Sechs Lieder (“Six Songs”), Op. 13

This collection of six of Clara Schumann’s Lieder (“songs”) for voice and piano was published in 1844. She composed the songs in this collection between 1840-1843.¹ These songs are delicate and sensitive settings of texts by Romantic-era poets concerning love, loss, yearning, and the beauty of nature.²

Clara Schumann dedicated this set to Queen Caroline Amelie of Denmark. The composer had made a concert tour to Denmark in 1842, and likely intended to express gratitude toward the hospitable welcome she had received in that country.³

1. Ich stand in dunklen Träumen (“I stood darkly dreaming”)

• Clara Schumann composed this song in 1840, the year of her marriage to Robert Schumann. The year 1840 saw an outpouring of song composition by both Robert and Clara. 
• Clara Schumann gave this song, along with two others, to her husband as a gift at their first Christmas as a married couple.⁴ 
• Text by Heinrich Heine 

2. Sie liebten sich beide (“They loved one another”)

• This song shares a theme with the final movement of Clara Schumann’s Piano Sonata in g minor. She composed both the song and the sonata in 1842: the sonata was completed in January, and the song in June.⁵ 
• Text by Heinrich Heine

3. Liebeszauber (“Love’s magic”)

• Text by Emanuel Geibel

4. Der Mond kommt still gegangen (“The moon rises silently”)

• Listen for: pulsing, gently dissonant harmonic intervals (2nds). Robert Schumann used a similar technique his own Lied about moonlight, “Mondnacht” from Liederkreis, Op.39 (1840). 
• Text by Emanuel Geibel

5. Ich hab’ in deinem Auge (“I saw in your eyes”)

• Text by Friedrich Rückert

6. Die stille Lotusblume (“The silent lotus flower”)

• Text by Emanuel Geibel

1. Nancy B. Reich and Natasha Loges, “Schumann [née Wieck], Clara,” Grove Music Online (March 29, 2021), accessed June 17, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-90000380188.
2. Wendy Thompson, “A Woman’s Life and Love: Songs by Robert and Clara Schumann,” in accompanying booklet, Schumann Lieder performed by Barbara Bonney and Vladimir Ashkenazy, London 452898, 1997, compact disc.
3. Nancy B. Reich, Clara Schumann: The Artist and The Woman (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 249.
4. Nancy B. Reich and Natasha Loges, “Schumann [née Wieck], Clara,” Grove Music Online (March 29, 2021), accessed June 15, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-90000380188.
5. Ibid.