Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe, written in just a week at the end of May in 1840, follows a “clear narrative through…poetry” of a person who is mourning lost love and overcoming the heartbreak that inevitably follows. The music guides the ear through an intense and very emotionally complex journey that begins in a place of relative happiness at the start of the story, then finds sorrow and other turbulent emotions before ending on something that is not quite neutral, but seems to be colored with bitterness and cynicism, almost resigned. Even without the text, it is still possible to understand the emotional shifts the narrator experiences. Textually and in a sense instrumentally, the cycle travels from the hopeful beginning, to the pining after the loved one soon after the initial loss, to the narrator’s tortured sorrow, and finally to the realization that what is done is done and the only solution is to deal with the emotional fallout and continue on with life.

Heinrich Heine, who wrote the poems found in the Dichterliebe, is known for his “reversal” technique that he used in his writing. This is where he would write a logical progression of poetry and then use the last line as a disruption of sorts to turn the poem on its head.This gave his poetry a unique kind of irony that Schumann nimbly translated into music and that runs rampant in this particular song cycle. In fact, some scholars have said that Schumann was the first composer to truly appreciate and accurately reveal “Heine’s bitter irony.” A topic that is as emotionally charged as this is a typical hallmark of the Romantic era. However, interestingly, Schumann himself was not a big fan of the title “Romantic” and used the term very sparingly only to describe something that could not be described any other way, and never to refer to himself. Instead, he ascribed to a “neo-romantic” tradition, in which German Romantic composers of a “new poetic era” that Schumann claimed had begun as early as Bach and was solidified with Beethoven, came together. Regardless of what Robert Schumann preferred to be described as musically, his music survives under the Romantic tradition, and uniquely so with his particular brand of irony and tone painting found all throughout the Dichterliebe.

The opening song of the Dichterliebe, “Im wunderschönen Monat Mai” opens with a short piano introduction that is a little aurally ambiguous as to whether it is in a major or minor tonality, but feels dreamy and whimsical, like a wave of nostalgia. When the vocal line enters at measure 5, it becomes clear that it is in a major tonality, but the feeling it gives is not necessarily one of contentment. It plays on the edges of positive emotion, occasionally wandering further into that realm when there is a cadence that confirms the key as A major before wandering back to the borderline between positive and negative emotions where F# minor is hinted. This cautious association with F# minor leaves a feeling of uneasiness, like there is a small vein of sorrow running underneath the happiness that is trying to take control. This gives the impression that it is a story being told from a memory where the outcome is known, rather than being told as a series of events as they happen. Contrary to this complex dance the music is doing, the text communicates a simple feeling of budding happiness at the discovery of newly found love and the desire to let the subject of these affections know.

The piece uses a regular four bar phrase structure, and takes advantage of the middle and end points of each four bar A section to confirm the key as A major and plant the feeling of happiness a little more strongly in the listener. This pattern occurs in measures 6 and 8 of the first A phrase and in 17 and 19 of the second A phrase. In the four bar B sections, using the same middle and end point strategy, the phrases are punctuated with sighing figures in both the vocal and piano lines rather than cadences that cement the key. This is found in measures 10 and 12 of the first B section and in measures 21 and 23 of the second B section. The sighing figures dotted throughout the piece serve as the sounds of longing that overtake a person in love who so desires the subject of their longing while the story is happening. Simultaneously, they represent the sounds of someone who is regretfully remembering the experience and telling the story as a memory.

The next stop along this complex rollercoaster of emotion and personal growth is the sixth song, “Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome.” Following the story arc, this piece seems to constitute the pining phase of the narrator where many things remind them of the lost love and how much they wish they could have them back. The text starts by addressing a favorite painting of a divine being in a church and saying how this particular thing has given comfort and guidance in times of turmoil through the narrator’s life. Now, looking for comfort and guidance in a troubling time from this particular divine being, the narrator is reminded of the one who has caused the pain in the first place. The text does not offer a conclusion to this realization that even this constant object of comfort has become something that reminds the narrator of the loss that haunts every other aspect of their life, but the postlude that starts at measure 42 seems to fill in the blanks to a degree.

From the beginning of the piece, dotted and double dotted rhythms are used, almost excessively, in both the piano and vocal lines. Since dotted rhythmic patterns have long been associated with royalty and majesty, it would not be strange to use it to introduce a divine figure. However, as usual, there is something that conflicts with that thought. One might expect a royal or majestic rhythmic pattern to be light and accompanied by a major key. Neither of those things could be used to describe this instance. It is in E minor and the dotted rhythms feel and sound heavy. They plod along as if they were made of stone, falling to the bottom of the chord each time a downward descent begins. There is a repetitive sense of motion shared between both hands in the descending dotted leaps through the entire piece. It communicates a sense of spiraling and a sort of defeat with the pining for the loved one accompanied by the realization that the narrator cannot escape these feelings. It seems like the face of the divine figure that was once held dear as comfort now appears to glare at and condemn the narrator for some unknown wrong. The middle and end sections of the text speak to the uplifting nature of the deity and the music responds in kind becoming much lighter and sweeter. But, as the location and appearance are described, the narrator realizes that they see the lover’s face when they look at the beloved deity, like some sort of twisted nightmare. The laborious descending leaps become heavier and heavier as the song progresses from the heart-wrenching moment of awareness and reaches its most onerous weight when the text ends and the postlude takes over to the end of the piece. It sounds as though the narrator is falling to their knees, sinking deeper and deeper psychologically into these wounds that have been created; the dragging downward descent illustrating a settling into a new low point that had yet to be reached until now, pining quickly turning to something much darker.

The tenth song in the cycle, “Hör’ ich das Liedchen klingen,” is where the tortured sorrow that had been implied before is fully fleshed out and illustrated. The soft, mournful piano introduction utilizes widely spaced arpeggios that start out light and high in the right hand. For the nature of this piece, the downward motion of said arpeggios illustrate tears falling down the narrator’s face. This is aided by the use of short sixteenth rests in between arpeggiations, which give it a realistic sense of space between tears like the narrator is sniffling, trying to control their crying. When the vocal line joins at measure 5, the arpeggio figures continue their downward motion, but have a closer intervallic relationship than in the introduction, still keeping the “sniffling room” between them. The texture changes slightly at measure 9, adding a layer of connected notes spanning to measure 12 over the previous tear drop motive. At this point textually, the amount of pain is being described as enough stress to burst the narrator’s heart. The connected string of notes seems to lay tensely over the tears, the syncopation between changing notes adding to this feeling of tension. At measure 13, the stress seems to be relieved slightly when the piano returns to the mid-range tear motive and the narrator expresses a desire to run to a quiet place of solitude and hopefully escape. The narrator hopes to get to this place so that they may freely express the full intensity of the grief and sorrow that is being experienced. At measure 19, there is a sort of intermingling of the teardrop motive from the first four measures and the syncopated “tension motive” from measure 9 as the text ends and the piano postlude takes over, ramping up the emotional intensity. The tears are falling freely again, but this time they seem to have more urgency behind them. As the postlude reaches its climax at measure 26, there is a flurry of emotion that overtakes the listener in the bars preceding it. It sounds like the narrator, while still crying, has indeed run to the hilltop escape mentioned in the text. Measure 26 is when they have finally reached this place where they are free to express all that they have been holding back emotionally. The flood of unseparated sixteenth notes represents the complete and total emotional collapse into wailing, desperate catharsis and the narrator’s unceasing, uncontrollable flood of tears.

The final song in Schumann’s Dichterliebe, entitled “Die alten, bösen Lieder,” makes for an interesting end to the intense, and sometimes contradictory, emotional roller coaster the listener has experienced up to this point. The text seems to be conveying one set of thoughts and emotions while at times the piano part seems to be attempting to communicate something entirely different. However, this constant entanglement of complicated sentiments is perfectly warranted given the overarching story, or perhaps process is more accurate, that is being narrated through the text and the piano part.

After the grieving process for a lost loved one or important relationship has come to an end, there are a few paths that a person could continue on. One of these paths is the “bitter and cynical” route, which appears to be the route that the text has taken. This song’s text is about taking all the intangible things that this former lover gave the narrator or forced the narrator to feel and getting rid of them by throwing them into an enormous “coffin” and sinking it down into the “sea” in a show of catharsis. By casting away all of these feelings, memories, and the like, the narrator has not only decided that they are unwanted, but also that they are unnecessary. The narrator is deeming these things that have been thrown into the great depths of their mind as unneeded for further advancement, yet the circular motion of the right hand throughout nearly the entire first fifty-three measures of the piece seems to imply that they cannot simply leave the things they have deposited in the coffin alone. The right hand cycles around in an obsessive manor, endlessly playing the same eighth note figure, as though the narrator places each piece in the coffin, only to compulsively pick every one back up and examine the items and their stories again and again. The narrator is attempting to show that these things serve no purpose except to be locked away and forgotten, however the piano betrays the inner emotional turmoil the narrator feels while completing the act. The forceful nature of the text in most of the song is generally reinforced by the piano part playing thick chords. There is also a notable use of double dotted rhythmic patterns that seem to create a ceremonial feeling, especially regarding the first two measures of the song, like these now useless thoughts and feelings are being officially sent off with some sort of a fanfare. The fact that it was placed at the beginning makes it feel as if an audience is being called for a grand showcase. This mood is kept throughout the piece with the piano postlude being the only blatant exception.

The piano postlude undergoes a key change from C# minor to distant, although enharmonically related, Db major and a meter change at measure 53 that turns the broad, almost mockingly royal fanfare into a series of rolling, shimmering chords. In this context, these arpeggios seem to be the water of the narrator’s heart as they watch the “coffin” of feelings they are disposing of sink further and further out of sight. For just a second, they wonder if they should have really buried all that love and pain. The narrator wonders if they should have let that painful experience become a deeply rooted piece of them, even though they are under the impression that it was unnecessary and they simply got rid of it. The narrator longs to reach out and touch it, to reclaim all that was just given up, but then decides against it at the last second, and instead walks away and continues on with life. This postlude creates this effect here, but interestingly enough, it is not the first time Schumann has used this music for a different effect. The first two stanzas of the postlude, measures 53-58 are almost a direct, musical quotation so to speak, of the piano part in No. 12, “Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen.” In this context, it seems to represent a gentle summer wind that is blowing among the plants in the garden the narrator is walking through. Then, as the narrator becomes aware of what the plants are “saying,” it seems to become the whispers and small voices of the plants around the garden. Likewise, in “Die alten, bösen Lieder,” when it transitions from the “quotation” back to original material at measure 59, it creates the effect that all those whispers of love, doubt, sadness, pining, and memories, are all things that fade from the narrator’s mind as they walk away. All of these things have found their rightful place at the bottom of the grand, watery grave given to them lovingly, and almost reluctantly, by the mentally beleaguered and now emotionally drained narrator.