Lieder ohne Worte

Abstract

Felix Mendelssohn was not a newcomer to the piano miniature when he published his Lieder ohne Worte, Op. 30, in 1835. In addition to a number of other short works for solo piano bearing various generic titles, Mendelssohn had composed one earlier set of six lyrical piano character pieces (Op. 19) which were first published by London's premier music publisher Novello in 1832 under the title "Original Melodies" (and a few months later in Berlin by Simrock under the title "Romanzen für's Pianoforte"), and which became immediately popular in Europe's salon culture. Opus 30 was the first group of Mendelssohn's piano character pieces to be published with the original title Lieder ohne Worte, a designation that raises tantalizing aesthetic issues by presuming to cross the line between absolute and program music and suggesting the frustration of generic expectations.

The contrapuntal textures, simple, lyrical melodies, and elaborations of Classical phrase structures and forms in the Op. 30 Songs without Words reveal Mendelssohn's musical upbringing in the great Classical traditions. The inner voices in Op. 30, No. 1 combine in a single strand of gentle arpeggio figuration between the harmonic foundation of the bass and the lyrical tune. Like No. 1, the second piece in the set is also a variation of the ternary form idea. The classically balanced antecedent-consequent period that begins the piece modulates from B flat minor to the relative major (D flat major), foreshadowing the large-scale tonal progression from B flat minor to B flat major over the course of the piece. In Op. 30, No. 3, the identical introduction and coda feature delicate arpeggios and bookend an unassuming modified ternary form movement. The repose of this piece is broken by the minor mode and ceaseless sixteenth notes of Op. 30, No. 4. Indeed, although the opening phrase of this piece begins as a classic antecedent phrase, the following phrase cannot find rest in its tortuous extensions and cadential evasions, and modulates to the relative major key. By including an A section in which two themes are introduced and a brief developmental B section before the modified reprise of the A section, Mendelssohn combines elements of ternary and sonata forms. The D major tonality of Op. 30, No. 5 links it to the preceding piece. Filigree thirty-second notes buzz beneath the melody. Mendelssohn entitled Op. 30, No. 6 "Venetianisches Gondellied," as he had Op. 19, No. 6 and as he would Op. 62, No. 5 in 1844. Although in his earlier and later Venetian gondola "songs" the 6/8 meter functions as a straightforward indicator of the genre, in Op. 30, No. 6, Mendelssohn frustrates generic expectations through metric ambiguity. The accentuating chords in the eighth-note accompaniment blur the line between 6/8 and 3/4 time. Additionally, the right-hand melody, which, in the A-section, studiously avoids the tonic pitch, floats incongruently over the metric confusion of the accompaniment. In the coda, ponderous chordal syncopations in the right hand exaggerate the metric conflict, temporarily subverting any clear sense of meter.