Schumann: Waldesgespräch

"Waldesgespräch" literally means "conversation in the forest" or in this case more of a conversation with the forest. Schumann's wonderful setting comes from his Liederkreis (song cycle) op. 39, written in 1840 and depicts a young woman about to be captured by Lorelei, a kind of mythological siren of the Rhine. This was one of the first German songs that I learned when I started to sing seriously; my first half recital was this cycle and Beethoven's "An die ferne Geliebte" so clearly I started with very easy repertoire. I had been playing the piano for almost fifteen years so my musical vocabulary was very good, it was just my knowledge of how to breathe and sing that hadn't yet come up to scratch. The translation of the text is at the following link:
oxfordsong.org...