“Historical Anthology of Music by Women”
Josephine Lang came from a musical home in Munich, where her father was a court musician and her mother, Regina Hitzelberger, a court opera singer. Although the young Josephine started out on the piano, she soon immersed herself in song, as both interpreter and creator. Her earliest lieder date from her thirteenth year, and this genre was to occupy her compositional talents almost exclusively.
Momentous in Lang’s life were her encounters with Felix Mendelssohn, in 1830 and again in 1831, when he visited Munich on his extended tour of Europe. Here was a gifted fifteen-year-old, almost entirely self-taught, whose lieder, singing, and angelic presence evoked an enraptured response from the sensitive young musician. His sisters Fanny and Rebecka must have been surprised by the intensity of his enthusiasm— they knew him as a cool, level-headed judge of the contemporary scene. In any case, such encouragement undoubtedly spurred on Lang in her compositional endeavors. From the mid-i830S to the early 1840s she was extremely prolific, producing approximately one-third of her total output of lieder. She tended to select texts that mirrored the feelings and events of her own life: “They are my diary,” she wrote in 1835.
It was in this period that her music began to be published, eliciting generally favorable reviews. An assessment by Robert Schumann of “Das Traumbild,” which he saw well before its publication, appeared in his journal Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in 1837. In 1840 Lang met her future husband, the Swabian poet Reinhard Kostlin, whose poems she would set in numerous lieder. After their marriage in 1842 they moved to Tubingen. There Lang devoted herself mainly to domestic activities, and her creative pursuits decreased markedly. Kostlin’s death in 1856 left her with the heavy burden of caring and providing for their six children, and she turned to composing and publication for financial reasons. But now Lang’s style was somewhat out of step with contemporary currents, and as a result she had considerable difficulty getting her music published. Through the assistance of a friend of Mendelssohn’s, the influential Ferdinand Hiller, she managed to secure the publication of some lieder and thereby support her family. Her death occasioned a retrospective collection of 40 songs, many of them hitherto unpublished, by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1882.
“Frühzeitiger Frühling,” based on a Goethe poem of 1801, was published for the first time in this posthumous volume. An early composition, written in 1830, when Lang was only fifteen, it was one of the songs that Mendelssohn heard during their first meeting. In its spontaneity and stunning originality it exemplifies the style that reviewers dubbed a new manner of song. The choice of the brilliant key of B major is a bold stroke. The melodic line features unusual directional turns and is often chromatic in unexpected ways. The piano part, which challenges the technical prowess of the performer, beautifully conveys the impending excitement of the poem. As in Schubert lieder, the vocal line and piano accompaniment are two distinct strata; like many of Lang’s songs, the form is strophic. Brief introductory and concluding statements in the piano symmetrically enfold the dramatic core.
Days of delight, are you here so soon?
Are you giving me the sun, hills, and forest?
The little brooks flow more fully,
Is it the meadows? Is it the valley?
Beneath the greenery’s blooming strength
The little bees, humming, nibble at the nectar.
Colorful feathers rustle in the wood,
Heavenly songs resound within!
Soon a breath stirs itself more forcefully,
But it loses itself immediately in the bush.
But it returns in the bosom,
Help me, you Muses, to bear this joy!
Gentle movement quivers in the breeze,
Delicious stirring, drowsy fragrance.
Tell me, since yesterday what’s happened to me,
Dear sisters, my sweetheart is here.
Recording
Lieder of Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Josephine Lang and Pauline Viardot-Garcia.Leonarda LPI 107.
Further Reading
Citron, Marcia J. “Women and the Lied, 1775-1850,” in Women Making Music, edited by Jane Bowers and Judith Tick. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986.
Tick, Judith. “Introduction” to Josephine Lang, Selected Songs. New York: Da Capo, 1982.
Reprinted from Josephine Lang, Selected Songs. Women Composers Series, Da Capo Press, 1984. By permission.
We use cookies to analyze our traffic. Please decide if you are willing to accept cookies from our website. You can change this setting anytime in Privacy Settings.