Der Doppelgänger
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Der Doppelgänger is one of the six songs from Franz Schubert's Schwanengesang that sets words by Heinrich Heine for piano and tenor voice. It was written in 1828, the year of Schubert's death.
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[edit] Text
The title "Der Doppelgänger" is Schubert's; in Heine's Buch der Lieder the poem is untitled, and arguably it is slightly spoiled by declaring at the outset what is intended to be a shock near the end.
Still ist die Nacht, es ruhen die Gassen,
In diesem Hause wohnte mein Schatz;
Sie hat schon längst die Stadt verlassen,
Doch steht noch das Haus auf demselben Platz.
Da steht auch ein Mensch und starrt in die Höhe,
Und ringt die Hände, vor Schmerzensgewalt;
Mir graust es, wenn ich sein Antlitz sehe -
Der Mond zeigt mir meine eig'ne Gestalt.
Du Doppelgänger! Du bleicher Geselle!
Was äffst du nach mein Liebesleid,
Das mich gequält auf dieser Stelle,
So manche Nacht, in alter Zeit?
[edit] English Interpretation
The following is an English interpretation by Leon Malinofsky: [1]
Still is the night, it quiets the streets down
In that window my love would appear
She's long since gone away from this town
But this house where she lived still remains here.
A man stands here too, staring up into space
And wrings his hands with the strength of his pain
It chills me, when I behold his pale face
For the moon shows me my own features again!
You spirit double, you specter with my face
Why do you mock my love-pain so
That tortured me here, here in this place
So many nights, so long ago?
[edit] Context
Heine's Buch der Lieder is divided into five sections; all the poems set in Schwanengesang are from the third, Die Heimkehr ("The homecoming"). In Schwanengesang, this song stands at the end of the Heine songs, although Heine's order is different and it has been argued that the sequence works better dramatically when the songs are performed in their order of appearance in the Buch der Lieder.
[edit] Music
Der Doppelgänger is through-composed; each stanza's setting is different. But not altogether different: the song is a kind of passacaglia on the theme of the first four bars of the piano part; this simple harmonic progression, with the piano part consisting almost entirely of block chords, dominates the song and does much to give it its feeling of inexorability, and its brief abandonment (displaced by a succession of increasingly dissonant chords) at the climax of the song signals the frantic horror of the poet.
The song is 63 bars long, and in a typical performance lasts between 4 and 5 minutes. It is in the key of B minor, the same as Schubert's Unfinished symphony.
