
In so many of Robert Schumann's songs he affectionately used the poem's flowery subject to represent his wife, Clara, yet in "Mein schöner Stern!" Op. 101/4 (My Beautiful Star), he uncommonly equated her presence with that of a radiant, healing star. Without changing a word, the composer meaningfully enhanced Rückert's writing with elusive music that opens in E flat major and carefully slips through many other keys. Even though the composer used the text to plead his wife to cautiously protect herself and her light as she lifted him out of darkness, in reality his mental illness had obvious, irreversible effects on Clara and their marriage. The delicate second verse is a melodic duplication of the first; the accompaniment's lines in both stanzas are made of beamed eighth notes in the treble and low octaves in the bass. The tune was written in Kreischa, where the Schumann family fled to escape the Dresden revolution. ---All Music Guide Mein schöner Stern Mein schöner Stern, ich bitte dich, O lasse du dein heitres Licht Nicht trüben durch den Dampf in mir, Vielmehr den Dampf in mir zu Licht, Mein schöner Stern, verklären hilf! Mein schöner Stern! ich bitte dich, Nicht senk' herab zur Erde dich, Weil du mich noch hier unten siehst, Heb' auf vielmehr zum Himmel mich, Mein schöner Stern, wo du schon bist! Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866) My lovely star, I implore you, O let not your bright light Be dimmed by the gloom in me, Rather let the gloom in me, My lovely star, be <b>...</b>
classical
vocal
lieder
Schumann
Rückert
Fischer-Dieskau
German
Fi
Di
Tanzer
528