Ex. 6-10: Auf einer Wanderung

No. 15 of Hugo Wolf's Mörike-Lieder, a set of 53 songs all on poems by Eduard Mörike. Wolf composed it on 11 March 1888.

1888 was Wolf's breakthrough year. He shut himself away at a friends' house in Perchtoldsdorf, near Vienna, and wrote the 53 Mörike songs in a few months — sometimes two or three in a single day. His letters from this time show how intensely excited he was. In February he told a friend he had just written "a divine song," that his cheeks glowed "like molten iron," and that the inspiration was so intense it was almost painful.

The poem describes a magical moment during a journey. He steps into a small town in the red evening light, hears a girl singing at a window, and walks on as if he is under a spell. At the end, the piano plays on after the voice stops, fading away like the traveler's footsteps.

To describe the traveler's dreamy state, the music keeps slipping into new keys — E-flat, C, G, D-flat, E major — one after another. One writer compared it to a magician's trick.

Wolf deeply admired Mörike's poetry. He titled the collection "Gedichte von Eduard Mörike" (Poems by Eduard Mörike), putting the poet's name first, and had the poet's portrait printed at the front of the songbook.

From the album The Complete Recitals on Warner Classics by Christa Ludwig and Gerald Moore (2018)
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