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

I studied the text and music for making a Dutch translation. 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 stanza's, 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 syllable in boldface is set on a high g for the sopranos, so it inevitably stands out, while in spoken German it is an extremely 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.

Compared to "the long day closes", by Sullivan, the text handling of the latter stands out. Sullivan truly understands what the poem is about and matches the mood (old person, disappointed, tired) perfectly, with a kind of solution offered by the grave ("dreamless bed"), where the music finally gets off. 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.