At this concert, Anna Sirel Y. Etyemez (soprano), Önay Günay (baritone) and Efe Gerdanoğlu (piano) will perform two song cycles by Schumann: Frauen-Liebe und Leben (‘A Woman’s Love and Life’) and Dichterliebe (‘A Poet’s Love’).
Frauen-Liebe und Leben is a series of eight settings of poems by Adelbert von Chamisso that tell a woman’s story from the time when she first meets her love to their marriage, and eventually to his death. It was written in 1840, a year in which the composer produced a large number of songs. Wikipedia tells us the following (Clara Wieck, by the way, was one of the leading pianists of the age):
Schumann’s choice of text was very probably inspired in part by events in his personal life. He had been courting Clara Wieck, but had failed to get her father's permission to marry her. In 1840, after a legal battle to make such permission unnecessary, he finally married her.
The songs in this cycle are notable for the fact that the piano has a remarkable independence from the voice. Breaking away from the Schubertian ideal, Schumann has the piano contain the mood of the song in its totality.
Issue 66, December 2023
Turkey’s Centenary Issue
