Analyzing Hugo Wolf's 《Morike Songs》 Combination Of Music And Poetry

Hugo Wolf (March 13, 1860- February 22, 1903) was a great Viennese composer of Slovene origin, particularly noted for his art songs, or Lieder in late Romantic music. He brought the 19th-century German lied, or art song, to its highest point of development. Hugo Wolf produced one of the most important song collections of the nineteenth century when he set to music fifty-three poems by the great German poet Eduard Morike. Eduard Friedrich Morike (Ludwigsburg, 8 September 1804 - 4 June 1875 in Stuttgart) was a German romantic poet. His poems are mostly lyrics, often humorous and romantic, but expressed in simple and natural language. Wolf 's collection, Gedichte von Eduard Morike, has many songs that represent his distinctive compositional features.This paper contains the following three main chapters: preface, text and conclusion. In the preface, I will present an overview of the paper. The second chapter will be divided three sections. In the first and second section, biographic information about Hugo Wolf and Eduard Morike, and the introduction of the Wolf's collection Gedichte von Eduard Morike will be presented. In the third section, I will analyze his songs (Er ist't) and (Elfenlied), which were composed in one year (between 16 February 1888 and 26 November 1888), and illustrate perfect combination of the poem and music of Hugo Wolf's art songs. The last chapter is a conclusive section. In the last section, I will summarize all my conclusions to illustrate Wolf's great sensitivity to the combination of poem and music, and his skill integrating the poetic meaning into the song.