A Poet's Love
Clara is still on Schumann's mind in "Ich will meine Seele tauchen," the first song undeniably in a minor key, as her P1 theme follows a three-times repeated Y theme (Example 3):
Example 3. Clara theme Y. Robert Schumann, Dichterliebe (op. 48).
"Ich will meine Seele tauchen," bars 1 and 2.
In the previous movement, Heine's poetry hint at tragedy. Here, amid apparently erotic text, the music bears the sad tone of lost love. The present colors everything in the past, full of regret.20
Cologne Cathedral and the Rhine river were being slightly mocked in Heine's mind in "Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome;" awkward rhymes ("Well'n" and "Köln") and unpoetic words ("gross" and "heiligen") show lack of respect for the river, city and church. Schumann more or less restores the sense of grandeur to these characters with the dotted eigth/sixteenth rhythms in the accompaniment, though its presence from beginning to end suggests that there is something to the poet's sardonic attitude. 21The slow tempo and dark E minor tonality, however, reinforce a serious, imposing nighttime reflection of the cathedral mirrored in the river. Schumann brings us into the cathedral with the organ tones in thirds that appear in middle voices of the accompaniment in bar 21, and ultimately to the image of the Madonna, her face a painful reminder of the beloved (carried along mournfully in A minor).