A Poet's Love

An item worth noting here is that Schumann enjoyed creating meaningful motives to be sprinkled in his work. We find in the left hand of bars 9­11 what Eric Sams calls the "Clara theme X"¹⁶:

Example 1. Clara theme "X." Robert Schumann, Dichterliebe, op. 48.
"Aus meinen Tr¨aut;nen spreissen," bars 9-11

Other such figures appear throughout the cycle, further adding to the uniformity and harmonic seamlessness of the work.¹⁷

Exciting and colorful, "Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube" brings to mind fragrance, brightness and flight in its surprising treatment of the verse. Beginning in the happy key D major and virtually void of any chromaticism (a brief hint at the subdominant key of G major in bar 10), the song flies quickly through the verse, repeating the middle two lines of the poem and lingering briefly and subtly in bar 16 on "the One." Similar to the Clara theme X, Schumann shows two iterations of the Clara theme P¹ (Example 2):

Example 2. Clara theme P¹. Robert Schumann, Dichterliebe (op. 48).
"Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube," bars 11-13.

Irony asserts itself in "Wenn ich in deine Augen seh," with Schumann guiding the accompaniment at the end to suggest a hint at the subdominant (here, C major). Heine insists that the "ich liebe dich" is a lie, but Schumann does not see it that way.¹⁸ In fact, to counter the acidity of Heine's inention, Schumann supplies a piano part that "offers tears of humility and unworthiness."¹⁹ A somewhat religious tone is effected with the organ-like chords in the terminating measures.