Sung by DALE SMITH
SCHUMANN'S happy marriage, at the agj of thirty, seems to have been a wonderful incentive to composition.
In one form, especially in song, he poured out his emotions. Over a hundred songs were composed in that first year of married life. Among them was this cycle of sixteen songs, entitled The Poet's Love (Dichterliebe, in German).
The words are by Heine, the poet who, forbidden to live in his native land, spent some time in London, and ended his days in France, in bodily suffering.
The story first traces the growth of love in the heart of the poet. Suddenly comes his sorrow. His loved one is lost to him.
He seeks to escape, in solititude, his sad recollections, but the image of the lost one is ever poignantly before him.
Finally, resigned to the fading of his dreams, he would put away his memories and bury in a mighty coffin all his sorrow and love, intermingled.
To-night we are to have half of the cycle--tho first nine songs.