Poet’s Love op. 48

The ups and downs of disappointed love: who could fail to sympathize with the feelings that Schumann immortalized in his song cycle Dichterliebe after Heine?

The pieces range from hopeful anticipation („Im wunderschönen Monat Mai“) to solitary grief („Und wüssten’s die Blumen, die kleinen“) and bitter sarcasm („Die alten bösen Lieder“). Schumann knew what he was writing about: the cycle originated in the year of his marriage to Clara Wieck, an event that took place only after years of struggle.

Originally the sixteen-piece cycle was meant to include twenty lieder. Our volume reproduces the four discarded numbers in an appendix.