Waldscenen, Op.82 [1849]

Eintritt: nicht zu schnell

Jäger auf der Lauer: höchst lebhaft

Einsame Blumen: einfach

Verrufene Stelle: ziemlich langsam

Freundliche Landschaft: schnell

Herberge: mässig

Vogel als Prophet: langsam, sehr zart

Jagdlied: rasch, kräftig

Abschied: nicht schnell

The Waldscenen (“Forest Scenes”) are a late counterpart to the Kinderscenen of 1838. Like the earlier work, while they are not written specifically for children to play, they are not excessively difficult either and their observations are made from a refreshingly naive point of view - although in this case, thanks partly to some very sophisticated harmonies, with an almost impressionist sensibility too. Attempts have been made by the psychoanalytical tendency among Schumann commentators to find a sinister element here but there is surely nothing in Waldscenen that could seriously be interpreted as symptomatic of a mental breakdown that, anyway, was still five years ahead.

The one possible exception is Verrufene Stelle, which is accompanied in the score by a few macabre lines from Friedrich Hebbel about a dark spot in the wood where, among the deathly pale flowers hidden from the sun, is a dark red one coloured by “human blood.” The probability is, however, that the motto was added between the completion of the work in January 1849 and its publication more than a year later. Certainly, some of the inscriptions attached at one time to other movements in Waldscenen but later removed - the Hebbel motto for Verrufene Stelle was the only one Schumann finally decided to keep - were taken from a poetry collection published in1850.

The lines once attached to Eintritt (“Entry”) came from Gustav Pfarrius’s Waldlieder of 1850 and, while the sentiments of the poet on entering the forest vaguely reflect the carefree quality of Schumann’s music, they cannot have influenced its gentle evocation of woodland horns in the left hand or its spontaneous changes in harmonic direction from the B flat major in which it starts. There are horn calls too, though of a less poetic kind, in the two hunting pieces, the aggressive Jäger auf der Lauer (“Huntsman on the watch”) in D minor and the convivial Jagdlied (“Hunting song”) in E flat major, which are symmetrically placed as the second and penultimate pieces in the set.

The most fragrant movement, Einsame Blumen (“Lonely Flowers”), which reverts to the innocent B flat major of Eintritt, precedes the most disturbing, Verrufene Stelle ( “Place of evil repute”) which incorporates stealthy allusions to its delicate companion in a weird improvisation in baroque double-dotted rhythms and basically D minor harmonies. Freundliche Landschaft (“ Friendly landscape”) and Herberge (“The Inn”) restore the cheerful atmosphere, one in the green key of B flat and the other in sociable E flat major. The eerie G minor birdsong of Vogel als Prophet (“Prophet Bird”) - a late addition to the collection and a clear ancestor of Wagner’s Waldvogel - unsettles it again, in spite of a more reassuring middle section in the major. Jagdlied noisily restores the spirits, however, and the final Abschied (“Farewell”) confirms not only the B flat major tonality of the collection but also, by means of its allusions to the opening Eintritt, its faith in the benevolence of nature.