Angels

Blake, Angels appearing to the shepherds, 1809
Blake, Angels appearing to the shepherds, 1809

Laura betet! Engelharfen hallen
Frieden Gottes in ihr krankes Herz!
Und wie Abels Opferdüfte wallen
Ihre Seufzer himmelwärts.
. . . .
So von Andacht, so von Gottvertrauen
Ihre engelreine Brust geschwellt,
Betend diese Heilige zu schauen,
Ist ein Blick in jene Welt.

Laura is praying! Angel harps echo
God's peace in her sick heart,
And, rising like the scent of Abel's sacrifice,
Her sighs ascend towards heaven.
. . . .
Thus, as devotion and trust in God
Swell her angel-pure breast,
Watching this saint pray
Is a glimpse into that world.

Matthisson, Die Betende D 102

Matthisson’s verse about Laura at prayer is typical of the poetic ‘glimpses’ of angelic perfection that Schubert chose to set to music. What we have to realise, though, is that it is Laura who is in the foreground; the angels are simply evoked in passing, either as background music (Engelharfen hallen / Angel harps echo) or as illustrative attributes (Ihre engelreine Brust / her angel-pure breast).

Throughout the 45 or so poems set to music by Schubert that refer to angels, Seraphim or Cherubim such compounds recur regularly: Engelharfen (D 102, D 233), Engelseelen (D115), Engellicht (D 207), engelhold (D 230), Engelseligkeit (D 264), Engelmelodien (D 302), Engelbild (D 302), Engelsang (D 304), Engelglanz (D 319), engelmild (D 397), Engelstimme (D 412), Engelunschuld (D 419), engelrein (D 429, D 616), Engelgüte (D 594), Engelskuss (D 197, D 235 and D762). In nearly every case the focus is not on the angel but on the character (almost exclusively female) who embodies this angelic perfection or innocence.

There are at least two exceptions to this, where a seemingly male character acts as a divine messenger (the original meaning of the Greek word ‘angelos’, ἄγγελος, was ‘a messenger’). In Colllin’s long ballad ‘Kaiser Maximilian auf der Martinswand’ (D 990A) an angel (in the form of a peasant) rescues the Emperor from death on a cliff, and in D 5 (Hagars Klage), Hagar remembers the prophecy of an angel who had foretold the fate of her son Ishmael, who appears to be dying in a desert:

Nein, da kam ein holder Fremdling,
Hieß mich rück zu Abram gehen,
Und des Mannes Haus betreten,
Der uns grausam itzt verstiess.	

War der Fremdling nicht ein Engel?	
Denn er sprach mit holder Miene:
Ismael wird groß auf Erden,	
Und sein Samen zahlreich sein.  

No. A nice stranger came and 
Called me back to Abram and told me
To enter the house of the man
Who has now cruelly expelled us.

Was the stranger not an angel?
For he said with a fine expression,
"Ishmael will be great on the earth
And his seed will be numerous."

Schücking, Hagars Klage D 5

Goethe’s Mignon (singing while dressed as an angel) seems to be the only character in Schubert’s songs who refers to the traditional doctrine that angels (and other heavenly beings) will not care about sex or gender:

Und jene himmlischen Gestalten,
Sie fragen nicht nach Mann und Weib, 
Und keine Kleider, keine Falten 
Umgeben den verklärten Leib.  

And those heavenly figures
They do not ask about male and female,
And no clothes, no folding drapery
Will be wrapped around the transfigured body.
 
Goethe, Mignon D 469, D 727, D 877 3

Everywhere else the angels, whether associated primarily with music, love or death, seem to be gendered. Angelic choirs do not appear to have bass voices and angelic perfection seems to reflect the patriarchal values of the ‘poets of sensibility’ (Klopstock, Kosegarten, Hölty etc.).

Music

It is hardly surprising that the same pious Laura whose prayers opened up a vision of angels for Matthisson in ‘Die Betende’ (D 102) also made him hear angelic melodies when she sang Klopstock’s ‘Resurrection Song’ (‘An Laura, als sie Klopstocks Auferstehungslied sang’, D 115). What may be less expected is that the less mystically inclined (albeit noble-minded) Schiller heard the sounds of ‘new born Seraphim’ when a different Laura played the piano (‘Laura am Klavier’, D 388).

This association between angels, music and women reminds us that, for all the language of ‘purity’ and ‘spirituality’, there is usually a throbbing undercurrent of eroticism in these texts. In Stoll’s ‘Labetrank der Liebe’ (D 302) the poet hears the melodies of angels as he sinks wordlessly onto the beloved’s heaving breast and he feels surrounded by Seraphim as the love-making develops:

Wenn im Spiele leiser Töne
   Meine kranke Seele schwebt,
Und der Wehmut süße Träne
   Deinem warmen Blick entbebt:

Sink ich dir bei sanftem Wallen
   Deines Busens sprachlos hin;
Engelmelodien schallen,
   Und der Erde Schatten fliehn.

So in Eden hingesunken,
   Lieb mit Liebe umgetauscht,
Küsse lispelnd, wonnetrunken,
   Wie von Seraphim umrauscht:

Reichst du mir im Engelbilde
   Liebewarmen Labetrank,
Wenn im schnöden Staubgefilde
   Schmachtend meine Seele sank.


When, during the playing of gentle music,
My sick soul hovers,
And the sadness of sweet tears
Is shaken off under your warm gaze:

I sink onto the gentle heaving
Of your breast, settling down wordlessly;
The melodies of angels ring out,
And Earth's shadows flee.

Having settled down in Eden in this way
Exchanging love for love,
Whispering kisses, drunk with delight,
As if surrounded by Seraphim

With angelic features, you hand me
A refreshing drink that is warm with love,
At the point when the base field of dust
Was about to receive my languishing, sinking soul.

Love

One of the few texts on this theme by a woman writer (Gabriele von Baumberg’s, ‘Der Morgenkuss’ D 264) builds up to a climax on the word ‘Engelseligkeit’: the bliss reserved for angels in heaven. Social constraints and obligations keep the lovers apart (though agonizingly close together). They defer their gratification until the sun rises, but are then rewarded by angelic bliss.

Durch eine ganze Nacht sich nah zu sein,
So Hand in Hand, so Arm im Arme weilen,
So viel empfinden, ohne mitzuteilen,
Ist eine wonnevolle Pein!

So immer Seelenblick im Seelenblick
Auch den geheimsten Wunsch des Herzens sehen,
So wenig sprechen, und sich doch verstehen -
Ist hohes martervolles Glück!

Zum Lohn für die im Zwang verschwundne Zeit
Dann bey dem Morgenstrahl, warm, mit Entzücken
Sich Mund an Mund und Herz an Herz sich drücken,
O dies ist - Engelseligkeit!

Being close to each other through a whole night,
Hand in hand like that, being arm in arm,
Feeling so much without sharing it
Is a blissful agony.

Always looking into each other's soul like that
And also seeing the most secret desires of the heart,
Speaking so little and yet nevertheless understanding each other
Is a high pleasure, full of martyrdom.

In payment for the time that we were forced to waste
Then comes, with the first rays of morning, warm, with delight,
The pressing of mouth to mouth and heart to heart - 
O this is - the happiness of angels!

For Stolberg-Stolberg, a declaration of love is heard as the voice of an angel:

Meine Selinde! denn mit Engelsstimme 
   Singt die Liebe mir zu: sie wird die Deine! 
     Sie wird die Meine! Himmel und Erde schwinden! 
       Meine Selinde!  


My Selinde! Since with the voice of an angel
Love is singing to me: she is going to be yours!
She is going to be mine! Heaven and Earth disappear!
My Selinde!

Stolberg-Stolberg, Stimme der Liebe D 412

Needless to say, these angelic voices can also be connected with lost love.

Death

Angels of death can announce the imminent end of life (Körner’s Wiegenlied, D 304) or angels might blow the last trumpet to proclaim the resurrection of the dead (Schlechta’s, Totengräber-Weisse, D869). Some mourning texts also stress the angelic purity of the departed:

Hauche milder, Abendluft, 
Klage sanfter, Philomele, 
Eine schöne, engelreine Seele 
Schläft in dieser Gruft.  

Bleich und stumm am düstern Rand 
Steht der Vater mit dem Sohne, 
Denen ihres Lebens schönste Krone 
Schnell mit ihr verschwand.  

Und sie weinen in die Gruft, 
Aber ihrer Liebe Zähren 
Werden sich zum Perlenkranz verklären, 
Wenn der Engel ruft.

Breathe more gently, evening air,
Lament more softly, Philomel,
A beautiful, angelically pure soul
Is asleep in this grave.

Pale and silent by the bleak rim
Stands the father with his son,
The most beautiful crown of their lives
Suddenly vanished along with her.

And they cry into the grave,
But the tears of their love
Will become transformed into a wreath of pearls
When the angel calls.


Grablied für die Mutter, D 616

The nexus of angels, love, death and music is most apparent in German lullabies. Songs about children going to sleep find it difficult to resist the metaphor of sleep as death. Narratives of deaths similarly introduce the metaphor of sleep. In some cases, such as at the climax of Die schöne Müllerin, angels might also appear out of nowhere:

Und wenn sich die Liebe
 Dem Schmerz entringt,
 Ein Sternlein, ein neues,
 Am Himmel erblinkt.

 Da springen drei Rosen,
 Halb rot und halb weiß,
 Die welken nicht wieder,
 Aus Dornenreis.

 Und die Engelein schneiden
 Die Flügel sich ab
 Und gehn alle Morgen
 Zur Erde herab.

And when love 
Wrestles itself free from the suffering,
A little star, a new one,
Starts shining in the sky.

Then three roses spring up,
Half red and half white,
Which never fade again,
Sprouting from thorny twigs.

And the little angels cut
Their wings off,
And every morning they
Go down to earth.


Müller, Der Müller und der Bach, D 795 19

This mysterious image of wingless angels descending effortlessly to earth is clearly not something that the author wanted us to analyse too closely. We probably just have to accept their presence as an inherent feature of a lullaby.

In Seidl’s Wiegenlied (D 867) the singer looks at the sleeping child with its hands tucked in and looks forward to the moment when an angel will tuck in its hands for the last time. In ‘Vor meiner Wiege’ (D 927) Leitner looks at his own cradle and remembers how his mother used to sing to him about roses and angels:

O Mutter, lieb Mutter, bleib lange noch hier,
Wer sänge dann tröstlich von Engeln mir?
Wer küsste mir liebend die Augen zu,
Zur langen, zur letzten und tiefesten Ruh?

Oh mother! dear mother, remain here for a long time to come;
Who could sing so comfortingly to me about angels?
Who would lovingly kiss me on the eyes,
To my long, to my last and deepest sleep?

☙

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