Monday, September 06, 2004
On an Old Picture
Eduard Mörike (1804-1875), Auf ein altes Bild:
Newer› ‹Older
In the summery haze of a verdant landscape,Hugo Wolf finished his achingly beautiful musical setting of this poem on April 14, 1888. It's on pp. 76-77 of his Complete Mörike Songs (New York: Dover Publications, 1982). According to Eric Sams, The Songs of Hugo Wolf (London: Faber and Faber, 1992), p. 100, Wolf wrote about his composition in a letter to Edmund Lang:
Beside cool water, reeds and canebrake,
Look, how the innocent little child
Plays irrepressibly on the maiden's lap!
And there in the woodland blissfully,
Alas, grows already the sapling of the cross!
In grüner Landschaft Sommerflor,
Bei kühlem Wasser, Schilf und Rohr,
Schau, wie das Knäblein Sündelos
Frei spielet auf der Jungfrau Schoß!
Und dort im Walde wonnesam,
Ach, grünet schon des Kreuzes Stamm!
My last song, which I have just finished, is without doubt the crown of all. I am still in the grip of the enchantment of the mood of this song; everything is still shimmering in green all round me.I don't know if anyone has ever tried to identify the painting which Mörike described. Maybe there never was such a picture, except in his mind's eye. The power of his poetry is such that he makes us see it, too.
