Hugo Wolf's Searing Jesus Song

Sometimes the emotions in artsongs go so deep they take us to the edge of sanity. Hugo Wolf, one of the greatest songwriters, in fact died in a mental asylum, scrawling his last songs on the walls. His music has an intensity that burns into the soul. The height of anguish is Wolf’s setting  of a poem about Jesus in the garden of Gethesmane, where he accepts his fate to be betrayed and crucified.

The song opens with tortuous 7th chords and an impassioned disciple questioning for all of us. He sees Jesus crying and asks what the soil will bear from his tears. Jesus answers with prophecy: many wreaths, those of thorns for me, and those of flowers I hand to you. Wolf’s setting is extraordinary. The wreath of thorns is just bare octaves, without harmony, twisting away from each other to a dissonant tritone—the fate of Jesus! For the wreath of flowers, Wolf takes this bare tritone and clothes it in beautiful harmony. Then the voice creates a musical cross; the melody drops down and halfway up, like someone physically crossing themselves. This cross ends on a tragic minor chord (deceptive cadence). It is left to the piano to heal the anguish with a final cadence in major, also using the cross motive—the flowers for Mankind.

Such a simple (and clichéd) musical device! A deceptive cadence followed by a full cadence. Yet at just this precise moment it conveys the depth of feeling inside the poem that brings us listeners to tears as well. So much power in such a tiny artform!

Listen to Wolf’s song, “Herr, was trägt den Boden hier?”