The third song in the song cycle "
Winterreise" by
Franz Schubert. What follows is part of a paper that I am writing for my music history class. I will be updating this information.
Tears are all over this piece. The title is not kidding around. Every
half note in the
piano is a tear. The main theme in the piano is made up of a two
quarter note and one half note pattern, with the quarter notes being a stumbling painful stagger and the half note being a burning tear falling into the snow. This piece is written so beautifully. With the tears falling on weak beats, the meter of the piece becomes unstable, like the wanderer's footsteps. The subtle stagger that we hear in
Gute Nacht has now become more pronounced.
Here is the first time that the wanderer address something that cannot answer him back. "O tears, my tears, are you so tepid that you turn to ice like cool morning dew?" Also notice that the half note "tears" in the piano disappear when the wanderer address them, so as not to crowd the texture of the piece with "tears" He gives the tears their own life, commenting they they spring from his heart, as if they (as well as his heart) have minds of their own.
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Die Wetterfahne