Light and love (Night song)
(Poet's title: Licht und Liebe (Nachtgesang))
Set by Schubert:
D 352
duet for soprano and tenor
Schubert omitted the words in italics[probably 1822-1823]
Männliche Stimme.
Liebe ist ein süßes Licht.
Wie die Erde strebt zur Sonne
Und zu jenen hellen Sternen
In den weiten blauen Fernen,
Strebt das Herz nach Liebeswonne;
Denn sie ist ein süßes Licht.
Weibliche Stimme.
Sieh, wie hoch in stiller Feier
Droben helle Sterne funkeln,
Von der Erde fliehn die dunkeln,
Schwermutsvollen trüben Schleier.
Wehe mir, doch wie so trübe
Fühl ich tief mich im Gemüte,
Das in Freuden sonst erblühte,
Nun vereinsamt ohne Liebe.
Beide Stimmen.
Liebe ist ein süßes Licht.
Wie die Erde strebt zur Sonne,
Und zu jenen hellen Sternen
In den weiten blauen Fernen,
Strebt das Herz nach Liebeswonne.
Denn sie ist ein süßes Licht.
Male voice.
Love is a sweet light.
Just as the Earth makes its way towards the Sun
And towards those bright stars
In the wide blue distance,
So the heart pushes itself towards the bliss of love;
For it is a sweet light.
Female Voice.
High in that quiet holy of holies, look at how
Those bright stars are shining up there;
They are fleeing from the Earth, those dark,
Gloomy veils of mist, full of melancholy.
Oh no! but how similarly gloomy
I feel deep in my soul,
Which once blossomed with joys
But has now become lonely, without love.
Both voices.
Love is a sweet light.
Just as the Earth makes its way towards the Sun
And towards those bright stars
In the wide blue distance,
So the heart pushes itself towards the bliss of love;
For it is a sweet light.
All translations into English that appear on this website, unless otherwise stated, are by Malcolm Wren. You are free to use them on condition that you acknowledge Malcolm Wren as the translator and schubertsong.uk as the source. Unless otherwise stated, the comments and essays that appear after the texts and translations are by Malcolm Wren and are © Copyright.
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Themes and images in this text:
Being solitary, alone and lonely Blue The earth Fleeing Hearts Joy Light Melancholy Mist and fog Near and far Night and the moon Serenades and songs at evening Stars Striving The sun Sweetness Veils
The text of the poem used by Schubert is taken from Act IV Scene 1 of Collin's epic drama Der Tod Friedrichs des Streitbaren (1813) where the eponymous hero, Duke Friedrich the Valiant, reflects on past happiness. In the distance he hears first the sound of a man's singing voice, then a woman's, and finally the two together. The male voice in the play has no role beyond that of an anonymous fisherman, but the female voice is that of Agnes von Meran to whom Friedrich has once been married. They have parted because Agnes was unable to present him with an heir, but Friedrich still loves her. The stage directions are the following: 'A valley near Lunz, Austria . . . in the background a lake. On a hill near the bank there is a fisherman's hut hidden by trees. A moonlit night.' Graham Johnson, Franz Schubert. The Complete Songs. Yale University Press 2014 Volume 2 page 174
The male voice is that of light, but the woman is in darkness, looking up to the distant light of the moon and the stars. The cosmological imagery of the text is not just based on the nature of light, but also gravity and the mystery of mutual attraction. This latter theme revolves around an ambiguity in the verb ‘streben’, which can mean both ‘to strive’ or ‘to struggle’ [to achieve something], and ‘to make your way’ [in a particular direction]. The Earth is on a trajectory, falling towards the Sun (or rather, the motion of both the Sun and the Earth is affected by the mass of the other, but because of the greater size of the Sun we tend to interpret the influence of gravity as working in only one direction). As the poet points out, the Earth also feels the gravitational effect of more distant stars, and the whole cosmos is in motion in consequence. These massive bodies also happen to be sources of light, which allows the poet to claim that ‘love is a sweet light’, i.e. the motion of the heavenly bodies towards each other is a sort of universal attraction, otherwise known as ‘love’. Whereas gravitational attraction appears to us to be unproblematic and inevitable, the motion of human hearts towards each other tends to be less straightforward, more a matter of ‘struggle’ or ‘striving’ than of simply ‘going on your way’. In this sense the tension in German verb ‘streben’ cannot really be captured in an English translation.
The woman looks into space and sees another sort of movement as dark mists seem to fall from the Earth. Exploiting a second ambiguity she sees this as a veil falling away (in this case English IS able to capture some of the ambiguity of the word Schleier in the phrase ‘a veil of mist’). The problem is that in the absence of love her own gloom remains; she is still under a cloud. Despite her melancholy, though, she has not lost her awareness of the power of love, represented by the brightly shining stars.
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Original Spelling Licht und Liebe (Nachtgesang) Männliche Stimme. Liebe ist ein süßes Licht. Wie die Erde strebt zur Sonne, Und zu jenen hellen Sternen In den weiten blauen Fernen, Strebt das Herz nach Liebeswonne: Denn sie ist ein süßes Licht. Weibliche Stimme. Sieh! wie hoch in stiller Feyer Droben helle Sterne funkeln: Von der Erde fliehn die dunkeln Schwermuthsvollen trüben Schleyer. Wehe mir! doch wie so trübe Fühl ich tief mich im Gemüthe, Das in Freuden sonst erblühte, Nun vereinsamt, ohne Liebe. Beyde Stimmen. Liebe ist ein süßes Licht. Wie die Erde strebt zur Sonne, Und zu jenen hellen Sternen In den weiten blauen Fernen, Strebt das Herz nach Liebeswonne: Denn sie ist ein süßes Licht.
Confirmed by Peter Rastl with Schubert’s likely source, Dramatische Dichtungen von Matthäus von Collin. Erster Band. Friedrich der Streitbare. – Der Cid. Pesth 1813, bey Konrad Adolph Hartleben, pages 95-96.
To see an early edition of the text, go to page 95 [111 von 254] here: http://digital.onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ17344970X