Aubrey Hatch and Dr. Michelle James (Cindy Brewer), Department of German and Russian
Some artists create music directly, while other artists—like Elisa von der Recke—inspire others to create music. Elisa von der Recke was a literary phenomenon in her era, a woman whose writing was taken seriously by male readers, thinkers, and, very importantly, by male composers. At the height of her popularity and shortly after her death, several of Germany’s best composers put Recke’s poetry to music. Unfortunately, for all of their popularity during the German Romantic period, Recke’s poems—as well as their musical accompaniments—have all but disappeared1. The purpose of this project was to both compile and transcribe music that was inspired by the poetry of Elisa von der Recke.
Several pieces of music had already been found, but had yet to be put into a modern digital format. This project involved both transcribing these pieces and locating music not yet part of our compilation. Transcription was completed using the Finale musical notation software. Steps were taken in this process to ensure the digital copy was as close to the original as possible. All dynamic and tempo markings were left in the original German and archaic German spellings in the lyrics were also transcribed. Changes were made to archaic musical notations so that the resulting scores would be useful to modern musicians. Soprano and tenor parts that were originally written in soprano and tenor clef were changed to treble and bass clef respectively. Also, additional verses originally located at the end of the score were incorporated into the score itself to make the pieces more conducive to actual performance. As part of their transcription, these verses were also numbered. I completed further research for the project at the music collection of the Austrian National Library in Vienna Austria while I was participating in a study abroad there.
As a result of this project, seven choral pieces were transcribed into a digital format. Of these, two pieces not previously part of our compilation were found in the Music Collection of the Austrian National Library. Additionally, I am in the process of transcribing one more piece of music which will be finished January 2014.
All of this music will be published as part of an ongoing project in the German department known as Sophie: A Digital Library of Works by German-Speaking Women. A separate compilation of Elisa von der Recke’s works which will include this music will also be published in the future. I will also be writing an introduction to accompany this music in which I will outline the methodology of my transcription. This introduction will be completed by February 2014.
References
- Träger, Christine. “Vorwort” in Elisa von der Recke. Tagebücher und Selbstzeugnisse. Munich: C.H. Beck. 9-33.