Uploaded July 2021 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago

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-Composer: Robert Schumann (8 June 1810 – 29 July 1856)
-Performers: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Bariton; I and II), Christoph Eschenbach (Piano; I and II), Olaf Bär (Bariton; III), Helmut Deutsch (Piano; III)

Romanzen und Balladen II, 3 Songs for Voice and Piano, op. 49, written in 1840

00:00 - I. Die beiden Grenadiere {The two Grenadiers}
03:49 - II. Die feindlichen Brüder {The warring Brothers}
05:59 - III. Die Nonne {The Nun}

1840 was Schumann's first great lieder year, the one that produced the great song cycles Myrthen, the Heine and the Eichendorff Liederkreis, Dichterliebe, Frauenliebe und -Leben, and the Kerner Zwölf Gedichte. As if this was not enough, he also wrote individual songs, many of which, like these, he collected into small "Romance and Ballad Collections." He wrote Die feindlichen Bruder in April and Die bieden Grenadiere in May, both to Heine poems, and Die Nonne to a Fröhlich poem in November. They were published, however, with Die beiden Grenadiere as the first, making a cyclic progression from war among nations, to war between brothers, and finally to war with one's emotions in a cloister, supposedly a place of peace.

Die beiden Grenadiere is one of Schumann's masterpieces, setting up in generally less than four minutes a drama that it might take a movie half an hour to present. The music begins dispiritedly, though still with military discipline, slowly grows in pride and resolve, bursting out with passionate energy with the famous quotation from the Marseillaise, and then falling back. This last stroke adds poignancy to a song that otherwise could be just bombast; the listener is left to speculate whether the soldier has fallen prey to despair or to death. Ironically, while Schumann's version is the more insightful and effective, Richard Wagner's, written only months before, was far more successful, particularly in France (doubtless Wagner's more optimistic ending, using the Marseillaise triumphantly, was more appealing to French sensibilities!).

While this song is certainly the best known and for the most effective, with its vivid characterization and intense drama, the other two songs have their own merits. The deliberately archaic style Heine adopted for Die feindlichen Bruder is reflected in the rushed, slightly breathless vocal lines and subdued piano figures suggesting the flashing of the swords; this is not an eye-witness account of either the duel or a sighting of its ghostly repetition, but rather a fireside narration, evoking a sense of spookiness rather than terror. (Some performers have even interpreted it as an ironic treatment of the craze for Gothic stories of duels, tragic loves and rivalries, and ghosts.) Die Nonne, with its contrasting sorrow and merriment, shows Schumann's ability to handle pathos with a delicate touch that keeps it from becoming overwrought, and so, he makes the final drooping notes a particularly striking portrayal of quiet, unexpressed grief.
[allmusic.com]