FIVE SONGS (LIEDER), OP. 107
Recording: Juliane Banse, soprano (Nos. 3, 5); Andreas Schmidt, baritone (Nos. 1-2, 4); Helmut Deutsch, piano [
CPO 999 840-2]
Published 1889.

The songs in this very last “regular” set are distinguished by their extreme brevity.  None of the five is longer than two minutes, and only the first and last (barely) exceed ninety seconds.  Even though none of the poems are to folk texts, they have the character and mood sometimes seen in Brahms’s folk-like settings.  In contrast to Op. 105 and Op. 106, there is no “capstone” song like “Verrat” or “Ein Wanderer” from those groups.  All five show an exquisite adaptation of strophic form.  None of them is a purely simple strophic setting, although Nos. 1 and 3 come close, with only minimal adaptations to the accompaniments at the beginning of their second verses.  It seems as if Brahms wanted to say farewell to that most “miniature” of musical forms, the art song, with the most miniature--though masterfully crafted--examples.  The first, to a text by the baroque poet Fleming, exemplifies the artfulness with the independence and interdependence of the voice and piano parts.  Brahms’s friend Elisabet von Herzogenberg, from whom he asked for commentary on his later songs, observed that the genial setting seemed to conflict with the description of the “proud woman,” but the narrator is in fact still attempting to win her over.  The contrast between the voice and piano could represent the distance between the characters.  “Salamander” is an overt attempt at musical humor, but Elisabet (who disliked Lemcke intensely) was scandalized by the text with its “cool devil.”  The third song, which imitates birdsong in both the voice and piano, exudes pure happiness as a new bride converses with a female swallow about love and marriage.  The abrupt harmonic shifts and the poignant slowing in each verse are still too warm and amiable to suggest real concern, despite the protagonist’s questions.  “Mainkätzchen,” set to a very diminutive poem with two nearly identical stanzas, nonetheless has a greatly varied and extended setting of the second stanza to highlight the remembered time when the narrator decorated not his own hat, but that of his erstwhile beloved, with the catkins of the title.  The text could have invited melancholy, but it is instead sweetly nostalgic.  The set closes with the last of three songs titled “Mädchenlied” (two of which are by Heyse).  In contrast to the rest of the set, this “spinning” song is despairing and almost bitter in its depiction of the lonely girl.  The extended, coda-like final verse displays some consolation in its use of major-key harmonies, but the passionate climactic outcry and threefold repetition of the last line are profoundly sad.

Note: Links to English translations of the texts are from Emily Ezust’s site at http://www.lieder.net.  For the most part, the translations are line-by-line, except where the difference between German and English syntax requires slight alterations to the contents of certain lines.  The German texts (included here) are also visible in the translation links.

IMSLP WORK PAGE

ONLINE SCORE FROM IMSLP (First Edition from Brahms-Institut Lübeck--original key edition and lower key editionLower keys of Nos. 2-3 match Peters middle-key edition.)
ONLINE SCORE FROM IMSLP (From Breitkopf & Härtel Sämtliche Werke--original keys)
ONLINE SCORE FROM IMSLP (Edition Peters, edited by Max Friedländer):
No. 1: An die Stolze (in original key, A major)
No. 1: An die Stolze (in low key, F major)
No. 2: Salamander (in original key, A minor/major)
No. 2: Salamander (in middle key, F-sharp minor/major)
No. 2: Salamander (in low key, F minor/major)
No. 3: Das Mädchen spricht (in original key, A major)
No. 3: Das Mädchen spricht (in middle key, F-sharp major)
No. 3: Das Mädchen spricht (in low key, F major)
No. 4: Maienkätzchen (in original key, E-flat major)
No. 4:
Maienkätzchen (in low key, C major)
No. 5: Mädchenied (in original key, B minor)
No. 5: Mädchenlied (in middle key, A minor)
No. 5: Mädchenlied (in low key, G minor)


1. An die Stolze (To the Proud Woman).  Text by Paul Fleming.  Sehr lebhaft und ausdrucksvoll (Very lively and expressively).  Strophic form.  A MAJOR, Cut time [2/2] (Low key F major).


German Text:
Und gleichwohl kann ich anders nicht,
Ich muß ihr günstig sein,
Obgleich der Augen stolzes Licht
Mir mißgönnt seinen Schein.
Ich will, ich soll, ich soll, ich muß dich lieben,
Dadurch wir beid’ uns nur betrüben,
Weil mein Wunsch doch nicht gilt
Und du nicht hören wilt.

Wie manchen Tag, wie manche Nacht,
Wie manche liebe Zeit
Hab’ ich mit Klagen durchgebracht,
Und du verlachst mein Leid!
Du weißt, du hörst, du hörst, du siehst die Schmerzen,
Und nimmst der’ keinen doch zu Herzen,
So daß ich zweifle fast,
Ob du ein Herze hast.

[Here two stanzas not set by Brahms]

English Translation (includes stanzas 3 and 4, not set by Brahms)

0:00 [m. 1]--Stanza (Strophe) 1, lines 1-2.  The piano plays a low bass downbeat, and the voice immediately enters.  The vocal and piano lines are independent of each other.  The singer presents the first line with a descending melody that is rich in mildly dissonant notes resolving downward.  It reaches up again once before completing the line.  The piano, meanwhile, has a flowing mid-range melody that arches up and then descends in long-short rhythm.  This pattern is retained for the second line, where both the voice and piano reach higher and veer toward C-sharp minor, with three notes on the first syllable of “günstig.”  The voice breaks while the piano quickly moves back home, its right hand reaching higher.
0:10 [m. 7]--Stanza 1, lines 3-4.  The same pattern appears to begin again, but the piano, which begins more quietly, adds bell-like chords in the right hand, leaving the flowing melody to the left and dispensing with some bass notes.  Inner notes of these chords double the vocal line.  The voice adds a new upward leap at the end of line 3.  Line 4 appears to match line 2, but with the continuing bell-like chords in the right hand.  At the end, however, it reaches even higher and moves to the “dominant” E major instead of its “relative” C-sharp minor.  The piano only has three chords echoing the voice, no bridge as it did after line 2.
0:17 [m. 12]--Stanza 1, line 5.  The piano, quiet again but building, continues the bell like chords, now against higher downward-arching figures in the left hand.  The voice tentatively breathes out the first words of line 5, “Ich will, ich soll.”  The harmonies, with a prominent F-natural in a “diminished” chord, hint at either A minor or C major.  After a pause, the voice continues with “ich soll, ich muß,” holding the last word on the persistent F-natural against dissonant chords and long-short left-hand skips and leaps.  The voice then leaps down an octave to complete the line, holding a low F-natural on “lieben.”  Against this climax, the piano has a broad upward arpeggio on a colorful “diminished seventh” chord resolving to the “dominant” in A.
0:26 [m. 18]--Stanza 1, line 6.  The voice and piano have been largely independent to this point, symbolizing the distance between the “proud woman” and her insistent suitor.  Now, solidly in the home key, they come together somewhat in a sequence of exchanges with piano chords echoing brief vocal interjections on “dadurch,” wir Beid,” and “uns nur,” the first two jumping up, the last one down.  The piano emerges into a brief arpeggio as the line is completed on “betrüben.”
0:32 [m. 22]--Stanza 1, lines 7-8.  The singer, in the role of the suitor, becomes more insistent and bitter in these brief closing lines.  The vocal line arches up and down on line 7 as the piano introduces a new pattern with left hand harmonies on the beats and the right hand echoing them after the beat.  Leading into line 8, these harmonies become mildly dissonant three-note chords.  Line 8 is presented in a similar arch, reaching full harmonic closure, but the piano continues, again with dissonant chords, and the last line is repeated with an upward leap and a descent in longer notes, the piano chords continuing and building in volume.
0:41 [m. 28]--The voice reaches an emphatic cadence with the repeated, lengthened final line.  In the short postlude, the piano continues with the right-hand chords after the beat, but these move down to the middle range.  Instead of chords, the left hand has a broadly arching arpeggio in low bass notes.  Both hands are in meter-obscuring three-beat groups.  Both then slow down and become quiet, still obscuring the meter in a longer six-beat group.  They come together on the last chord.
0:46 [m. 31]--Stanza (strophe) 2, lines 1-2.  The vocal line is unchanged from stanza 1, but the piano melody is an octave higher.  The few bass notes are still mostly in their original low octave.  The voice now has three notes on the first syllable of “liebe.”  With the arpeggio leading into the short bridge, the piano is fully restored to its original register, and the rest of the stanza is identical to the first.
0:55 [m. 37]--Stanza 2, lines 3-4, set as at 0:10 [m. 7].
1:02 [m. 42]--Stanza 2, line 5, set as at 0:17 [m. 12].  The short interjections on “Du weißt, du horst, du horst, du siehst” match those in the first stanza.  The climactic low F-natural is on “Schmerzen.”
1:11 [m. 48]--Stanza 2, line 6, set as at 0:26 [m. 18].  The vocal interjections are on “und nimmst,” “der kei-” and “-nen doch,” breaking up the word “keinen.”  The last line is completed on “zu Herzen.”
1:17 [m. 52]--Stanza 2, lines 7-8, set as at 0:32 [m. 22] with climactic longer repetition of the last line, now the powerful “ob du ein Herze hast” (“whether you even have a heart”), more potent than the earlier “und du nicht hören willt” (“and you will not hear me”).
1:26 [m. 58]--Cadence and postlude, as at 0:41 [m. 28].  The quiet final chord is held. 
1:37--END OF SONG [60 mm.]



2. Salamander (Salamander).  Text by Karl Lemcke.  Mit Laune (With good humor).  Modified strophic form.  A MINOR/MAJOR, 4/4 time (Middle key F-sharp minor/major, low key F minor/major).

German Text:
Es saß ein Salamander
Auf einem kühlen Stein,
da warf ein böses Mädchen
Ins Feuer ihn hinein.

Sie meint’, er soll verbrennen,
Ihm ward erst wohl zu Mut,
wohl wie mir kühlem Teufel
Die heiße Liebe tut.

English Translation

0:00 [m. 1]--Stanza 1, lines 1-2.  The voice begins on an upbeat, and the piano immediately responds with a descending A-minor arpeggio that turns back up on C major.  The vocal melody marches up against this arpeggio.  The second line is marked by a turning gesture on “kühlen” over “dominant” harmony.  After the voice reaches its cadence, this “turning” gesture is strongly imitated by the piano leading into the next lines.
0:07 [m. 5]--Stanza 1, lines 3-4.  The voice leaps up to begin the third line, then plunges down.  The piano figuration continues to evoke the “turning” gesture with the harmony again hinting at the “relative” C major.  At the word “Mädchen,” there is a dissonant “diminished” chord which is reiterated when the voice jumps up again to begin line 4.  The line continues in the voice with a downward arch as the piano left hand leaps up and down in octaves.  The line is completed on the “dominant” chord, but the piano immediately plays a forceful gesture on the “diminished” harmony with the hands in contrary motion.  The voice then uses this gesture to begin a higher repetition of line 4 that ends with a full A-minor cadence. 
0:15 [m. 10]--With the vocal cadence, the piano begins an interlude based on the opening vocal melody.  The left hand, in octaves, outlines that melody against mildly syncopated long-short chords in the right hand.  Then things become suddenly quieter as the right hand plays off-beat chords after left hand bass notes.  These right-hand chords are a disguised version of the turning gesture from the second line.  They slow down with a pause in preparation for the vocal entry of stanza 2.
0:21 [m. 14]--Stanza 2, lines 1-2.  The key signature changes to A major.  The statement of line 1 is simply a major-key version of the line from stanza 1, with harmony on C-sharp minor substituted for the previous C major.  However, a break is added after the line for the piano to echo its final gesture, adding an upper harmony.  The second line is also changed to major, complete with the “turning” gesture, which is again imitated by the piano, this time more gently and with a harmonic shift toward C-sharp minor.
0:29 [m. 19]--Stanza 2, lines 3-4.  Line 3 is like stanza 1, but the piano and voice both suggest C-sharp minor.  Things change with line 4.  The voice leaps up, then climbs chromatically, firmly establishing A major.  There is also upward motion in the left-hand octaves.  The right hand, however, which is richly harmonized, has a downward chromatic motion alternating with lower notes.  This contrary motion between the voice and the right hand evokes the forceful piano gesture heard before the repetition of the line in stanza 1.  There is thus a connection between “Feuer” (“fire”) there and “heiße Liebe” (“hot love”) here.  The piano then states that very gesture leading into the analogous line repetition.
0:34 [m. 23]--The repetition of line 4 reverses the chromatic contrary motion, the voice moving down and stretching out the word “heiße” against upward motion in both hands of the piano.  The word “Liebe” is then stretched out before an emphatic A-major cadence whose piano figures, with their dramatic pauses, echo the corresponding A-minor cadence in stanza 1.
0:38 [m. 25]--The postlude begins like a major-key version of the interlude from 0:15 [m. 10], but the left-hand octaves and the syncopated chords in the right hand are stretched out for another two measures, with the left hand twice leaping down, moving lower each time and ending up in the piano’s lowest register.  Then, as in the interlude, things get quiet again, and there is an almost cheeky upward gesture in the right hand, which has moved to the tenor register, before the gently sighing final chords.
0:52--END OF SONG [31 mm.]


3. Das Mädchen spricht (The Girl Speaks).  Text by Otto Friedrich Gruppe.  Lebhaft und anmutig (Lively and graceful).  Strophic form.  A MAJOR, 3/4 time (Middle key F-sharp major, low key F major).

German Text:
Schwalbe, sag mir an,
Ist’s dein alter Mann
Mit dem du’s Nest gebaut,
Oder hast du jüngst erst
Dich ihm vertraut?

Sag’, was zwitschert ihr,
Sag’, was flüstert ihr
Des Morgens so vertraut?
Gelt, du bist wohl auch noch
Nicht lange Braut?

English Translation


0:00 [m. 1]--Stanza (strophe) 1, introduction.  The piano sets up the rhythms and arpeggios, evoking bird song, that pervade throughout.  The right hand has continuous descents in fast long-short-short rhythm that themselves move continually downward.  The left hand has simpler upward long-short leaps, but these also move steadily down.  After three measures, the second of which is mildly chromatic, there is a pause, then a soft sighing gesture in the right hand (against more long-short leaps in the left) preparing the vocal entry.
0:07 [m. 5]--Stanza 1, lines 1-3.  The singer presents the first two lines in short downward-arching phrases that evoke the bird-like figuration from the introduction.  The piano is delicately interwoven, also deploying the long-short-short rhythms, descending against the vocal lines, then ascending between them.  The left hand begins each measure with a longer note, followed by a broad upward arching motion in long-short rhythm.  In the third line, the voice shoots up in long-short rhythms.  The piano, meanwhile, arranges its figures in a meter-crossing hemiola suggesting a longer 3/2 measure over two 3/4 measures.  The voice repeats the line in the second of these measures, arching down and arriving on the “dominant” harmony.
0:17 [m. 11]--Stanza 1, line 4.  After the voice arrives on the “dominant,” the piano abruptly shifts to the distant key of C major, emphasized with a sudden forte volume.  The figurations are now reversed, with the right hand playing the long-short rhythm, arching down, and the left playing upward-arching figures in the long-short-short rhythm.  C-major harmony alternates with chords on its “subdominant” F major.  The phrasing shifts the meter forward a beat.  The voice enters after two measures with a descending line in longer notes, with a strong “leaning” resolution on “hast du.”  After a breath, there is an upward leap to a similar “leaning” resolution on “jüngst erst.”  These resolutions move harmonically from C to F and then from F back to C.
0:25 [m. 16]--Stanza 1, line 5.  The music has already started to become quieter, and now it gradually slows as the final line is sung twice and the metric sense is restored.  The voice moves immediately back to the home key for a straightforward descent in the first statement.  The piano is less direct, lingering on “diminished” harmonies and the “relative” minor harmony on F-sharp.  The right hand descends on the long-short rhythm while the left ascends on the long-short-short.  The piano arrests its motion as the voice begins its second statement of the line, rising to match the question in the text. The piano, in slow chords, plays a “plagal” cadence to confirm the home key, then the right hand rises in thirds (and a fourth) from the A-major chord.
0:32 [m. 20]--Stanza (strophe) 2, introduction.  The rising gesture just heard leads into a restatement of the introduction as at the beginning of the song.
0:39 [m. 24]--Stanza 2, lines 1-3.  The vocal part is unchanged from the first stanza at 0:07 [m. 5].  The piano, however, is subtly changed.  It is marked pianissimo, a quieter level than before, and the long notes are eliminated in both hands.  This results in a more continuous flow in the right hand, but in the left, the constant long-short rhythm results in upward arching figures over two beats, thus anticipating the hemiola in line 3.  The left hand continues this pattern under line 3 itself, giving further emphasis to the cross-meter effect.  This change in the piano for these lines is the only thing preventing an exact strophic repetition.
0:50 [m. 30]--Stanza 2, line 4.  The motion to C major restores the previous piano figuration, and the statement is as in stanza 1 at 0:17 [m. 11].  The “leaning” resolutions are on “bist wohl” and “auch noch.”
0:57 [m. 35]--Stanza 2, line 5.  Slowing, quieting twice-sung question, moving back home, as at 0:25 [m. 16].  The rising gesture in the right hand leads to the final statement of the introduction music as a postlude.
1:05 [m. 39]--Postlude.  The introduction music is stated for a third time, the only change being at the end, where the soft sighing gesture is replaced by an emphatic final cadence.
1:15--END OF SONG [42 mm.]


4. Maienkätzchen (Catkins).  Text by Detlev von Liliencron.  Grazioso.  Modified strophic form with greatly extended second verse.  E-FLAT MAJOR, 3/4 time (Low key C major).

German Text:
Maienkätzchen, erster Gruß,
Ich breche euch und stecke euch
An meinen alten Hut.

Maienkätzchen, erster Gruß,
Einst brach ich euch und steckte euch
Der Liebsten an den Hut.

English Translation


0:00 [m. 1]--Stanza 1.  In a two-bar introduction beginning on an upbeat, the piano establishes a figure with a chromatic downward-turning dotted (long-short) rhythm in thirds that will become significant.  The voice enters on the first line with a rising arpeggio, downward leap, and upward skip.  The piano harmonizes, then partly imitates the line with harmonies in thirds and sixths against a pulsing, syncopated left hand.  The second line resembles the first in the voice, with an added breath break after “ich breche euch.”  The right hand begins an octave higher, then descends instead of imitating.  The third line is simply a descending arpeggio and upward leap using slow and fast long-short rhythm against detached piano chords.
0:14 [m. 8]--The stanza ends with a full cadence leading into a brief interlude.  A left-hand arpeggio leads to the downward-turning dotted rhythm heard at the beginning, in the tenor voice of the left hand at a new forte volume level, the harmony moving to the “dominant.”  The right hand has punctuating downbeat/upbeat descending harmonies.  After two iterations of the rhythm, the hands reverse, with the right hand playing it twice in thirds over left-hand chords, now back at a quiet level.  These are back in the home key, but the dotted figures are a third higher than they were in the introduction.
0:23 [m. 13]--Stanza 2.  The first line is sung and accompanied as in Stanza 1.  Instead of continuing immediately to the second line, however, the singer lingers on “erster Gruß,” repeating it in slower notes.  Under this lengthened repetition, the piano part surprisingly resembles its continuation under the second line before.  Brahms marks the repetition sostenuto in both the piano and voice, and both turn toward the “subdominant” key (A-flat).
0:30 [m. 17]--The second line is now sung to the downward-turning dotted rhythm, back in the home key, and the piano accompaniment, which doubles the voice, is almost exactly the same as the last two measures of the interlude that preceded the stanza.  The third line has the same downward arch as before, but it is higher, straightens out the fast long-short rhythm, and ends with an incomplete and questioning “deceptive” cadence.
0:38 [m. 21]--The second and third lines are repeated.  The second line is a fifth higher (forcefully beginning on the song’s highest pitch), over “dominant” harmony, now without the right-hand doubling.  The left hand takes the lead with the rising dotted rhythm in a tenor line, and the right has off-beat chords.  The dotted rhythm on “steckte euch” moves down a step, and the harmony again turns to the colorful “subdominant” (A-flat).  The third line is now tenderly sung to the same notes as in the first stanza but stretched out to a much broader half-quarter rhythm.  The piano adds rests between its chords here.
0:46 [m. 25]--Postlude.  At the warm final vocal cadence, the piano twice reiterates the now familiar and comforting downward-turning dotted rhythm over left-hand arpeggios, the second a fourth higher than the first (again hinting at the “subdominant”).  The left hand briefly drops out as the right trails down in a preparatory arpeggio on the “supertonic” (F) before the two rolled, detached forte chords of the final cadence.  Throughout the song, there has been no hint of regret, only increasingly tender nostalgia.
0:58--END OF SONG [29 mm.]


5. Mädchenlied (Girl’s Song).  Text by Paul Heyse.  Leise bewegt (With quiet motion).  Modified strophic form with coda-like final verse (AAA’B).  B MINOR, 3/8 time (Middle key A minor, low key G minor).
(The title Mädchenlied is also used for Op. 85, No. 3 and Op. 95, No. 6.)

German Text:
Auf die Nacht in den Spinnstuben
Da singen die Mädchen,
Da lachen die Dorfbuben,
Wie flink gehn die Rädchen!
 
Spinnt jedes am Brautschatz,
Daß der Liebste sich freut.
Nicht lange, so gibt es
Ein Hochzeitsgeläut.
 
Kein Mensch, der mir gut ist,
Will nach mir fragen.
Wie bang mir zumut ist,
Wem soll ich’s klagen?
 
Die Tränen rinnen
Mir übers Gesicht -
Wofür soll ich spinnen,
Ich weiß es nicht!

English Translation

0:00 [m. 1]--Stanza (strophe) 1 (A).  The voice begins on an upbeat, doubled and harmonized by the piano.  The singer moves up three notes, then descends four notes.  After an upturn, the same pattern is used a step higher for the second line.  The piano tumbles down and turns back up in continuously “spinning” sixteenth notes, sometimes harmonized by a sixth, fifth, or third.  Each line is marked by a bass punctuation on the downbeat.  The third line seems as if it will continue the pattern another step higher, but after the upward rise, it falls in an arpeggio.  The fourth line is like the first, but the upbeat is on the first note of the four-note descent (against an ascending piano) and the last word is stretched out with a sighing gesture.
0:12 [m. 9]--As the voice completes the “sighing” gesture, the piano plays an upbeat resembling the opening.  A dolce interlude begins with the last vocal note, the piano playing a slower, extended descent in “weeping” detached notes over the “spinning” upward arpeggios.  This descent begins with an emphasis on the “subdominant” E minor, then reaches down to the tenor range before the upbeat to Stanza 2.
0:17 [m. 1, upbeat from m. 12]--Stanza (strophe) 2 (A).  Brahms uses a repeat sign for this stanza.  There are some changes to the declamation, such as the first upbeat being on one word instead of two and the second on two words instead of one in a simple reversal.  Most notably, in the upturn at the end of the second line, the word “freut” is used where the two-syllable “Mädchen” had been before.  The last two lines have the same declamation.
0:28 [m. 9]--Interlude as at 0:12.
0:33 [m. 13]--Stanza (strophe) 3 (A’).  The vocal line is essentially the same as in the first two stanzas, but the upbeats are removed from the second and fourth lines and replaced by rests.  The piano is entirely different.  The “spinning” sixteenth notes are reversed in direction, beginning with upward motion.  With this reversal, the first upbeat is not doubled, and the doubling of the second and third upbeats is placed against the continuous motion rather than being part of it.  The same is true for the arpeggio in the third line, which is now doubled and harmonized completely instead of partially, over rising left-hand figures in meter-disrupting two-beat groups.  The spinning motion abruptly stops under the last “lamenting” line.
0:45 [m. 21]--After the arrest of the motion under the last line, the dolce interlude begins and continues as it had after the first two stanzas.  Its last measure adds a new left-hand arpeggio, a turn to major, and a dotted rhythm in the right hand, implying a forward-thrusting motion into the new music of the last stanza.
0:51 [m. 25]--Stanza 4 (B).  The first two lines are expressively set to a continuous descent that begins in major but turns to minor.  This is accompanied by dolce rising arpeggios in the “spinning” sixteenth-note motion.  These emphasize the “subdominant” harmony on E, first major, then minor.  The second line ends with a “plagal” motion back to B, but the arrival is on B major, not minor.  This motion is echoed in a very brief interlude that uses the familiar “weeping” detached notes.  This suddenly builds in volume.
1:00 [m. 31]--The third line is set to an arpeggio resembling the one in the other three stanzas, but the harmony is new, on the remote D-sharp minor (a chord borrowed from the home major key).  The singer now cries out in despair, forte, and the piano arpeggios and chords are again in the meter-disrupting two-beat hemiola grouping.  The piano plays the familiar upbeat, and the singer, seemingly in the home major key, presents the last line, beginning on the downbeat, still forte.  The piano has a strong accent on a very colorful harmony that manages to suggest both the home major and minor keys.  The spinning arpeggios follow, but the singer holds and suspends a note instead of completing the line’s typical “sighing” gesture.
1:08 [m. 36]--With another upbeat lead-in from the piano, the singer repeats the final line a step lower, now to the same notes as in the other stanzas (particularly the third, without the upbeat).  It is quieter than the first statement as the outcry of despair subsides.  The piano again plays the “spinning” motion.  As in the first statement, however, the “sighing” gesture is not completed, and the note that should descend is again suspended and held.  Finally, the spinning motion is arrested, and the singer presents a third and final statement of the last line to a simple but tragic descent from E to B, again in minor, in slow full-measure notes.  The piano slowly plays and holds notes that result in a dissonant “ninth” chord.
1:16 [m. 42]--Overlapping the singer’s final pathetic descent, the piano emerges into the familiar interlude that has been heard between each stanza, now serving as a postlude.  As a result of careful planning, the overlapping notes in the voice exactly match those in the other stanzas.  The “weeping” detached notes lead where they have before, but as after the third stanza, there is a soothing turn to the home major on the last chord, which is held.
1:35--END OF SONG [45 mm.]
END OF SET


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