Talk:Abschied vom Walde, Op. 59, No. 3 (Felix Mendelssohn)

I studied the text and music for making a Dutch translation that can be sung. I am a bit disappointed in fact of the job that Mendelssohn did. For starters, he did not try to musically reflect the mood change through the stanzas, but just repeats the same tune three times. Secondly, his notes do not match the way the poem is recited in speech. To wit, see the last line: "mich einsamen erheben".

The red syllable is on the first beat of the bar and is sung on the highest note (G5 for the sopranos), so it inevitably stands out, while in spoken German it is an unstressed syllable. The second stanza, that same note is on "ganz", which is much more to the point. The first stanza is sung as "einmal", which even changes the meaning. In German, "noch ein mal" means "yet another time", whereas "noch einmal" means "just once more". This last meaning is intended, since the forest is visited for the last time.

I also translated "The long day closes", by Sullivan and the text handling of the latter stands out. Sullivan truly understands what the poem is about and matches the mood of the poem by variations of the tune, adding a magnificent coda. IMHO, Mendelssohn is more a composer of songs without words.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Marcqv (talk • contribs) on 13:12, 17 March 2008.