(q012) how does the ending of im wunderschönen monat mai reflect the text?

“Im wunderschönen Monat Mai” (“In the lovely month of May”) is a brief but evocative song written by Robert Schumann, one of the great composers of German Lied, in 1840. The piece is scored for only male vocalist and piano, set to a wonderful poem that describes feelings of love that come with the springtime and are left unresolved.

As a whole, the piece is mapped out in a clear strophic form. It begins with a short piano prelude, followed by the entrance of the voice which sings the first stanza, a piano interlude, the second verse which is sung with the same exact melody as the first, and finally a brief piano postlude. Within these short phrases are complex melodies and unexpected harmonies that highlight the strong feelings described in the text. Melodically, the two instruments are used to symbolize the blooming and joy of love that the speaker is experiencing. You can easily see without even listening to the piece how the piano part is always rising and constantly pushing upward, with essentially the same two-beat motive throughout. The voice also accents this rising motion, especially in the second half of each verse, reaching the highest note of the piece (G) on the last words “rise up” and “desire”. On the other hand, Schumann uses harmony to portray the unsteadiness and frustration that comes with love. At no point is there a strong cadence or clearly established key, rather it floats between sounding like A major and F# minor. At the beginning of each verse, on “In the lovely month of May”, it feels more like A major with some 5—>1 motion in the bass and relatively clearer chord structures. But as each verse continues the harmony is obscured, sounding much more unstable and like F# minor. The piece actually ends on a dominant 7th in F# minor, which creates a massive feeling of instability that the speaker desperately wants to be resolved.

In my opinion, I feel that Schumann does a fantastic job with this art song. It’s amazing how he’s able to so perfectly capture the many positive and negative feelings of love through music, especially music as simple on the surface as this. The entire piano part is based on one short motive, the voice just sings a relatively simple melody twice, and the whole piece lasts only about a minute and a half. Of course, there is much more complexity embedded in every note, but I do really appreciate how well Schumann brings to life such a wide range of complicated emotions with such a small piece of music.

The recording I used can be found on Spotify under the artist Christian Gerhaher.