Beginning with the height of the minnesinger tradition in the 12th-14th centuries, Germany has had a long history of poetry set to music. By the nineteenth century, German literature had flourished, and pianos had become more readily available for household use. This led to a surge in the writing of song, bringing new life to German poetry of previous generations. Heinrich Heine’s poetry featured prominently in this movement.

Read More: 91Classical is exploring poetry throughout the month of April.

When I’m made happy by lovely kisses,
Lying so sweetly in your arms’ prisons,
You mustn’t speak of Germany to me –
I just can’t stand it – I have my reasons.

Heinrich Heine was born into a Jewish family in Düsseldorf, and thus felt the brunt of Germany’s repressive anti-Jewish law in the early 1800s. He converted to Protestantism to be able to have a job, but still felt the persecution of the state. While his poetry draws on Romantic tropes such as otherworldly love, the mysteries of nature, and the release of death, the biting irony that he often expressed is seen as leading to the post-Romantic crisis.

Mountains and castles gaze down
Into the mirror-bright Rhine,
And my little boat sails merrilly,
The sunshine glistening around it.
Calmly I watch the play
Of golden, ruffled waves surging;
Silently feelings awaken in me
That I had kept deep in my heart.

As the world became industrialized, vanity and self-confidence clashed with the otherworldly ideals of Romanticism. Industrialized wealth existed next to urban poverty. Heine’s skepticism of the social order as it existed in Germany of the previous generation was something with which post-romanticism identified. In Heine’s life the irony was even more bitter: in 1835 his works were banned. In 1844 his wealthy uncle, who had supported his lifestyle, died and left him penniless. And four years later he found himself bedridden — physically ill, but also in a deep depression from which he never recovered.

A single fir-tree, lonely,
On a northern mountain height,
Sleeps in a white blanket,
Draped in snow and ice.
His dreams are of a palm-tree,
Who, far in eastern lands,
Weeps, all alone and silent,
Among the burning sands.

Heine’s religious conversion somewhat mirrors the story of composer Felix Mendelssohn, though Mendelssohn had found more professional success in his lifetime. Mendelssohn, along with his sister Fanny, began setting songs when he was a child, and rarely took any breaks in songwriting during his lifetime. Mendelssohn is one of several composers who set Heine’s Softly flow through my soul, and his setting of the piece was so popular that it reached the status of being called a “German folk song.” That morning greeting implied by the title is laced even more clearly with the irony that Heine implies by Mendelssohn’s clever setting. As the singer expresses “she dreams of me” a loud dissonant note allows the audience to question the speaker’s grasp of reality.

Likewise Fanny Mendelssohn took on Heine’s poetry with a flair for finding the narrative drama in the references to nature — a twinkling star here, water there, fruit trees above. All working hand in hand as a metaphor for the beautiful ending of the swan’s life in Schwanenlied, or Swan Song, which Mendelssohn published one year before her untimely death.

Robert Schumann’s creativity came in bursts, and Dichterliebe was no exception — the composer produced the entirety of the twenty-song cycle in one week. Schumann and Heine had actually met when Heine was already a famous writer and Schumann was still a young law student. But the relationship quickly soured when Schumann’s letters requesting commentary on his own poetry went unanswered. Dichterliebe is a section in Heine’s collection Buch der Lieder, which means Book of Songs. They tell the story of a man betrayed by the fairy with whom he is in love.

How appropriate for Franz Schubert’s final work to be from the same Swan Song set of poems that Fanny Mendelssohn also put to music. Schubert had been ill for years when he composed these last songs, and when his brother took hold of the pieces posthumously, he sent them for publication combined into one set, pairing poems by Heine with those of Ludwig Rellstab. In the Heine poem Die Stadt, as the speaker rows away from the rejection of his desired lover, he seems to float away on arpeggio.

The poetry of Heine is laced with irony and bitterness, but the poem that begins “Summer evening twilight” is more of a forest evening. The detailed description of the scene somewhat downplays the final discovery: that a water nymph is bathing in the brook. A love interest slightly out of reach makes a good bit of sense for Brahms, given his unrequited relationship with Clara Schumann.

Most of Edvard Grieg’s songs were based on Norwegian poetry, but he did set a fair amount of German songs as well. The set that includes Gruss (the same poem that Mendelssohn set to such popularity) came after a long break from songwriting. Since his wife Nina was the main interpreter of his art songs, the productivity level of lieder directly corresponds to the state of their marriage, which had its share of ups and downs — the two separated several times. And though this set was composed immediately following a reconciliation, the dedication was not to Nina Grieg, rather to Swedish soprano Ellen Nordgren Gulbranson.

Clara Schumann’s songwriting is also tied to her marriage. This setting of I stood darkly dreaming was one of three that she gave to husband Robert as a Christmas present. The two were separated often, either by her father’s machinations, or her own performance tour. Playing to her own strengths, she frames each of her lieder with a piano solo. While these interludes can feel like an introduction and coda, in the case of the Schumanns, the piano can speak more than words — even poetic ones — are capable of doing.

Not all of Heine’s work was poetry — he wrote several novels as well. The satirical work The Memoirs of Mister von Schnabelewopski includes a telling of the legend of the ship The Flying Dutchman, which is a ghost ship, doomed to sail the seas forever. Wagner’s admission that he had taken the story from Heine is surprising given the composer’s well known antisemitism. This also colors the work itself. Heine’s telling of the story is as a play within his story, tying in the title character’s charge of blasphemy with the trope of a “wandering Jew.” Wagner removes the irony that Heine had been able to subtly create.

91Classical will continue to explore the combination of poetry and music throughout April, as we celebrate National Poetry Month. Continue to visit 91Classical.org for more updates.