Frauenliebe und Leben von Adalbert von Chamisso. Acht Lieder für eine Singstimme mit Begleitung des Pianoforte. [...] Op. 42.

Leipzig: F. Whistling. [1855]. First Edition. Upright folio, engraved (title lithographed). [PN] 300, 23 pp. Title with elaborate border, in fine condition throughout. Hofmann, p. 98f.; McCorkle, p. 187f. First edition, with the double-pagination for the individual issues.


The cycle of poems Frauenliebe und leben (A Woman's Love and Life) by French-born German poet Adelbert von Chamisso describes the course of a woman's love for her man, from her point of view, from first meeting through marriage to his death, and after. Schumann composed his eight-song setting in 1840, his "year of song" and his choice of text was very probably inspired in part by events in his personal life. He had been courting Clara Wieck, but had failed to get her father's permission to marry her. In 1840, after a legal battle to make such permission unnecessary, he finally married her.


"On the work’s publication in 1831...the poet was greeted as the champion of women, and the work went into seventeen editions in as many years. Against the fashions of the time, Chamisso gave the role of the narrator to the woman, and she speaks for herself, in her own voice, from the beginning. She has the right to describe her feelings and, as shy as she is, she tells us why she finds the man attractive in the second song – his lips and eyes are as delectable as his gentle nature. In the sixth song she has already taken over the reins of household management, and announces her pregnancy to the astounded husband who hears the news very much on her terms. In the next song she pities men for not being able to know the joys of motherhood – suckling the child is openly mentioned, and celebrated, which was far from usual for the time. By the time she reaches the final song (in Schumann’s cycle) she has developed into a formidable personality, capable of dealing with her bereavement in a way that convincingly includes anger as part of the range of emotions." (Graham Johnson, Hyperion Digital Booklet CDJ33103, 1999) (11371)

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