Hier lieg ich auf dem Frühlingshügel...

My voice coach and I have this total obsession with Hugo Wolf's setting of "Im Frühling," so much so that we both concluded that at the end of our lives, rather than things we wish we had done, we will say, "Thank God I learned 'Im Frühling!'" (Yes, we are complete nerds!) There is something about the incredible imagery of Mörike's text that Wolf captured exquisitely.

As my coach is always urging me to, I began working on this piece from the poem before ever hearing the music. That is where my love for this piece began. Beautiful word imagery that is so vivid that you can feel the words. The words, too, resonate deeply with my thoughts and where I am in life.  Herr Moll (my coach) had me read Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet at the beginning of the academic year for the very same reason.

After I closed my music books for a rest over the holiday (not entirely wise, as I am now at the point of anxiety for all the unlearned music that must be learned in two weeks' time...), I took my mind away from those words, those notes, the songs, and just let them be for a bit. The past couple days, however, Mörike's words have come flooding back into my thoughts (even though I have not yet returned to singing that particular piece), as I wonder what is to be.

I enter my final semester of graduate school - and with that, my final months of holding "student" status - later this month, and I realize I do not know how to be anything but a student. I find myself asking, What is it that I want in my life? What is to come? Where do I want to be? What do I want to make of it all? What do I want to look back on without regrets? Just as Mörike's words say:  

"Ich sehne mich, und weiß nicht recht, nach was...mein Herz, o sage,
was webst du für Erinnerung in golden grüner Zweige Dämmerung?"

" 

(I yearn without knowing for what...my heart, o tell me,
what are you weaving for memories in the twilight of golden green branches?)

The answers will come. For now, there's nowhere to go but everywhere....and a towering stack of notes to be learned! ;)