4 Eichendorff Lieder (1888)

Der Musikant

Der Scholar

Seemanns Abschied

Verschwiegene Liebe

Captivated by Eichendorff but unwilling to apply himself to anything already set by Schumann, Wolf approached the poetry from a different angle. Avoiding, for the most part, the romantic examples, he turned instead – “in accordance,” he said, “with the current trends to greater realism” – to Eichendorff’s “humorously and robustly sensual side,” including a number of character studies, a few musicians among them. Strangely enough, the most imaginative musician featured in Wolf’s Eichendorff settings is not the wandering minstrel identified in Der Musikant. Charmingly indolent, he seems to be content to repeat his simple melody and its drone bass, departing from the basic harmonies only when, with an apparently involuntary modulation, he is reminded of his homelessness. Though gently caricatured in the piano introduction and in his occasionally stiff vocal line, the student and amateur musician in Der Scholar certainly knows how to evoke a storm. The professional in that respect, however, is the sailor of Seemanns Abschied who is clearly no stranger to dissonant danger and acoustic tumult. Even so, the most effective use of harmony here is in the frankly romantic setting of Verschwiegene Liebe, which is moved by its rapturous observations from the minor key in which it begins to the dominant major at the end.