Fanny Hensel’s Sechs Lieder op. 9: A Brother’s Elegy
Stephen Rodgers
Forthcoming in Rethinking Mendelssohn,
ed. Angela Mace Christian and Benedict Taylor (Oxford University Press)
In the early summer of 1846, shortly after his sister had died of a sudden stroke, Felix
Mendelssohn wrote a grief-stricken letter to her husband Wilhelm:
If the sight of my handwriting checks your tears, put the letter away, for we have nothing
left now but to weep from our inmost hearts; we have been so happy together, but a
saddened life is beginning now. You made my sister very happy, dear Hensel, through
her whole life, as she deserved to be. I thank you for it today, and shall do so as long as I
live, and longer too I hope, not only in words, but with bitter pangs of regret, that I did
not do more myself for her happiness, did not see her oftener, was not with her oftener.
That would indeed have been for my own pleasure, but it pleased her too. I am still too
much stunned by the blow to be able to write as I could: still I dare not leave my wife and
children and come to you, knowing as I do that I can bring neither help nor comfort. Help
and comfort—how different these words sound from all I have been thinking and feeling
since yesterday morning. This will be a changed world for us now, but we must try and
get accustomed to the change, though by the time we have got accustomed to it our lives
may be over too.1
Though consumed by sadness, Felix ultimately managed to summon the strength to travel to his
sister’s home in Berlin, in mid-September of 1847. Upon returning to Leipzig at the beginning of
October, he brought several of her manuscripts to his principal publisher, Breitkopf & Härtel. He
died only a month later. It would be another three years before these works appeared in print as
Hensel’s op. 8 (Vier Lieder für das Pianoforte), op. 9 (Sechs Lieder mit Begleitung des
Pianoforte), op. 10 (Fünf Lieder mit Begleitung des Pianoforte), and op. 11 (Trio für Violine,
Violoncello und Klavier in d-Moll). Together, these works comprise some of Hensel’s most
remarkable contributions to the genres of piano miniature, chamber music, and Lied.
The story of the posthumous publication of these works, and of Felix’s role in delivering
them to his publisher in Leipzig, has been repeated often in the Mendelssohn literature. It is a
heartrending story, not least because it reinforces the depth of the connection between the
siblings, a connection that, as Larry Todd has shown, was both personal and musical: there are
important links between their pieces, suggesting lines of influence that go not just from Felix to
Fanny but also in the opposite direction.2
Still, as clear as this story is in its general outlines, many of its details remain fuzzy. Who
selected these pieces for publication? Was it Felix alone, as Todd, Angela Mace, and Françoise
Tillard have suggested?3 Was it Fanny’s husband Wilhelm, as Marcia Citron has written?4 Or
could it have been her close friend Robert von Keudell, a gifted pianist, philosophy student, and
(later) diplomat, who recognized the immensity of Hensel’s talent and encouraged her to publish
her music in the first place? Furthermore, why were these works chosen over the hundreds of
other compositions Fanny wrote? These questions have only received passing attention, in part
because there is no documentary evidence to help us settle them—no letter in which Felix states
his intentions and activities during the last week of September 1847, no annotation on any of
Fanny’s manuscripts that says “chosen by Felix.” The speculations about who compiled Fanny’s
posthumous works and why are really just that—best guesses based on the scant biographical
evidence that is available.
The siblings’ music, however, provides another form of evidence, which clarifies many
of the ambiguities surrounding the posthumous publication of Fanny’s works. A close
examination of these works, as well as of related works by Felix, suggests that it was in fact
Felix who selected which pieces of his sister’s would be disseminated after her death, and in
what form. The music, in other words, tells its own story; it provides vital information in support
of the idea that Felix was the principal actor in the selection and dissemination of his sister’s
music after her death.
This is particularly true of Fanny’s Sechs Lieder op. 9, a group of six songs all drawn
from an earlier period in her life, the 1820s—notably, a period when she and Felix were sharing
their music with one another, and when their musical styles were particularly connected.5 For
Angela Mace, the dates of Fanny’s op. 9 songs alone suggest that Felix had a hand in putting this
opus together: Felix, she says, “selected his favorites of Fanny’s Lieder from the happiest days of
their youth.”6 Yet the evidence extends much further than that, encompassing not just the dates
of composition but also the content of the songs themselves. Fanny’s op. 9 is strikingly similar to
Felix’s own op. 9, Zwölf Lieder (1830), a group of songs containing three works by Fanny,
which Mace calls a “co-authored cycle,” an opus that she believes was assembled as much by
Fanny as by Felix.7 In fact, both groups of songs are cyclic, and intimately connected: there are
poetic and musical ideas that recur across the cycles, and even songs from Fanny’s op. 9 that
seem specially chosen to bring to mind songs from Felix’s op. 9. Considering these intertextual
resonances, it is difficult not to see the Sechs Lieder as a brother’s elegy to his departed sister,
and a sibling collaboration in its own right—indeed, a one-of-a-kind collaboration. In many
ways, Fanny’s op. 9 is even more remarkable and rare than the earlier co-authored opus it
references, and more complex than any of the other examples in which the siblings allude to each
other’s music. It is a work that defies easy description. (At attempt to characterize it in a single
sentence sounds almost absurd: the Sechs Lieder op. 9 is a cycle of Fanny’s songs assembled by
Felix, which evokes an earlier cycle of his songs that was in part assembled by her, and which
contains several songs of hers that were published under his name.) Yet for this very reason it
demands close analysis: Fanny’s op. 9 is not only one of the most affecting works in her oeuvre;
it is also an object lesson in the irreducible complexity of influence, allusion, and memory.
<1> Felix’s op. 9
Conventional wisdom once had it that Mendelssohn didn’t write song cycles, at least not cycles
akin to the cycles of Schubert and Schumann. In recent years, however, a number of scholars
have put pressure on this view. While it is true that Mendelssohn never wrote extended cycles of
songs with the same level of musical and narrative consistency as Dichterliebe or Die schöne
Müllerin, some of his song collections do nonetheless exhibit cyclic qualities: organized key
schemes, recurring poetic images, loose poetic narratives, musical cross-references, and so on.8
Douglass Seaton, for example, has argued that Mendelssohn’s output contains a number of
“phantom cycles”—songs that were not grouped together in published collections but that might
have been conceived as cycles at some stage in their composition, and songs that were grouped
together in published collections and upon closer inspection seem to be more than just an
assortment of tenuously related pieces.9 According to Seaton, two sets of Mendelssohn’s quartet
Lieder, the three Lieder of op. 41 and the three Lieder of op. 48, are unquestionably cyclic: they
have symmetrical key schemes, as well as a continuity of poetic topic and poetic voice. (What
makes these opuses phantom-like is that they have faded from view as the genre of the quartet
Lied has declined in popularity.) Seaton then uses these clearly cyclic opuses as a kind of
measuring stick, extracting features from them and looking for these features in other potentially
cyclic groupings of songs.
One such grouping is the Zwölf Lieder op. 9. Seaton cites this opus as one of several
pieces by Mendelssohn “that might invite performance as complete, multi-movement works,”10
noting that the twelve songs were grouped into two halves, titled “Der Jüngling” and “Das
Mädchen.”11 And, indeed, closer inspection reveals a number of cyclic features, even aside from
the presence of these subtitles. Granted, musical relationships can be found wherever one looks
for them, so not every relationship should be seen as a sign of cyclic thinking; in this case,
however, the relationships are significant enough to suggest that the songs were arranged to give
the set a kind of musical and poetic coherence. As Mace notes, the collection begins in A major
and ends in A minor, and it has a large-scale tonal trajectory, moving from tonic (A major) to
subdominant (D major) to submediant (F<sharp> minor) to dominant (E major) and back to
tonic. For some listeners, this kind of unified, “monotonal” pattern may be difficult to perceive
(in the cycles of Schubert and Schumann as well, hearing these larger tonal patterns can at times
require a certain suspension of disbelief).12 Yet even skeptics can admit that the final song, in A
minor, creates a sense of coming full circle, and that the third and fourth songs effect a move to
the subdominant of A. (Remember that Mendelssohn’s cyclic quartet Lieder likewise begin and
end with tonic and move to the subdominant.)
There are other musical connections as well. Todd writes that the second song,
“Geständnis,” references the opening measures of the first song, “Frage,” reworking its
“questioning” motive (see Examples 1 and 2 for annotated scores of both songs).13 The first
words of song 1 (“Ist es wahr?”) are set to a C<sharp>–B–D motive, with the first two notes as
an upbeat dotted-eighth–sixteenth and the third note falling on a downbeat. This motive is
repeated at the beginning of song 2 (on the words “Kennst du nicht”). (Todd also points out that
songs 3 and 4, “Wartend” and “Im Frühling,” “retain the motivic kernel” of songs 1 and 2,
rearranging its pitches and altering the motive rhythmically: the first three notes of both songs
restate the three pitches of the motive, but in a different order—D–C<sharp>–B—and both songs
abandon the dotted-eighth–sixteenth upbeat seen in the first two songs.14) The connection
between the opening of songs 1 and 2 involves more than just this “questioning” motive. Both
songs also feature what we might call an “answering” motive, a gesture that begins with a
descending arpeggiated triad and is followed by one or more steps. (I have marked these
“answering” motives and some variants of them in Examples 1 and 2; I count mm. 5–6 of
“Geständnis” as a version of this motive since it outlines a descending D-minor triad in first
inversion.) Furthermore, the underlying shapes of the songs’ melodies are similar: the opening
phrase of each song rises stepwise from ^3 to ^5 and then falls from there (down to ^2 in “Frage”
and down to ^3 in “Geständnis”), as the analytic overlay shows. The songs’ melodies, we might
say, are constructed of the same bricks (the “questioning” and “answering” motives) and also the
same scaffolding (the broader ascent and descent).
[INSERT EXAMPLE 1 AND EXAMPLE 2 HERE]
Aside from these musical connections, the poems of Felix’s op. 9 are topically and
narratively related. The subtitles alone (“Der Jüngling” and “Das Mädchen”) give us reason to
look for some sort of “extra-musical” narrative that binds together the twelve songs. Mace does
just that: following Seaton’s idea that the songs were not meant to be performed in their
published order but instead “in some sort of alternation,” resulting in “a Liederspiel for two
characters,”15 she argues that in this alternating form there is a strong sense of poetic narrative:
On a global scale, when performed in alternation …, the dramatic progression of the set
changes from loose associations of themes … to a dialogue that has more dramatic
coherence. First, there is the question “can it be?” that there is a love developing,
followed by longing for an answer. The confession of love leads to the springtime
flowering of hopes; the romance progresses, but the lovers are apparently parted. Spring
changes to autumn, and the cold winds of loss and separation–possibly death–wither the
budding relationship. The male protagonist departs, the female protagonist renounces her
dependence on the world, and finally proclaims her devotion to God, before perishing
before a picture of the Virgin Mary.16
Personally, I hear just as much of a “dramatic progression” in the published order. The first half
(“Der Jüngling”) progresses from youthful passion to old-age resignation: from the expectancy
of new love (“Frage”), to the torment and pleasure of desiring someone who seems not to desire
you (“Geständnis”), to the pain of being distant from the one you love (“Wartend”), to the
fulfillment of love (“Im Frühling”), to the inexorable passage of time (“Im Herbst”), to the loss
of youth (“Scheidend”). The trajectory of the second half (“Das Mädchen”) is likewise from
expectancy to resignation—in fact, to death: from the disturbance caused by love (“Sehnsucht”),
to the recognition that change cannot be avoided (“Frühlingsglaube”), to the longing for a distant
beloved (“Ferne”), to the pain of a broken heart (“Verlust”), to the renunciation of pain and the
desire for heavenly comfort (“Entsagung”), to death and the peace it brings (“Die Nonne”).
No matter how we choose to view the songs of the cycle, the question remains: whose
cycle is it? For years, scholars and performers viewed this work as principally Felix’s creation—
as a work that he put together, incorporating three songs by his sister. (Some of course have used
stronger words, arguing that in publishing his sister’s songs under his name Felix was taking
advantage of Fanny and subsuming her artistic voice within his own.17) Yet Mace has
encouraged us to see op. 9 instead as a co-creation. She cites a letter—only published in 2009—
in which Felix, overworked and feeling pressured by his publisher, says that Fanny should begin
selecting the Lieder for op. 9 herself:
Concerning Schlesinger, there’s no need for him to rage any further, because I
will gladly keep my word to him, even though it is difficult for me to do; ask
him if he is intending to publish the Lieder immediately, and in this case I can
propose the idea of 2 Liederkränzen, for a young man and a maiden, and give
him six colorful pieces for each, which I ask Fanny, without any further
reference to me, to select from my or her things completely without
stipulations, only the accompaniment must be very light, and there should be at
least one enjoyable, cheerful, and fast [Lied] among the selection. If he wants
to wait, however, until I have found a little peace and can arrange everything
prettily, which must happen soon, I believe, he would be much smarter and do
me a favor, because I don’t think that the press is in a hurry; thus I ask all of
you to present him with this alternative, and tell him that he would do me a
favor if he would wait.18
Mace concludes from this evidence that Fanny was an “equal partner” in the creation of op. 9:
“[T]his letter proves that Fanny’s Lieder were not stolen or appropriated, as some scholars
believed before this documentary evidence was available. Thus an analysis of the opus—even
though most of the Lieder are by Felix—considering both musical and biographical parameters,
will reveal just as much about Fanny as it does about Felix.”19
The same, I argue, is true of the other op. 9, the six songs of Fanny’s that were published
after her death. Alas, we have no letter comparable to the letter Felix wrote about the 1830 cycle,
no document in which Felix acknowledges that he chose these six songs of Fanny’s and arranged
them in this order. But we do have the songs themselves. If an analysis of the earlier op. 9
reveals as much about Fanny as it does about Felix, an analysis of the later op. 9 reveals as much
about Felix as it does about Fanny.
<1> Fanny’s op. 9
I base this claim on the presence of several poetic and musical similarities between the opuses.
To my mind, these similarities are striking enough to seem more than accidental; when I play
and sing certain songs from both works, toggling back and forth between those in Felix’s Zwölf
Lieder and those in Fanny’s Sechs Lieder, I find it hard not to conclude that the compiler of
Fanny’s op. 9 was glancing backward at another, earlier op. 9, forging a musical bond between
two groups of songs that were composed around the same time. (The mere fact that the opus
numbers are the same is also not insignificant; in his well-known book on allusion in nineteenth-
century music, Christopher Reynolds points out that many composers used opus numbers as a
way of cluing listeners to intertextual relationships.)20 If we grant this as a possibility, then I
think we are forced to conclude that Felix was the most likely compiler, since he had such an
intimate understanding of the cycle he and his sister co-authored. Fanny’s op. 9 is already a kind
of memorial, seeing as it was published after her death, but it becomes an even more affecting
memorial, and a deeply personal one, when heard as Felix’s musical reflection on his youthful
collaboration with his sister.
The most general similarity is that Fanny’s op. 9, like Felix’s, is also noticeably cyclic,
and cyclic in similar ways, suggesting that the resemblances are more than just happenstance.
First, the six songs of Fanny’s op. 9 trace a poetic narrative that is roughly analogous to the
poetic narratives in each half of Felix’s op. 9. (Table 1 provides a brief summary of each poem.
For ease of comparison I have placed the six songs of Fanny’s cycle in the middle and each half
of Felix’s cycle on either side. I use male pronouns to describe the lyric personas of “Der
Jüngling” and Fanny’s op. 9, because in the poems the beloved is clearly a woman; for similar
reasons I use feminine pronouns to describe the lyric persona of “Das Mädchen.”) Like the six
songs of “Der Jüngling” and the six of “Das Mädchen,” the six songs of Fanny’s cycle begin
from a place of promise and anticipation and end with a sense of loss; Fanny’s cycle has an even
stronger sense of narrative, because it speaks in a single voice—the voice of the lyric persona,
who first expresses his longing for a woman (songs 1–3), then wistfully remembers happier
times he experienced with her (songs 5–6), and ends up alone, envying the nightingales and
doves that sing with their partners in their nests. Even more, some of the poems in the Sechs
Lieder are so similar to poems in the Zwölf Lieder as to seem like variations on the same theme
(see the arrows in Table 1). For example, the first poem of Fanny’s op. 9 (“Die Ersehnte”) is
very much like the first poem in each half of Felix’s op. 9 (“Frage” and “Sehnsucht”) in that it,
too, expresses a yearning for future bliss. The second poem of Fanny’s op. 9 (“Ferne,” about the
pain of being far from a loved one) closely parallels the third poem in each half of Felix’s op. 9
(“Wartend,” about two lovers who communicate across the sea with a falcon and a horn, and the
identically titled “Ferne,” also about the pain of separation). The third poem of Fanny’s cycle
(“Der Rosenkranz,” about withering flowers and the passage of time) resembles the fifth poem in
Felix’s first half (“Im Herbst,” likewise about the fading of flowers and days that fly by). And
although the final poems of both cycles (“Die Mainacht” in Fanny’s op. 9 and “Die Nonne” in
Felix’s op. 9) are outwardly different, since the first is about loneliness whereas the second is
about death, they use similar imagery: in both poems the poetic persona wanders alone among
the trees, bathed in moonlight, and weeps.
[INSERT TABLE 1 HERE]
Second, both cycles feature fairly organized key schemes that begin and end in the tonic
and move prominently to the subdominant, the same sort of key scheme that Seaton found in
Felix’s quartet Lieder (Table 2). (Granted, as Seaton notes, not all of Felix’s cyclic works adhere
to this broad tonal model, but the fact that both op. 9 cycles do, as well as the unquestionably
cyclic quartet Lieder, points toward Felix’s possible influence.) The key scheme of the Zwölf
Lieder is of course more complicated, owing to the length of the cycle, but even in this complex
tonal layout the subdominant gets special emphasis: aside from the global tonic of A major, D
major is the only key to appear twice in direct succession (and in the Sechs Lieder the
subdominant is the only key to appear in back-to-back songs).
[INSERT TABLE 2 HERE]
Third, like the Zwölf Lieder, with its recurring “questioning” and “answering” motives
and long-range melodic contours, Fanny’s cycle is also bound together by related melodic ideas.
If anything, Fanny’s opus is even more cyclic than Felix’s in this regard. There is a stronger
sense of melodic consistency to her cycle, a more palpable feeling that the songs’ melodies are
unified by recurring gestures. One of the most obvious of these gestures is the melisma that ends
five of the six songs, the only exception being song 2, “Ferne,” which ends not with a melisma
but with a long sustained note. (Fanny was famous for these melismatic outpourings, these
cascades of pure vowel sound that close so many of her songs; even if we cannot be 100%
certain that the compiler of the later op. 9 was Felix and that one of his aims was to refer
obliquely to the earlier op. 9, there is one thing that we can be sure of: the songs of Fanny’s cycle
were chosen to highlight this hallmark of her Lied aesthetic.)21
These common cyclic elements alone might be enough to suggest that Felix assembled
the songs of Fanny’s op. 9 at least in part to pay homage to the cycle they assembled together.
Yet the connections between the cycles run even deeper than that, since there are songs from the
Sechs Lieder that harken back to specific songs from the Zwölf Lieder. These song-specific
connections cluster around two pairs of songs: songs 1 and 2 in the earlier op. 9 (“Frage” and
“Geständnis”) and songs 4 and 5 in the later op. 9 (“Die frühen Gräber” and “Der Maiabend”).
Recall that the first two songs of the Zwölf Lieder are the two that are linked by the
“questioning” and “answering” motives, as well as by a longer-range gesture that spans the
opening measures. These melodic ideas appear prominently in songs 4 and 5 of the Sechs Lieder.
Notice that song 5 (“Der Maiabend”) begins with a version of the “questioning” motive (^3–^2–
^4 on “Umweht von Maiduft”) and also outlines the same broad motion from ^3 up to ^5 (see
Example 3 for an annotated score). The relationships between “Der Maiabend” and “Geständnis”
are particularly noticeable because in both songs this longer motive is harmonized similarly, and
based upon a nearly identical voice-leading pattern (Example 4 provides a Schenkerian reduction
of the opening phrase of each song). The structural melodies are in fact identical, and the
supporting harmonies nearly so: both songs are built on the same contrapuntal skeleton,
consisting of ^3–^4–^3–^5–^4 above a tonic pedal, and there is only one real harmonic
difference (the second chord, which is a V7 in “Geständnis” and a IV in “Der Maiabend”). (It’s
tempting to say that “Der Maiabend” “borrows” directly from “Geständnis,” presenting an
example of the type of borrowing that Peter Burkholder would call “modeling,”22 except of
course that Fanny wrote her song before Felix wrote his: “Der Maiabend” was composed in
1827, “Geständnis” most likely in 1829. It would be more accurate to say that in choosing “Der
Maiabend” for inclusion in his sister’s posthumous cycle Felix was allowing informed listeners
to sense a relationship between the two songs, and to see that their openings are based on the
same abstract model.)
[INSERT EXAMPLE 3 AND EXAMPLE 4 HERE]
The “answering” motive appears not in “Der Maiabend” but in the song that immediately
precedes it, also in A<flat> major: “Die frühen Gräber” (Example 5).23 Compare m. 5 of “Die
frühen Gräber” with mm. 7–8 of “Geständnis” (refer to Example 2, above). Both feature melodic
gestures with a descending triad (in both cases a diminished triad) followed by two steps:
D<flat>–B<flat>–G–F–E<flat> in “Die frühen Gräber” and C–A–F<sharp>–E–D<sharp> in
“Geständnis.” (The only difference—in addition to the fact that the gesture in “Die frühen
Gräber” begins a half step higher—is that in Fanny’s song the diminished triad is followed by
two whole steps rather than by a whole step and a half step; her motive is also of course extended
by two additional steps, falling all the way down to ^3.) In both songs, the “answering” motive
later appears in shortened form: in mm. 18–19 of “Geständnis” we hear two compressed
statements of the motive (C<sharp>–A–G<sharp>–F<sharp>–E, with a step between the second
and third notes rather than a third), and in m. 16 of “Die frühen Gräber” we hear a version that is
similarly compressed, and also truncated (D<flat>–B<flat>–A<flat>–G). (To my ear, these
shortened motives sound especially similar because they begin on the same pitch:
C<sharp>/D<flat>.)
[INSERT EXAMPLE 5 HERE]
I might not draw attention to these motivic relationships if the two songs did not also end
so similarly—in each case with lengthened versions of the “answering” motive. At the end of
“Geständnis” (mm. 24–26) the falling motive is expanded (the falling triad is followed not by a
step but by a third) and also extended (as was the case at the beginning of Fanny’s song, two
notes are appended to the motive). The result is a drawn-out melisma that spans a tenth, from E
(^5) down to C<sharp> (^3), leading to an IAC and bringing the song to a gentle close. “Die
frühen Gräber” ends with its own downward-drifting melisma, and its own gentle IAC. (I label
this as a version of the “answering” motive—despite its obvious differences from the motive at
the beginning of the song—because it outlines a descending D<flat>-major triad in first
inversion.) Fanny’s closing gesture begins from a higher point—F (^6)—but it lands in the same
place as Felix’s, ending with the same ^5–^4–^3 motion, not to mention with the same
suspensions over a tonic pedal.
As with the openings of “Geständnis” and “Der Maiabend,” the endings of “Geständnis”
and “Die frühen Gräber” sound similar enough that if we were told that Fanny wrote these songs
after Felix, we might well conclude that she was knowingly alluding to her brother’s music, that
this is yet another example of his influence on her. In actuality, however, the situation is more
complex and, I think, more revealing. These paired songs are a kind of case study in the siblings’
interdependency, in the tangled lines of influence that travel in many different directions and
assume many different shapes. In choosing “Die frühen Gräber” and “Der Maiabend,” and in
pairing these two songs in this particular cycle, Felix seems to be alluding to his own music
through his sister’s music—choosing songs of hers, which bring to mind songs of his, which she
may well have chosen for inclusion in a cycle of theirs.
Felix seems also to have been selecting songs for the Sechs Lieder that brought to mind
songs of Fanny’s—i.e., those that appeared in the Zwölf Lieder. The earlier op. 9 cycle ends with
a minor-mode song by Fanny, “Die Nonne,” written in 1822, which resembles the only minor-
mode song of Fanny’s cycle, “Ferne,” a song she composed only a year later. On first hearing,
these songs may sound less alike than, say, “Geständnis” and “Die Maiabend,” but closer
inspection reveals several similarities (see Examples 6 and 7 for annotated scores of these
songs). First, both songs are in triple meter and in a similar tempo (3/8 and Andante con moto for
“Die Nonne,” 3/4 and Andante for “Ferne”). Their accompanimental patterns are also related—a
steady stream of shorter note values, with simple chordal arpeggations (and, in “Die Nonne,” the
occasional nonharmonic tone) and a similar contour (both accompaniments begin with upward
arpeggios). This, combined with the fact that the songs begin with static tonic pedals, makes
them sound almost like Baroque-style figuration preludes (hardly surprising, considering
Fanny’s intimate knowledge of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier). Finally, as with “Geständnis”
and “Der Maiabend,” the songs open with the same structural melody—5–^#4–^5–^4–^3 (with
some additional melodic elaboration in “Die Nonne”) (see Example 8 for reductions of the
songs’ openings).24
[INSERT EXAMPLE 6, EXAMPLE 7, AND EXAMPLE 8 HERE]
To what end, though? What is the text-expressive significance of the musical
relationships that link these pairs of songs? Alas, there seem to be no obvious textual connections
between the three songs from Fanny’s op. 9 and the three songs from Felix’s op. 9 that they
reference; the closest poetic relationships and the closest musical relationships don’t correspond
with one another. For example, “Geständis” and “Der Maiabend,” two of the most musically
related songs, are not all that poetically related: the first song is about the anxiety of desiring
someone who may not desire you; the second is about the peace and comfort of a twilit moment.
Likewise, although the “Ferne” songs from each cycle are poetic mirror images—both about the
pain of being separated from a loved one—they are musically dissimilar: Felix’s E<flat>-major
song has moments of poignant dissonance but is generally more calmly meditative than
agonized, never straying from the tonic key or from easy four-bar phrases; Fanny’s G-minor
song is far more pained, with uneven phrase lengths, wandering harmonies, and open-ended
phrases (even the vocal melody fails to cadence, deferring true closure to the piano
accompaniment).
This shouldn’t entirely surprise us: if we accept that Felix was making a cycle out of his
sister’s Lieder that harkened back to the cycle they made together sixteen years earlier—if we
see his assembling of these songs as a creative endeavor in its own right, not to mention a form
of memory—then we also need to accept that as with any act of creation or remembrance it will
follow its own pathways. The lines that connect these two works are not always straight and
clear; they are just as often curved and crisscrossed, and they vary in thickness. More important
than the consistency of the intertextual relationships between these two opuses is their
pervasiveness, the number and variety of ways that the works seem to be linked.
That said, even if we can’t draw straight lines between the notes and words of specific
paired songs, there is one way in which these musical and textual relationships overlap. It is
significant that the Sechs Lieder allude musically to the first and last songs of the Zwölf Lieder
(“Frage” and “Die Nonne”). These poems both describe scenes in which a woman wanders in a
moonlit garden: in “Frage” the lyric speaker wonders whether the woman waits by a leafy
walkway and, like him, seeks counsel with the moon and stars; in “Die Nonne” the lyric speaker
is the woman—a nun who wanders alone in a convent garden, contemplating the Virgin Mary
and the loss of her beloved, and then dies. After listening to Fanny’s cycle and detecting vague
reminiscences of “Frage” and “Die Nonne”—echoes of the “questioning” and “answering”
motives that emanate from the former, vestiges of the endlessly undulating accompaniment and
chromatic touches that are so characteristic of the latter—I am drawn back to Felix’s cycle, and I
cannot help but hear its opening and closing songs differently. Through the prism of Fanny’s op.
9, the female figures described in Felix’s framing songs look like more than just a paramour and
a nun; they seem somehow like images of Fanny herself: the woman Felix hopes will wait for
him in a distant garden, and the sister who has gone on to that heavenly place.
<1> Conclusion
Christopher Reynolds writes that Felix had a predilection for musical commemorations, citing
(among other examples) an especially affecting passage from the first movement of Felix’s
String Quartet in F Minor, op. 80, which he hears as an homage to Fanny.25 According to
Reynolds, Felix embeds into the end of the exposition a BACH citation (transposed down a half
step so that it starts on B<double flat>), which appears in a musical context nearly identical to a
BACH motive from Fanny’s Sonata in C Minor—a work dedicated to Felix, which she wrote
while he was in Scotland. (A note at the end of her score reads, “For Felix in his absence” [Für
Felix / In seiner Abwesenheit].) Felix composed his string quartet in the summer of 1847, around
the same time that he penned the heartrending letter cited at the outset of this essay. Reynolds’s
argument, in essence, is that Felix could just as well have written on this quartet—and on its
BACH citation in particular—“For Fanny in her absence.” “Thus,” he writes “with the BACH
sphinx Mendelssohn alluded to an unpublished work that his sister had written form him in his
absence nearly twenty years earlier, as if, with this private symbol—this musical Nachruf—to
respond to the dedication Fanny had penned at the end of her Sonata.”26
Op. 80 is not the only work of Felix’s that seems to grapple with the shock of Fanny’s
death. Another is op. 71, a group of six songs that Felix compiled in October 1847, the same
month that he brought Fanny’s manuscripts to Breitkopf & Härtel. Most of the songs were
written before Fanny died (one comes from 1842, four from 1845, and one from September
1847). Still, in subject matter and in tone these are songs that express a profound sense of loss:
Seaton refers to them as “songs of loss and comfort,” arguing that they “form a coherent set in
terms of voice—that of the bereaved poet—and emotional position”;27 Cooper calls the opus a
“bereft cycle.”28 Like the F-minor string quartet, this is also a work that remembers Fanny—not
necessarily by alluding to her music, but instead by palpably conveying the pain of losing her.
The Sechs Lieder op. 9 deserve to be added to this list of Felix’s compositions that reckon
with Fanny’s passing—paradoxical as it may sound to number among Felix’s “compositions” a
group of her songs. As I have argued, however, this understudied opus requires us to rethink
certain received ideas (about musical influence, musical commemoration, and musical
collaboration), and after immersing myself in these two cycles I come away with a more pliable
understanding of musical composition as well. If we construe the term “composition” more
broadly, taking it to mean not just the creation of original music but also the assembling of pre-
existing music, and if we recognize the indelible signs of Felix’s hand in that process, then we
can hear the latter op. 9 as a Nachruf no less poignant than op. 80 or op. 71. In a sense it is even
more poignant, because it speaks with both of their voices, and because it is a joint effort like no
other—an impossibly distant, inescapably final collaboration.
1 Sebastian Hensel, The Mendelssohn Family (1729–1847) From Letters and Journals, vol. 2,
2 See especially “On Stylistic Affinities in the Works of Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn
Bartholdy,” in John Michael Cooper and Julie D. Prandi (eds.), The Mendelssohns: Their Music
in History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 245–62; “Fanny Hensel and Musical
Style,” in Mendelssohn Essays (New York: Routledge, 2007), pp. 217–31; and Fanny Hensel:
The Other Mendelssohn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), passim.
3 Todd expresses this viewpoint most vividly: “[I]t seems likely that [Felix] examined her
manuscripts and became intimately familiar with the piano trio and other recent compositions. …
Presumably he brought with him [back to Leipzig] Fanny’s piano trio and other manuscripts to
share with his principal publisher, Breitkopf & Härtel, and to arrange for their publication, in
partial expiation of his gilt over earlier withholding unqualified support for her need to release
her music” (The Other Mendelssohn, p. 351). See also Françoise Tillard, Fanny Mendelssohn,
trans. Camille Naish (Portland, Ore.: Amadeus Press, 1996), p. 333, and Angela Mace, “Fanny
Hensel, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, and the Formation of the Mendelssohnian Style” (PhD
diss., Duke University, 2013), pp. 289–90.
4 In her groundbreaking article on Hensel’s Lieder, Citron writes simply that “two posthumous
Lieder collections, Opus 9 and 10, apparently prepared by her husband, were issued in 1850”
(“The Lieder of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel,” The Musical Quarterly 69/4 [Autumn 1983]: 575).
5 Compared with Fanny’s other song collections (opp. 1, 7, and 10), op. 9 has received virtually
no analytical attention. Some have even dismissed the opus as subpar. Rufus Hallmark, for
example, writes, “The vocal parts have a certain predictability, relieved occasionally through
unusual melodic twists and exuberant melismas, often at the ends of songs” (“Crosscurrents in
Song: Five Distinctive Voices,” in Rufus Hallmark (ed.), German Lieder in the Nineteenth
Century [New York: Schirmer, 1996], p 193). For a superb analysis of the six songs of Fanny’s
op. 1 collection, as well as the first song of her op. 7, see Yonatan Malin, Songs in Motion:
Rhythm and Lieder in the German Lied (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 69–94
6 Mace, “Fanny Hensel,” pp. 289–90.
7 Angela Mace, “‘Der Jüngling und Das Mädchen’: Fanny Hensel, Felix Mendelssohn, and the
Zwölf Lieder, op. 9,” in Aisling Kenny and Susan Wollenberg (eds.), Women and the Nineteenth-
Century Lied (London and New York: Routledge, 2015), p. 79.
8 For a discussion of related issues in the Lieder of other composers, see especially Michael Hall,
Schubert’s Song Sets (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2003), and Inge Van Rij, Brahms’s Song
Collections (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). For a fascinating study of
Mendelssohn’s cyclic instrumental works, see Benedict Taylor, Mendelssohn, Time and
Memory: The Romantic Conception of Cyclic Form (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2011).
9 Douglass Seaton, “Mendelssohn’s Cycles of Songs,” in John Michael Cooper and Julie D.
Prandi (eds.), The Mendelssohns: Their Music in History (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2002), pp. 203–29. For an illuminating discussion of an unpublished song cycle by Mendelssohn,
see John Michael Cooper, “Of Red Roofs and Hunting Horns: Mendelssohn’s Song Aesthetic,
with an Unpublished Cycle (1830),” Journal of Musicological Research 21 (2002): 300–14;
Cooper describes this unpublished cycle as “Mendelssohn’s most explicit contribution to the
genre of the Romantic song cycle,” citing its thematic interrelationships, coherent tonal scheme,
and poetic narrative with identifiable protagonists (pp. 303–4).
10 Seaton, “Mendelssohn’s Cycles of Songs,” p. 216
11 Todd suggests that the two personae of the cycle—Der Jüngling and Das Mädchen—may
represent Felix and Fanny themselves (The Other Fanny Mendessohn, pp. 142ff), an idea that
seems even more plausible since, as Mace notes, all three of Fanny’s songs appear in the second
half (“‘Der Jüngling und Das Mädchen,’” p. 69.
12 For two particularly skeptical views of efforts to find unified key schemes and the like in
Romantic song cycle, see David Ferris, Schumann’s Eichendorff Liederkreis and the Genre of
the Romantic Cycle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), and Beate Julia Perrey,
Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Early Romantic Poetics: Fragmentation of Desire (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002). Bertold Hoeckner discusses different perspectives on
organicism and unity in the Romantic song cycle, with special reference to Dichterliebe, in his
article “Paths Through Dichterliebe,” 19th-Century Music 30/1 (Summer 2006): 65–80.
13 See Todd, Mendelssohn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 223, and Grove Music
Online, s.v. “Mendelssohn, Felix” [§13: Lieder and other vocal works], by R. Larry Todd,
accessed December 17, 2016, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/.
14 Todd, Mendelssohn, p. 223.
15 Seaton, “Mendelssohn’s Cycles of Songs,” pp. 217ff.
16 Mace, “‘Der Jüngling und Das Mädchen,’” p. 73.
17 For a discussion of these earlier analyses, see Marian Wilson Kimber, “The ‘Suppression’ of
Fanny Hensel: Rethinking Feminist Biography,” 19th-Century Music, 26/2 (Fall 2002): 113–129.
18 Mace, “‘Der Jünling und Das Mädchen,’” p. 74; the translation is hers. For a version of the
letter in the original German, see Anja Morgenstern and Uta Wald (eds.), Felix Mendelssohn
Bartholdy: Sämtliche Briefe, vol. 2 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2009), p. 376.
19 Mace, “‘Der Jüngling und Das Mädchen,’” p. 74.
20 Christopher Alan Reynolds, Motives for Allusion: Context and Content in Nineteenth-Century
Music (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003), p. 144.
21 I discuss other hallmarks of Fanny’s Lieder in “Fanny Hensel’s Lied Aesthetic,” Journal of
Musicological Research 30 (2011): 175–201.
22 Peter Burkholder, All Made of Tunes: Charles Ives and the Uses of Musical Borrowing (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2004).
23 For a more detailed analysis of “Die frühen Gräber,” see my article “Fanny Hensel’s Lied
Aesthetic,” pp. 183–6.
24 Another possible connection between the two songs is that both end with prominent
descending fourths in the melody: in “Ferne” the vocal melody ends with a motion from ^8 to ^5,
or G down to D (mm. 19–23); in “Die Nonne” it’s the piano melody that ends with this motive,
and with the same scale degrees, A down to E in the context of A minor (mm. 27–30, in the
piano postlude). Granted, the similarity is slight—certainly not as noticeable as some of the other
similarities between these songs—but it does give both pieces a greater sense of
inconclusiveness. As Mace notes, the A–E melodic motion at the end of “Die Nonne” was the
result of a revision to the last four measures—made eight years after the song was written, in
preparation for the publication in op. 9—that substituted this fourth motive for a more decisive
stepwise descent from A4 to A3: the revisions, she says, “temper the sombre finality of the first
version” (“‘Der Jüngling und Das Mädchen,’” p. 78). For more on the revisions to “Die Nonne,”
see Victoria Ressmeyer Sirota, “The Life and Works of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel” (DMA
thesis, Boston University, 1981), pp. 195ff.
25 Reynolds, Motives for Allusion, pp. 131ff. Reynolds is hardly the only writer to have heard
Felix’s op. 80 as a response to Fanny’s death; Eric Werner, for example, calls it “a cry of grief …
of the suffering creature” (Mendelssohn: A New Image of the Composer and his Age, trans. Dika
Newlin [London: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963], p. 496).
26 Reynolds, Motives for Allusion, p. 132.
27 Seaton, “Mendelssohn’s Cycles of Songs,” p. 221.
28 Cooper, “Of Red Roofs,” p. 278.
&&?
# # #
# # ## # #
43
43
43
.Jœ RœIst es
..œœ œœ
.œ œ
f
F
Con moto.3 questioning
motive ˙ Œwahr?
˙ Œ˙˙ Œ
Œ Œ .Jœ Rœist esŒ Œ ..œœ œ.>Œ Œ .œ œp
dim. ˙ Œwahr?
˙ Œ˙˙ Œ
ŒU Œ .Jœ Rœdass duŒU Œ ..œœ œœ.>
ŒU Œ .œ œ
dolce
dolce
&&?
# # #
# # ## # #
5 œ œ .jœ Rœstets dort in demœ œ ..œœ œœ˙ œ
˙ œœ
5answering motive
œ œ .jœ rœLaub gang, an der
œœ œœ .œ œ˙ œœ˙ œœ
œ œ .Jœ RœWein wand mei ner
œœœ œœœ ..œœ œœœ˙ œœ
˙ .jœ rœharrst und den
˙ .œ œœœ˙ œ
2
- - -
&&?
# # #
# # ## # #
9 œ œ .Jœ Rœ#Mond schein und die
œœœ Œ .œ œnœœ Œ œ
œ œ .Jœ RœStern lein auch nach
œœ Œ œœœœ Œ œ#
˙ œ#mir be
œ œœ œœ˙.˙
dim.
dim.
œn Œ .Jœ Rœfragst? Ist es
˙ ..œœ œœ˙ .œ œ
cresc.
cresc.
questioning motive ˙ Œ
wahr?
˙ Œ˙ Œ
- - -
&&?
# # #
# # ## # #
14 .>Sprich!
Œ Œ ..œœ œœŒ Œ .œ> œ
f
f
U .Jœ RœWas ich
˙U œœœU œp
dolce œ œ .jœ rœnfüh le, das be
œœœ Œ ..œœ œœnœœ Œ œœ
answering motive
œn œ .Jœ Rœgreift nur, die es
œœœn> œœ ..œœ# œœœ˙ .œ œ
- -
&&?
# # #
# # ## # #
18 œ œ .Jœ rœmit fühlt, und die
.œ œœœœ œ œŒ .œ œœ œ
answering motive jœ Jœ œ œtreu mir e wig,
œœ. œœ. œœ œœœœ. œœ. œœ# œœp
Jœ Jœ œ œtreu mir e wig,
œ. œ. œœœ œœœŒ œ œcresc.
˙ .œ œe wig
˙ œœœœŒ Œ œœ
dim. π
π- - --
&&?
# # #
# # ## # #
22 .˙bleibt.
˙ Œœœ œ. œ.
∑
.˙ .œ œ ˙.œ œ ˙˙ œ
∑U
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π
&&?
# # ## # #
# # #
43
43
43
∑
œœœ œœœ œœœœœ œœ œœ
p
Con fuoco ma moderatoŒ Œ .Jœ RœKennst du
œœœ œœœ œœœœœ œœ œœ
p 3 questioning motive œ œ .Jœ Rœ
nicht das Gluth ver
jœ
œœœ œœœ œœœœœ œœ œœnp
5
answering motive
œ Jœ ‰ jœ jœlan gen, die se
œœœ œœœ œœœœœ œœ œœ
f- - - -
&&?
# # ## # ## # #
5 .œ> jœ jœn jœnQual und die se
...œœœ œœn œœn œœœœn œœ œœ
answering motive œ( )œ Œ .jœ rœLust, die mit
œœœ œœœ œœœ?
œœ œœ œœ
p3
.œn jœ jœ jœHof fen und mitœœ œœ œœ
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œ jœ# ‰ œ œ jœ3
Ban gen wo getœœœœ# œœœœ œœœœœœ œœ œœ
cresc.
- - - -
&??
# # #
# # ## # #
9 œ œ jœ œ> Jœ# Jœ3
durch die en geœœœ œœœœ#n œœœœ
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f
f
˙ œ#Brust,œœœ# œœœ œœœ#
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˙ œwo get,
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p
p
˙ œwo get
Jœœœœ œœœœ œœœœ J
œœœœ &
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- - -
&&?
# # ## # ## # #
13 jœ jœ .œ jœdurch die en ge
œœ œœ œœ#œœ œœ œœ
p
p
œ Œ ŒBrust?
œœœ œ œœœ œ œn
jœ jœ jœ jœ Jœ JœSiehst du denn nicht, wie ich
œœœ œœœ œœœ œœœ œœœ œœœœœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœp
.œ Jœ Jœ Jœbe be, schein ich
œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœœœœ œœœ œœœ œœœ œœœ œœœ
f
f
p- -
&&?
# # ## # ## # #
17 .jœ rœ œ œlä chelnd auch und
œœn œœ œœ œœ œœ œœœ œ œ œ œ œ
dim.
p
˙ Jœ jœkalt, wie ich
œœn œœ œœ œœ œ œœœœ œ œ œ œœdolce
espress.
answering motives (shortened)
œ œ œ Jœ> jœrin ge, wie ich
œ jœ ‰ œ œ.œ œœ..œœ ‰ œœ
œ jœ ‰ jœ jœstre be ge gen
œ jœ ‰ œœ œœ.œ..œœ ‰ œœS
- - - -
&&?
# # ## # ## # #
21
Jœ Jœ> .œ> Jœdei ne All ge
œœ œœ œœ œœŒ Œ œœ
f
answering motive (lengthened)
.˙walt,
œœœ# œœœ œœœ œœœ œœœ œœœœœœœ# œœœœ œœœœ œœœœ œœœœ œœœœ
p
π
˙# œge gen
œœœnn œœœ œœœ œœœ œœœ œœœœœœœ#nn œœœœ œœœœ œœœœ œœœœ œœœœcresc.
cresc. .˙deiœœœœ œœœœ œœ œœ œœœ œœœœœœœn œœœœ œœœ œœœ œœ œœ
ƒ
ƒ pesante
- - - - - - -
&&?
# # ## # ## # #
25 œ œ> œ> jœ> .jœ> rœne All ge
œœœ Œ ..œœ œœœœœ Œ œœ
S ritard. p
ritard.
˙ œwalt?
˙ œœ..˙
dim.
dim.
π
π
- - - - -
Mendelssohn, Zwölf Lieder op. 9 (“Der Jüngling”) 1. “Frage” The speaker wonders if a woman pines for him as he pines of her, and if she waits for him also. 2. “Geständnis” The speaker confesses his love for a woman and wonders whether she feels the same way. 3. “Wartend” Two lovers communicate from across the sea, using a falcon and a horn. 4. “Im Frühling” The speaker basks in the beauty and tranquility of spring. 5. “Im Herbst” The speaker ponders the passing of time, the changing of the seasons, and the awakening of longing. 6. “Scheidend” The speaker takes a boat away from his home, longing for the youth and love he experienced there.
Hensel, Sechs Lieder op. 9 1. “Die Ersehnte” The speaker yearns for a woman, longing for a day when she will be in his arms. 2. “Ferne” The speaker longs for his distant homeland and his beloved. 3. “Der Rosenkranz” The speaker watches a maiden picking roses and fashioning a wreath from them, and thinks about how in time the roses will wither and fade. 4. “Die frühen Gräber” The speaker wanders through a graveyard, remembering lost loved ones and happier times. 5. “Der Maiabend” The speaker savors a beautiful, twilit moment with a maiden, awaiting the rising of the full moon. 6. “Die Mainacht” The speaker wanders in a moonlit forest, alone and forlorn, and weeps.
Mendelssohn, Zwölf Lieder op. 9 (“Das Mädchen”) 7. “Sehnsucht” The speaker experiences the stillness of nature and wishes her heart could also be still. 8. “Frühlingsglaube” The speaker, feeling tormented, takes comfort in the fact that everything changes. 9. “Ferne” The speaker wishes she could be with her distant beloved and longs for him to come home. 10. “Verlust” The speaker laments that only one knows the depth of her pain: the man who has broken her heart. 11. “Entsagung” The speaker trusts that when the world is too difficult for her, the Lord will save her. 12. “Die Nonne” A nun wanders alone in a convent garden, contemplating the Virgin Mary and the loss of her beloved, and then dies.
Table 2
&&?
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89
89
89
jœUmjœ
Jœ
Allegretto.
jœœ Jœ .œ .œ
weht von Mai duft,
œœ jœ .œ .œ.˙.œ .œœœ Jœ .˙
3questioning motive .Jœ Rœ Jœ œ Jœ œ Jœ
un ter des Blü then baums Hell..œœ œ œ œ jœ œ jœ.˙.œ œ œ œb jœ œ jœ.œ .˙
5
œ Jœ .œb .œdun kel sehn wirœ jœ .œb .œ.œ .˙
œ jœ .œ .œ.œ .˙
- - - - - - -
&&?
bbbb
bbbb
bbbb
4 .Jœ Rœn Jœ œ Jœ œ ‰A bend ge wölk' ver glüh'n,...œœœ œn œ œœ Jœ œœ jœœ..œœ œ œ œœ Jœ œ Jœ
Œ jœ .œb .œdes vol lenœœ
jœœ ..œœbb ..œœœ jœb .œ .œ.œ .˙
œ Jœ œ Jœ œ jœbMond's Auf gang er war tend
œœ jœœb œ jœ œœ jœ.œœ jœ .œ .œ.œ .˙
- - - - - - - -
&&?
bbbb
bbbb
bbbb
7
.jœ rœn jœ .Jœ Rœ Jœ œ Jœund Phi lo me len ge säng' im
..œœ œœœ œœœ ...œœœ œœœ œœœ ...œœœ œœ œœ
..œœ œœ œœ ...œœœ œœœ œœœ ...œœœ œœœ œœœ
.˙ œ œn œThal...˙b ..œœ...˙ ...œœœ
œ œn œb œ œ œ œ œ œ...˙ ...œœœ...˙ ...œœœ
- - - - - - - - - - -
&&?
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bbbb
bbbb
10 .œ Œ ‰ Œ ‰busch.
œœjœœ œ jœ œœ
jœœ.œœœ jœœ .œ œœ jœœœ Jœ
Ó . Œ ‰œ jœ ..œœ Œ ‰.œ
.œ ..œœ Œ ‰œ Jœ
&?
# # ## # #
œ jœ œ œ œ3 4 3 5 4
œœ œœ œœ œœn œœœ
&?
bbbbbbbb
œ jœ œ œ œ3 4 3 5 4
œœ œœ œœ œœb œœœ
"Geständniss," reduction of mm. 2–4
"Der Maiabend," reduction of mm. 1–2
&??
bbbb
bbbbbbbb
ccc
∑Œ œ œ œ
wp
Lento e largo ∑œ œœ œœ œœ
w
∑œ œ œ œw
w
Ó Œ œ1.Willœœ œœœ œœœ œœœ
w
p œ Jœ jœ œ jœ jœkom men, o sil ber ner
œœ œœ Ó
w
answering motive (lengthened)
- - - -
&??
bbbb
bbbbbbbb
5
œ Œ ÓMond,
Œ œ œ œ
w
.˙ œschö ner
œ œ œ œœ
wb
œ Jœ Jœ .œ jœstil ler Ge fährt derœœ œ Œ œœ
˙Œ œœ
wbNacht,œœb œœ œœ œœœ Œ Ów
˙ Œ Jœ jœdu ent
œœn œœ œœ œœ
œ œœn œœ œœcresc.
cresc.
- - - -
&??
bbbb
bbbbbbbb
10 œb Œ .œ jœfliehst, ei le
œœb œœ œœ œœ
œœ ˙ œœnœb œanswering motive (shortened)
œ Œ .œ jœnicht, bleib, Geœœ Œ œ œœ
œ .˙w
cresc. .˙ œdan ken˙ œ œœ
œ .˙w
œ Œ Ófreund!œœb œœ œœ œœ
wwdim.
∑wœ œ œ œ œ
w
- - - -
&??
bbbb
bbbbbbbb
15 œ Jœ jœ œ jœ JœSe het, er bleibt, das Geww
wp
p tranquillo˙ ˙
wölk wall˙ œ œœbŒ .˙w
cresc.
œ œ œ œ œ œ œwœ .˙ww
answering motive (lengthened)
.˙ jœ jœte nurwœ ˙ œ
˙ œ œw
˙U Óhin.
˙ œU Œ
˙ œU Œ.u
- - - - - - -
&&?
83
83
83
∑
œ œ œ œ œœ# œ.œ
Andante con moto.
p
∑
œ œ œ œ œœ# œ.œ
∑œ œ œœ œ œœ œ
.œ
Œ jœIm
œœ œ œœ œ œœ œ#.œ
p œ jœœ Jœ#
stil len
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6 œ Jœ#Klo ster
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5
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11 œ ‰ging;
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3
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16
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21 œ Jœzar ter
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dolce
dim.
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26 ∑œœ œ œœ œ œœ œ#
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43
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5 œ œ œwo find' ich
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10 ˙n œist
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15 œ# Œ Œmich?
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25 ∑‰ œ œ œ œ œ
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"Ferne," reduction of mm. 2–7
"Die Nonne," reduction of mm. 5–11
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