NOTES ON THE ALBUM - by Evan L. Snyder

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Schottische und Wallische Volkslieder

By Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Most listeners of classical music, even the newest of enthusiasts of the genre, will be familiar with the name Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809). The Austrian composer’s work in many ways shaped the music of the classical period, helping to codify sonata form and to define both the symphony and the string quartet as musical genres—even earning him the oft-repeated nickname, the “Father of the Symphony.”

Fewer enthusiasts may be familiar with Haydn’s significant ties to folk music and its concertized forms during his lifetime. Haydn’s formal musical education began at an incredibly young age (he was sent away from his family home to study before his sixth birthday)—but even before that, Haydn’s earliest musical experiences are said do have been through his father, who was a avid folk musician. Later in life, Haydn himself remarked upon his father’s abilities: playing the harp and singing, “without reading a note of music.”

Throughout his career, many of Haydn’s concert works imbedded folk tunes from Austrian, Croatian, and even Romani music. So pervasive is the appearance of tunes now identified as folk melodies in Haydn’s work, that at times a reverse-transmission model has been proposed—which is to say, some of these may even have begun as Haydn tunes and then been incorporated into folk music in the time since his original authorship. More than likely, however, most were originally melodies from various aural traditions that had been shared with or heard by Haydn, who then decided to invoke them in his concert work.

Haydn, like many later composers, also became involved in the commercial production of folk song arrangements for the home and stage. Working with his Edinburgh publisher, Thomson, Haydn produced over 400 English language folk song settings. But, often overlooked are these separate 37 adaptations of Scottish and Welsh folksongs, furnished with novel german texts and added chamber parts for violin and cello, which Haydn produced with William Napier (1740-1812). Recollected and published as a collection of four Hefts (or notebooks) in the 1920s, these 37 songs are all of the German-language adaptions of Haydn’s that are known to exist.

Of the songs presented in Heft 1, two worth noting are “Ihr Blumen dort am Ufersaum” (track 7) and “Einst ging ich im Sommer” (track 2). Both songs explore themes of dealing with infidelity, although differ from each other somewhat in the response to that unfaithfulness. “Ihr Blumen dort am Ufersaum” takes a fairly simplistic tact, bemoaning betrayal’s sting, described quite literally (“My false love took the rose, / the thorn, the thorn stayed with me”) and playing into that musically with a minor mode setting that modulates to the relative major mode and back—portraying both the hurt and the inconstancy of the story. “Einst ging ich im Sommer,” on the other hand, walks the proverbial high road, espousing a message that reads well even today: the speaker has had their heart broken, but refuses to become jealous, saying, “I still hope I'll find someone else / my heart shall not break for one alone!” Haydn’s treatment is upbeat and lyrical, underscoring the effectiveness of the speaker’s brave approach to love.

A third noteworthy entry in Heft 1, “Schlaf in deiner engen Kammer,” is a beautiful arrangement of a beloved lullaby tune (in a movement for two voices). Perhaps one of the most interesting elements of the movement is the way in which Haydn plays with distance between the voices. For most of the tune the voices are a space apart, the melodic voice clearly privileged above the lower harmonic voice. But, right before the music cadences, the lower voice leaps up into unison with the melody, creating this lovely intimate sounding musical moment, as the harmony steps back downward toward the cadence. This collapsing of distance is mirrored by the violin and cello as well, who share their only unison on the same note, half a beat earlier—creating an illusion of a single voice, singing this infant to sleep.

Heft 2 consists of a number of charming pieces, including two remarkably brief minor mode songs: “Ein Wandrer kommt von ferne” (track 15) and “O Maid, die mich gefangen heut,” (track 17). While the second of these aligns thematically with many of the other songs in the collection, expressing pain as a result of love or love lost, the first, “Ein Wandrer kommt von ferne” seems particularly noteworthy for its text. The story describes a wanderer, a foreign hiker, in absolute isolation—without stars, without longing, without even pain. This seems almost prophetic, in terms of the german song repertoire. The image of the hiker became incredibly popular in german lieder of the 19th century, as seen in Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin or any of the settings of either of Goethe’s two “Wandrers Nachtlied”—Haydn invoking it here may be one of the earliest appearances of the archetype.

Several of the collection’s most interesting pieces are found in Heft 3, including perhaps both the most upbeat movement, as well as the most dour one. “Wenn ich meine Schafe weide” (track 25) is a pastoral shepherd’s song, strophic and full of energy, complete with a recurring pattern of “falalas.” An obvious pleasure to sing, the movement’s compact range and lighthearted atmosphere make it particularly well set up to be used as a pedagogical piece for young singers. On the other end of the emotional spectrum, “Es sang und sang ein Vögelein” (track 29) spins a dramatic narrative, telling the tale of a lover seeking out his dead beloved’s killer, and then killing the murderer himself. Framed as a bird song, the lyrical melody is underscored by dance-like textures, and concludes with a pair of juxtaposed images: a dove above his lover’s grave, and a raven above that of her murderer.

Two of the collection’s sauciest pieces, “Ich stehe auf der Heide…” (track 32) and “Im Schummern, da kam ich einst zu dir” (track 34) are housed with the final heft. Both invoke flower imagery in their text, in order to refer to female sexuality (chastity, or a lack thereof). “Ich stehe auf der Heide…” is sung from the female perspective; the speaker gives a horseman permission to “break her roses,” for new ones will grow again in her “garden.” Somewhat less overt, for most of its text, “Im Schummern, da kam ich einst zu dir,” is sung from a male lover’s perspective. The poem begins with three lilies, which are white to symbolize virginity. But after the speaker, “was with [her] three times,” the white lilies are replaced by three red roses. In the poem’s final line, all pretenses are dropped as the narrator wonders, “who may be sleeping with you now?”

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