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Songs

Songs

Im Frühling (1826) D882


This song was recorded on the album 'Schubert Year by Year' on Stone Records, in preparation for Oxford Lieder's 2014 The Schubert Project, the first ever complete performance of Schubert's songs in a single festival. It features one song from each year of Schubert's creative life.

Click here to listen to the song with James Gilchrist and Sholto Kynoch, or click here to buy the CD from Stone Records.



Im Frühling

Ernst Schulze

Still sitz ich an des Hügels Hang,
Der Himmel ist so klar,
Das Lüftchen spielt im grünen Tal,
Wo ich beim ersten Frühlingsstrahl
Einst, ach, so glücklich war.
Wo ich an ihrer Seite ging
So traulich und so nah,
Und tief im dunkeln Felsenquell
Den schönen Himmel blau und hell,
Und sie im Himmel sah.
Sieh, wie der bunte Frühling schon
Aus Knosp’ und Blüte blickt!
Nicht alle Blüten sind mir gleich,
Am liebsten pflückt’ ich von dem Zweig,
Von welchem sie gepflückt.
Denn alles ist wie damals noch,
Die Blumen, das Gefild;
Die Sonne scheint nicht minder hell,
Nicht minder freundlich schwimmt im Quell
Das blaue Himmelsbild.
Es wandeln nur sich Will und Wahn,
Es wechseln Lust und Streit,
Vorüber flieht der Liebe Glück,
Und nur die Liebe bleibt zurück,
Die Lieb’ und ach, das Leid!
O wär ich doch ein Vöglein nur
Dort an dem Wiesenhang!
Dann blieb’ ich auf den Zweigen hier,
Und säng ein süsses Lied von ihr,
Den ganzen Sommer lang.

In Spring

English Translation © Richard Wigmore

I sit silently on the hillside.
The sky is so clear,
the breezes play in the green valley
where once, in the first rays of spring,
I was, oh, so happy.
Where I walked by her side,
so tender, so close,
and saw deep in the dark rocky stream
the fair sky, blue and bright,
and her reflected in that sky.
See how the colourful spring
already peeps from bud and blossom.
Not all the blossoms are the same to me:
I like most of all to pluck them from the branch
from which she has plucked.
For all is still as it was then,
the flowers, the fields;
the sun shines no less brightly,
and no less cheerfully,
the sky’s blue image bathes in the stream.
Only will and delusion change,
and joy alternates with strife;
the happiness of love flies past,
and only love remains;
love and, alas, sorrow.
Oh, if only I were a bird,
there on the sloping meadow!
Then I would stay on these branches here,
and sing a sweet song about her
all summer long.

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Composer

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an late Classical and early Romantic composer. He produced a vast oeuvre during his short life, composing more the 600 vocal works (largely Lieder), and well as several symphonies, operas, and a large body of piano music. He was uncommonly gifted from a young age, but appreciation of his music was limited during his lifetime. His work became more popular in the decades after his death, and was praised by 19th century composers, including Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, and Liszt.

Information from Wikipedia. Read more here.


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Poet

Ernst Schulze

Ernst Conrad Friedrich Schulze was a German Romantic poet. He was born and died in Celle.

The son of the Mayor of Celle, his mother died while he was only two years old and much of his early education was overseen by his two grandfathers, who were a Celle bookseller and a minister.

Widely respected by his contemporaries in early youth, he found himself increasingly drawn into a new poetische Welt (world of poetry) in his mid-teens, showing a particular interest in folklore, fairy tales and diverse French literature. He said of himself, "I lived in a fantasy world and was on the way to becoming a complete obsessive." Despite these early Romantic daydreams, he was able to apply himself to his school work and was, at age 16, a model student.

Given his upbringing, it is probably unsurprisingly that he initially studied theology at the Georg-August University of Göttingen from 1806. He went on to study philosophy, literature and aesthetics from 1808, and received his doctorate in 1812. Afterward, he devoted himself to philology, which he taught privately in Göttingen. During his time at university he became a member of the Göttingen 'Corps Hannovera', one of the original German Student Corps.

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