Frauenliebe und -leben

Frauenliebe und -leben (A Woman's Love and Life) is a cycle of poems by Adelbert von Chamisso, written in 1830. They describe the course of a woman's love for her man, from her point of view, from first meeting through marriage to his death, and after. Selections were set to music as a song-cycle by masters of German Lied, namely Carl Loewe, Franz Paul Lachner and Robert Schumann. The setting by Schumann (his opus 42) is now the most widely known.

Schumann composed his setting in 1840, a year in which he wrote so many lieder (including three other song cycles: Liederkreis, Op. 24, Liederkreis, Op. 39 and Dichterliebe) that it is known as his "year of song". There are eight poems in his cycle, together telling a story from the protagonist's first meeting her love, through their marriage, to his death. They are:

Schumann's choice of text was very probably inspired in part by events in his personal life. He had been courting Clara Wieck, but had failed to get her father's permission to marry her. In 1840, after a legal battle to make such permission unnecessary, he finally married her.

The songs in this cycle are notable for the fact that the piano has a remarkable independence from the voice. Breaking away from the Schubertian ideal, Schumann has the piano contain the mood of the song in its totality. Another notable characteristic is the cycle's circular structure, in which the last movement repeats the theme of the first.

There have been many recordings of Schumann's setting.

Possibly the first was that of

During the 1930s the principal versions were those of

Recordings by

are noticed in 1951.

These recordings are listed on CD in 1996:

Loewe's Liederkranz Frauenliebe is his opus 60. He set all 9 poems, namely the eight used by Schumann (in the same order), but with the additional final song, 9. Traum der eignen Tage. However he originally published the cycle as only the first 7 songs.

...
Wikipedia