Wolf composed his
songs in a state of exalted joy and almost fright at the sudden
discovery of his creative power.
In a letter to Dr. Heinrich Werner, he says:
"It is now seven o'clock in the evening, and I am so happy--oh,
happier than the happiest of kings. Another new _Lied_! If you
could hear what is going on in my heart!... the devil would carry
you away with pleasure!...
"Another two new _Lieder_! There is one that sounds so horribly
strange that it frightens me. There is nothing like it in
existence. Heaven help the unfortunate people who will one day hear
it!...
"If you could only hear the last _Lied_ I have just composed you
would only have one desire left--to die.... Your happy, happy
Wolf."
He had hardly finished the _Moerike-Lieder_ when he began a series of
_Lieder_ on poems of Goethe. In three months (December, 1888, to
February, 1889) he had written all the _Goethe-Liederbuch_--fifty-one
_Lieder_, some of which are, like _Prometheus_, big dramatic scenes.
The same year, while still at Perchtoldsdorf, after having published a
volume of Eichendorff _Lieder_, he became absorbed in a new cycle--the
_Spanisches-Liederbuch_, on Spanish poems translated by Heyse.
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