Ex. 10-4: Liebst du um Schönheit

From Clara Schumann's Lieder (Op. 12), composed in 1841 to a poem by Friedrich Rückert. It is No. 4 of the joint cycle Liebesfrühling (Op. 37) that Clara and Robert published together — the same wedding-year project as her Er ist gekommen, also in this app. (Ex. 8-8: Er ist gekommen in Sturm und Regen by Clara Schumann)

In the poem, the singer asks to be loved for love itself. If you love me for my beauty, my youth, or my riches, she says, then do not love me at all — but if you love for love's own sake, then love me, and love me forever.

Years later, the same Rückert poem drew Gustav Mahler. In 1902, soon after marrying Alma, Mahler set it as a private love song for her — said to be the only love song he ever wrote. He hid the manuscript inside a score of Wagner's Die Walküre for her to find. The poem is one of the rare texts set by both a 19th-century woman composer and a great symphonist.

From the album Robert & Clara Schumann: Lieder - Frauenliebe und Leben by Barbara Bonney and Vladimir Ashkenazy (1997)
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