Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian
composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras.
Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast
oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works
(mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of
piano and chamber music. His major works include the
art song "Erlkönig", the Piano Trout Quintet in A
major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the
"Great" Symphony No. 9 in ...(+)
Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian
composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras.
Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast
oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works
(mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of
piano and chamber music. His major works include the
art song "Erlkönig", the Piano Trout Quintet in A
major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the
"Great" Symphony No. 9 in C major, a String Quintet,
the three last piano sonatas, the opera Fierrabras, the
incidental music to the play Rosamunde, and the song
cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise. He was
remarkably prolific, writing over 1,500 works in his
short career. His compositional style progressed
rapidly throughout his short life. The largest number
of his compositions are songs for solo voice and piano
(roughly 630). Schubert also composed a considerable
number of secular works for two or more voices, namely
part songs, choruses and cantatas. He completed eight
orchestral overtures and seven complete symphonies, in
addition to fragments of six others. While he composed
no concertos, he did write three concertante works for
violin and orchestra. Schubert wrote a large body of
music for solo piano, including eleven incontrovertibly
completed sonatas and at least eleven more in varying
states of completion, numerous miscellaneous works and
many short dances, in addition to producing a large set
of works for piano four hands. He also wrote over fifty
chamber works, including some fragmentary works.
Schubert's sacred output includes seven masses, one
oratorio and one requiem, among other mass movements
and numerous smaller compositions. He completed only
eleven of his twenty stage works.
"Suleika I" (D.720 Op. 14 No. 1) is a musical
adaptation of a poem in the ‘Books of Suleika’ in
Goethe’s 1819 West-östlicher Divan (‘West-eastern
collection’). They are presented as parts of a
dialogue between two lovers, Hatem and Suleika, in the
style of the 14th century Persian poet Hafez of Shiraz.
Contemporary readers were encouraged to join Goethe in
bridging the geographical, historical and cultural gulf
by opening themselves to these voices from the east and
the past. What they did not know was that the dialogue
between Suleika and Hatem had actually originated much
closer to home. Goethe had not recreated the voice of a
medieval Persian woman in Suleika’s lyrics. He had
not even written them himself. They were the work of
Marianne von Willemer, and her texts were produced in
Frankfurt not Shiraz. She was (in) the west and she was
writing about receiving news from ‘the east’
(Weimar, in fact, rather than Persia).
The private correspondence between Marianne von
Willemer (who portrayed herself as Suleika, the
traditional name of Potiphar’s wife in the Islamic
tradition) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was the
result of a form of sublimated passion. They only met
on a number of brief occasions in 1814 and 1815 and
both were married, but they found fulfilment in writing
to each other in the style of Goethe’s latest
literary passion. She appears to have raised no
objections to her lyrics appearing under Goethe’s own
name and she waited many years after his death before
claiming her own authorship of them.
Schubert thus unknowingly set two of her poems to
music, this ‘East Wind’ (Suleika I) and ‘West
Wind’ (Suleika II, D 717). Even stripped of any
biographical associations these two love poems still
work on at least two levels: a woman (unable to move
far, perhaps because she is in purdah) sends messages
on the west wind to be carried to her beloved and waits
for easterlies to blow so that she can hear from him; a
modern, western poet takes inspiration from the beloved
poetry of the east and produces something on the same
lines in response. These two levels of significance are
hinted at in the first and last lines of ‘Ostwind’:
‘What does this movement (of the air) signify?’ –
‘His breath (Athem) inspires me’. The word
‘Athem’ (breath, modern spelling ‘Atem’) is an
anagram of ‘Hatem’, the name of Suleika’s distant
beloved, so the wind that arrives from the east is
actually his own breath. His sighs and his words carry
his essence to her and she breathes it in. This is
‘inspiration’.
Hatem’s breath speaks to Suleika, but it does so much
more: it moves, it cools, it soothes, it caresses, it
plays. It chases the dust and it drives insects onto
leaves. It carries greetings and kisses. It then goes
off to serve others. It is all action, in contrast to
Suleika’s own inability to move. She seems to be
bounded by hills on one side and walls on the other.
She is looking out on a hot, dusty landscape, though
the fields and hills nearby are resplendent with vines
(we know that they are not far away since she can see
the insects on the vine leaves). This reminds us that
the poetry of Hafez which inspired the text celebrated
the pleasures of wine as much as the delights of love.
Suleika is therefore speaking from the centre of
everything that can give her lover gratification. She
declares that only his mouth can satisfy her desire for
news and for his presence (in the form of a kiss), but
she can nevertheless offer him a taste of what he longs
for.
Source: Hyperion
(https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dw.asp?dc=W2075_GBA
JY9301917)
Although originally composed for Voice and Piano, I
created this Interpretation of "Suleika I" (D.720 Op.
14 No. 1) for Flute & Strings (2 Violins, Viola &
Cello).