These are two of the finest examples of German Lieder I’ve encountered. Perhaps no art form has succeeded in uniting poetry and music more effectively than the 19th century tradition of German classical art songs.
A careful study of this form of creative expression and dialogue between the greatest poets and musical composers offers a window into one of the most recent Golden Ages of music and poetry.
Below are two original translations to follow along with and discover the Rosetta Stone of verse and song—classical German Lieder.
Oh beautiful world, where art thou flown?
Oh face of nature’s purest bloom, return!
Now only in the fairy land of song
Still lives the image for which we yearn.
And barren mourn once blooming fields
No Godhead lights up nature’s visage,
How from the world’s every living image
Naught but a shadow yields!
Translation © David B. Gosselin
Original
Schöne Welt, wo bist du? Kehre wieder,
Holdes Blütenalter der Natur!
Ach, nur in dem Feenland der
Lieder Lebt noch deine fabelhafte Spur.
Ausgestorben trauert das Gefilde,
Keine Gottheit zeigt sich meinem Blick.
Ach, von jenem lebenwarmen Bilde
Blieb der Schatten nur zurück.
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Franz Schubert (January 1797 – November 1828) set many of Friedrich Schiller’s poems to music throughout his short but miraculously productive life . One of the most moving examples is Schubert’s setting of one of the 28 stanzas from Schiller’s long poem “The Gods of Greece,” composed during the poet’s middle period.
Death is the cooling night,
Life is the sultry day.
But now darkness settles
And I long for respite.
Outside my window there looms a tree;
In it sings the young Nightingale.
She sings only of Love—
Even in dreams, it reaches me.
Translation © David B. Gosselin
Original
Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nacht,
Das Leben ist der schwüle Tag.
Es dunkelt schon, mich schläfert,
Der Tag hat mich müd gemacht.
Über mein Bett erhebt sich ein Baum,
Drin singt die junge Nachtigall;
Sie singt von lauter Liebe—
Ich hör es sogar im Traum.
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Heinrich Heine (December 1797 – February 1856) was a renowned German poet and one of the most celebrated German satirists. Despite his successful career, he spent the last ten years of his life bedridden, slowly dying and unable to even care for himself without the help of an aid. This poem captures Heine’s outlook and the sublimer state of mind which animated his indomitable spirit until the very end.
