Work: Songs without words: Spring Song
About This Work
Only five of Mendelssohn's 36 Lieder ohne Worte received titles from the composer. Mendelssohn hesitated to attach a title to these piano miniatures because he found words " ... so ambiguous, so vague, so easily misunderstood in comparison to
genuine music, which fills the soul with a thousand things better than words." Unlike most of the Lieder ohne Worte, the title of Op. 62, No. 6, "Frühlingslied" (Spring Song), is directly attributable to Mendelssohn.
Mendelssohn's fifth volume of Lieder ohne Worte was published in 1844 in Bonn. The set was designated Op. 62. The six pieces were composed over about a two-year period; only four can be dated with certainty. Four of the six are in major keys and there are a variety of song types, including examples of the solo Lied, duet and partsong.
No. 6, in A major, maintains a solo Lied texture. The melody, with its rising and falling eighth-note line peppered with occasional sixteenth-note chromatic passages is perfectly suited to the voice throughout most of the piece. Constant arpeggio graces produce an accompaniment with a delicate, harp-like sound that continues from beginning to end. Aspects of instrumental composition permeate the work, especially in its formal structure. For example, a second section in a contrasting key with melodic material composed of elements from the first section reappears after the return of the first section, but transposed to A major. The predominant feature of the piece is a leaping, then descending figure of five eighth notes that recurs in the manner of a symphonic development.
-- John Palmer
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