Schubert - yearning

[kernelbogey]

I've just heard Martin Handley make the following (to me) strikingly memorable remark.

Introducing the last movement of the fifth symphony, and regretting his own early neglect of this composer, he said that this music conveyed a 'a veiled yearning for something always just out of reach'.

I thought this a most perceptive remark about Schubert's music, and one which perfectly conveys to me that bitter-sweet quality in his music, particularly the harmonies. Although that particular movement is not one which I think strongly conveys it - yet the late works, Winterreise, the Quintet, the three late Piano Sonatas....

[Edit: exact quote now]

[Thropplenoggin]

I've just heard Martin Handley make the following (to me) strikingly memorable remark.

Introducing the last movement of the fifth symphony, and regretting his own early neglect of this composer, he said that this music conveyed a 'sense of yearning for something just out of reach'.

I thought this a most perceptive remark about Schubert's music, and one which perfectly conveys to me that bitter-sweet quality in his music, particularly the harmonies. Although that particular movement is not one which I think strongly conveys it - yet the late works, Winterreise, the Quintet, the three late Piano Sonatas....

[I'll check later from iPlayer if I correctly memorised the words.]

Indeed. A most poignant introduction to another Schubert piece, an impromptu played by the late Katharina Wolpe. How refreshing to hear such an interesting story regarding the pianist's difficult life, and the presenter's elegiac honesty about his memories of her, as opposed to the usual gaa-gaa, goo-goo burblings we're normally subjected to of a morning. Bravo, Martin Handley!

[kernelbogey]

Martin is undoubtedly one of the most interesting presenters on R3, the most willing to be truly personal, and I suspect a healthy dose of scepticism behind his tolerance of the now-ritual presenter duties like 'our call'.

[BBMmk2]

I always enjoy Martin's programmes. he certainly can offer more than what he does at present?

[Ferretfancy]

The poignancy in Schubert's music, and its sense of loss probably explains why I have to be in the right mood to appreciate it fully, otherwise it seems too painful
and I cannot listen to it. Do others feel this ? I think Schubert is the only composer whose music affects me in this way.

[antongould]

The poignancy in Schubert's music, and its sense of loss probably explains why I have to be in the right mood to appreciate it fully, otherwise it seems too painful
and I cannot listen to it. Do others feel this ? I think Schubert is the only composer whose music affects me in this way.

Not personally but I have more musical friends who say they feel exactly that.

[gurnemanz]

He embraced German Romanticism of which "Sehnsucht" was such an essential element - dissatisfaction with the material world (Weltschmerz) and longing for immersion of the self (Auflösung) in something bigger - nature (especially the deep dark forest), music, love, sleep and dreams. This often manifests itself in the idea of constant wandering, whose destination can only ever be death - the winter journey - in a line that goes through to Tristan. The prototype was Goethe's Wanderers Nachtlied "Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh" . Caspar David Freiedrich comes to mind:



It's there in the song Nachtstück where the old man takes up his harp and trudges off to the wood to die, singing lines by Schubert's friend Mayrhofer who committed suicide a few years after Schubert's death:

"Du heilge Nacht:
Bald ist's vollbracht,
Bald schlaf ich ihn, den langen Schlummer,
Der mich erlöst von allem Kummer."

("You holy night:
soon it will be over,
soon I shall sleep the long sleep
that will free me from every torment.")

[kernelbogey]

Very interesting, Gurnemanz. I feel that there is nonetheless something deeply personal in Schubert's Sehnsucht and Weltschmerz - culminating with the poignancy of the last song of Winterreise, the hurdy-gurdy player, and the link to Schubert's early, and I assume, anticipated death.

BTW I love that Friedrich painting!

[kernelbogey]

[...] A most poignant introduction to another Schubert piece, an impromptu played by the late Katharina Wolpe. How refreshing to hear such an interesting story regarding the pianist's difficult life, and the presenter's elegiac honesty about his memories of her [...] Bravo, Martin Handley!

Just listened on iPlayer to his intro and Katherina Wolpe's recording of the Impromptu. Martin's admiration for her was expressed in a long reference to his interval programme in which he had interviewed her and she spoke at length about being abandoned, stateless, at thirteen. It was broadcast two weeks before her death. Her playing is extraordinary IMV for one self-taught.

I wonder if there's more of the interview that Martin and a producer could turn into a longer memorial programme.

[amateur51]

Just listened on iPlayer to his intro and Katherina Wolpe's recording of the Impromptu. Martin's admiration for her was expressed in a long reference to his interval programme in which he had interviewed her and she spoke at length about being abandoned, stateless, at thirteen. It was broadcast two weeks before her death. Her playing is extraordinary IMV for one self-taught.

I wonder if there's more of the interview that Martin and a producer could turn into a longer memorial programme.

I totally agree, kernel

[aeolium]

This often manifests itself in the idea of constant wandering, whose destination can only ever be death - the winter journey - in a line that goes through to Tristan. The prototype was Goethe's Wanderers Nachtlied "Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh" . Caspar David Friedrich comes to mind

Yes, and there also in Der Wegweiser in Winterreise, and the strain carries on in Schumann/Eichendorff's In der Fremde in Liederkreis op 39.

I too love that Friedrich painting, appropriately reproduced on the LP cover of Pollini's memorable recording of Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy D760 and A-minor sonata D845.

[kernelbogey]

He embraced German Romanticism of which "Sehnsucht" was such an essential element - dissatisfaction with the material world (Weltschmerz) and longing for immersion of the self (Auflösung) in something bigger - nature (especially the deep dark forest), music, love, sleep and dreams. This often manifests itself in the idea of constant wandering, whose destination can only ever be death - the winter journey - in a line that goes through to Tristan. [...]

And indeed Joseph von Eichendorff's poem in R Strauss's Four Last Songs - Im Abendrot:

Wie sind wir wandermüde--
Ist dies etwa der Tod?