A teenage masterpiece

Everyone knows that Mozart was already writing music as a child. However, nearly all of the music for which he remembered was written between his mid-20s and his death 10 years later. By contrast, there are other composers who wrote well-loved pieces in their teens: Bizet’s Symphony in C, Mendlessohn’s Midsummernight’s Dream overture and several works by Schubert, for example.

On Sunday Magdalena and I attended a short concert at which her friend, pianist Joanna Brzezinska. It was hosted by a couple who hold invitation-only concerts in their large front room in an old house in Dardagny, a village in the wine-growing region just outside Geneva city but still within the canton’s borders. (It’s always nice to travel through vineyards at this time of the year, when there is still a lovely golden-green sheen on the rows of vines.)

Anyway, Joanna played a selection of pieces by Chopin and Liszt, including the latter’s piano transcription of Schubert’s song, Gretchen am Spinnrade (Gretchen at the spinning wheel), which is one of the most powerful art-songs ever written.

The text is from Goethe’s Faust. With the aid of the devil, Faust has bewitched and seduced Gretchen and has now left her alone. While spinning yarn, she mourns his absence. This isn’t some droopy sentimental kind of mourning – through Schubert’s setting it comes across as a physical ache - or an itch she can't scratch. Schubert repeats the opening verse, in which she speaks of how calm has deserted her and will never return, as a chorus, while the piano accompaniment imitates the whirring of the spinning wheel - not as an acoustic gimmick but rather to build up tension. The song reaches its highest note and emotional climax when Gretchen, listing the things she misses about Faust, mentions – above all else – his kiss. At this point, the piano falters and momentarily stops.

Later on, Schubert went on to portray the physical anguish of thwarted love from a Man’s point of view in his cycle of 24 songs, Winterreise (Winter’s journey) and this work is a masterpiece on a bigger scale. But his concise, searing portrayal of Gretchen’s pain (just 4 minutes long) was written when he was just 17!

You can access a recording of the song here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY0eeotSDi8

And here are the words in English:

My peace is gone,
My heart is heavy,
I will find it never
and never more.

Where I do not have him,
That is the grave,
The whole world
Is bitter to me.

My poor head
Is crazy to me,
My poor mind
Is torn apart.

For him only, I look
Out the window
Only for him do I go
Out of the house.

His tall walk,
His noble figure,
His mouth's smile,
His eyes' power,

And his mouth's
Magic flow,
His handclasp,
and ah! his kiss!

My peace is gone,
My heart is heavy,
I will find it never
and never more.

My bosom urges itself
toward him.
Ah, might I grasp
And hold him!

And kiss him,
As I would wish,
At his kisses
I should die!