The texts are poems by various authors, including eight by Robert Burns, translated into German by the poet Wilhelm Gerhard, and several each by Friedrich Rückert, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Heinrich Heine.
[1] On 23 January he jotted down an early version of his setting of Heine's "Du bist wie eine Blume", the first song recorded in his Berliner Liederbuch, and eventually to be published as No.
Division into four books seems to have been the intention from early on, not only in light of pragmatic consideration of publication logistics, but also as an aid to the cyclical structure of Myrthen.
[5] On 1 August, a court judgement gave Clara and Robert permission at last to marry, following a long legal battle in which the bride's father Friedrich Wieck had bitterly contested their union.
[6] The printed dedication "To his beloved bride" addresses not only this private occasion, but also the public matter of the legality of their marriage; Schumann was eager to publicise the court's decision.
The musicologist Eric Sams asked in his book, The Songs of Robert Schumann, "what bride ever had a finer wedding gift?
[9] Karl H. Wörner [de] called them "a colourful wreath abundant in individual flowers" which have, nevertheless, no unifying idea.
[11] Likewise Arnfried Edler finds that the title Myrthen relates only to the cycle's functional purpose as a sort of bride-price for Clara, the primarily personal character of the songs underlined by titles such as "Widmung" (Dedication) and "Zum Schluss" (At the End), which bear proverbial relations to opportunity and good fortune.
[15][1] In designing things like this, Schumann arranges the songs of Myrthen into characteristic groupings in which formal unity arises in the resulting complementary and contrasting pairs.
[1][15] In their thematic content almost all of the songs concern such contemporary issues in Robert and Clara's relationship as longing, lovers' pains, marriage and motherhood.
At its core, though, the cycle is held together in its overarching themes of art, freedom and love, made apt by the circumstances of the Schumanns' lives, but having significance beyond them.
Grotjahn writes: "the songs not only relate to Schumann's circumstances at the time – his approaching wedding and its troubled background – but also offer a general picture of his artistic persona.
"[16] This picture is conveyed in private ciphers and musical codes, typical of Schumann's compositions, entirely comprehensible only to the pair of lovers, and some likely only to the composer himself.
[22] The text was composed by Friedrich Rückert, though Schumann made modifications to it, changing the title in order directly to engage the dedicatee, Clara.
The piano accompaniment is figured by broken chords doubled in octaves, set in dotted rhythms characteristic of Schumann.
The second stanza is set to a key change from A-flat to E major; here the accompaniment is replaced by repeated-chord triplet figurations.
[25] A melodic idea appearing in "Widmung"'s piano coda is reused in the following song, "Freisinn" (Free Spirit), composed after a poem by Goethe.
It is a through-composed song with a piano accompaniment in wave-like semiquaver figures; throughout dominant sixth suspensions add a characteristic harmonic flavour.
For a girl in the gentle summer breeze, the tree inspires thoughts of intimate partnership which she dare not admit to herself; and thus the prospect of marriage and matrimony is revealed.
4), is free in its form, a song with "intimate" but also "passionate" character, characterized by rests, mercurial changes in tempo and recitative-like passages.
Schumann revisits the harmonic lexicon of "Der Nussbaum" in setting the last occurrence of the word, sung to a suspended sixth.
Its text dwells upon the experience of a lonely drinker and treats ideas relating to the cycle's broad theme of freedom.
Schumann's freedom with form in this song manifests itself in the sudden change in the tenth bar from the key of E and the main time signature of 24 to C and 68.
E is the dominant of A minor, the opening key of the second of the Schenkenbuch songs, "Setze mir nicht, du Grobian" (No.
This song's text also concerns drinking, but here directly engages the eponymous cupbearer of Goethe's book, addressed here as Du lieblicher Knabe (You charming boy).
Possibly Schumann sought in this song to create ironic distance between himself and the homoerotic experiences of his past, his mind on his forthcoming marriage to Clara.
The A-section's vigorous syncopations and the emphatic right-hand pedal on E in the opening have an exaggerated quality to match the speaker's rejection of the Grobian (oaf).
The poem's final line, Jeder Wein ist schmackhaft und helle (Every wine is tasty and bright), makes plausible allusion to bisexuality and is followed in the setting by an energetic coda for the piano.
The poem describes the fate of an outcast widow who has lost everything, throwing the surrounding Lieder into sharp relief and leaving the highland narrative without resolution until the cycle's third book.
The book is closed by a pair from Moore's Venetian Songs, with somewhat erotic content, "Leis' rudern hier, mein Gondolier!"