WoO 145: Das Geheimnis (Liebe und Wahrheit)

(Тайна, Любовь и Правда)

Песня (Lied) для голоса и фортепиано
Первое издание: февраль 1816 года

Дитрих Фишер-Дискау, баритон
Jörg Demus, фортепиано

This short song comes near the end of Beethoven's middle period. It is a setting of text by Ignaz Heinrich Freiherr von Wessenberg (1774-1860). There are only eight lines to the entire song, but Das Geheimnis (The Secret) is not short on lyrical beauty or artistic worth. It does not quite rank with Resignation, WoO. 149 (1817), however, for innovation or sheer artistic impact.

Yet it can probably be compared with many of the composer's better songs from the period, such as the six that comprise the 1816 collection An die ferne Geliebte (To the distant beloved). The beauty and uncomplicated character of "Das Geheimnis" offer a charm and poignancy not unlike the character of many of the songs in Geliebte, a collection in which Beethoven's extroverted persona turned somewhat muted, yielding to a more ponderous, inward expressiveness. In "Das Geheimnis," the melody in the vocal line flows sweetly, the accompaniment is soft and intimate, and both combine to produce a mood of subdued playfulness. This song was first published in 1816 in the Viennese journal Modenzeitung.

(Robert Cummings, Rovi, answers.com)

Das Geheimnis (Ignaz Heinrich Carl von Wessenberg)

Wo blüht das Blümchen, das nie verblüht?
Wo strahlt das Sternlein, das ewig glüht?
Dein Mund, o Muse! dein heil'ger Mund
Tu' mir das Blümchen und Sternlein kund.

"Verkünden kann es dir nicht mein Mund,
Macht es dein Innerstes dir nicht kund!
Im Innersten glühet und blüht es zart,
Wohl jedem, der es getreu bewahrt!"