywhere. This 8 bar section was later used by Schubert as theme for a set of variations forming the second movement of the Wanderer Fantasy.

Next the music shifts to the key of E major, the tempo increases and the time signature changes to 6/8. The wanderer asks: "where are you my beloved land?" This place the wanderer longs for is described as green with hope, "the land where my roses bloom, my friends stroll, my dead rise" and, finally, "the land which speaks my language, Oh land, where are you?" Towards the end of this section, the music gets quite animated and forms the climax of the song.

Finally, the music returns to the original minor key and slow tempo. After quoting the question "where?" from the opening, the song closes with a "ghostly breath" finally answering the question: "There where you are not, there is happiness." The song closes in the key of E major.

"THE WANDERER" AND THE WANDERER FANTASY

As you may have guessed from the above, we're heading toward Schubert's great piano fantasy, which takes the name by which we usually know it from the song that Schubert raided for it. Here again are the most relevant eight bars.

SCHUBERT: "Der Wanderer" ("The Wanderer"), D. 493:
"Die Sonne dünkt mich hier so kalt"

The sun seems so cold to me here,
the flowers faded and life old,
and what they say is empty sound.
I am a stranger everywhere.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Gerald Moore, piano. DG, recorded in Berlin, 1966-68

And here's just the beginning of the Adagio theme-and-variations section of the fantasy.

SCHUBERT: Wanderer Fantasy, D. 730: ii. Adagio (beginning)

Arthur Rubinstein, piano. RCA-BMG, recorded in Rome, Apr. 20, 1965

HERE'S THE COMPLETE SONG "DER WANDERER"

Here's the complete Fischer-Dieskau-Moore performance, and a less brooding one by Bryn Terfel and Malcolm Martineau.

SCHUBERT: "Der Wanderer" ("The Wanderer"), D. 493

Poem by Georg Philipp Schmidt von Lübeck

I come down from the mountains.
The valley streams;
the sea roars,
I wander, silent and joyless,
and my sighs always ask, "Where?"
Always "Where?"

[Fischer-Dieskau: 1:56-2:57. Terfel: 1:39-2:44.]
The sun seems so cold to me here,
the flowers faded and life old,
and what they say is empty sound.
I am a stranger everywhere.

Where are you? Where are you, my beloved land?
Sought for, dreamed of, but never known!

The land, the land, so green with hope,
the land where my roses bloom,
where my friends go wandering
where my dead rise up
the land where my language is spoken,
o land, where are you?

I wander, silent and joyless,
and my sighs always ask, "Where?"
Always "Where?"

In a ghostly whisper it calls back to me,
"There where you are not,
there is your joy!"

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Gerald Moore, piano. DG, recorded in Berlin, 1966-68

Bryn Terfel, baritone; Malcolm Marineau, piano. DG, recorded in Hamburg, Feb. 1994

IN THIS WEEK'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

In case you didn't get the message, we're going to listen to Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy.