Auf der Bruck
A Geography Lesson
As a student I wrote a 200 side-work about "Poetry and music in Schubert´s Lieder" which I am reworking now, hoping to turn it into a book. Unfortunately it does not go very quickly, since I am just an amateur Schubertian and I have to work (as a film producer in the German Institute for scientific film in Göttingen). Maybe you have already made the link between the name of Göttingen and the title of this article. As a matter of fact, when I came to Göttingen six years ago, I intended to find this famous "Bruck", which the Deutsch Thematic Catalogue calls "a wooded hill near Göttingen and the old Gesamtausgabe describes as "a favourite destination for walks with panoramic views on the Hainberg near Göttingen" (I apologise for my bad translation). In fact the Hainberg is a kind of home forest for Göttingen and a beloved place for Sunday walks. There is a fresco in the old Town Hall which shows a student´s farewell to Göttingen. The student is standing on the Hainberg and the town is lying beneath it.
My first thought was that the "Bruck" would be such a spot. I asked people who know the Göttingen forest about it, but in vain. So I decided that it must have been the place where at the end of the last century the so-called Bismarck tower was built, which would explain why the original name had got lost.
Some months ago, however, I noticed old sign-posts, carved in stone, which I think date from the time when the forest was set at the beginning of our century (formerly it was a kind of "waste land" and at that time the mayor decided to make it an regular forest), and where the name "Bruck" is to be read. If my original idea were right, this would not have been possible. So, I searched again, which was not very easy because a military exercise camp had occupied the "back" of the Hainberg. Fortunately, the camp has been closed, but the sign-posts have disappeared there. However, in the Town museum I was lucky enough to meet an old lady who remembered being on the Bruck as a schoolchild. She told me where she thought it was and I went there.
In fact, the Bruck still exists. It is just not "overlooking Göttingen" as Graham Johnson states in the booklet of Hyperion Schubert Edition volume 18, but is about 10 km (6 ½ miles) away. It is not properly on the Hainberg (which is the hill above Göttingen) but on the other side of this kind of elevation, a rather abrupt edge, a "break", from which the Harz mountains can be seen. This explains also the name. "Bruck" does not stand for "Brücke", which would be the case in South German dialects and was interpreted so by Schubert´s editor and maybe the composer himself, but, in the Northern German dialect it means "Bruch", actually "break". As a philologist, Schulze must have understood it this way and thematised thus in his poem.
The Bruck is a rather abrupt and wild cliff. A stone table and two banks are still there, but the spot is rather neglected now. Since the trees have grown, you cannot see very much from the Bruck itself, but some 100 meters away from it a wooden tower was built in the thirties, from which you can discover what Schulze saw riding his horse (as far as he could ride on the rather narrow path on top the cliff). Beneath you are some quiet villages, a rather calm landscape and on the horizon the Harz. Going from Göttingen there and back is a good day´s walk, and a pleasant one too.
I took some photos of the place and of the landscape around it. So, that is my little scoop.
Thierry Morice (tm651354@maila2.germany.ncr.com) April 1996
[[RM For those of you wondering what this is all about, Auf der Bruck, D853 is a Schubert Lied to a poem by Ernst Schulze (1789-1817). The poem by Schulze was headed 'Auf der Bruck. Den 25sten Julius 1814', but the first edition of the Lied was entitled Auf der Brücke (Brücke is German for Bridge). As the manuscript is lost, it is not known whether this was a deliberate change by Schubert (he apparently changed the names of other Schultze Poems), or an idea or mistake by the publisher Kienreich of Graz. As ever with the Hyperion Schubert Edition, there is a detailed set of notes on this, some other Schulze settings, and biographical notes on Schulze himself in the booklet which accompanies the 18th edition. For those of you who read German, the original text goes like this:
- Frisch trabe sonder Ruh und Rast,
- Mein gutes Roß, durch Nacht und Regen!
- Was scheust du dich vor Busch und Ast
- Und strauchelst auf den wilden Wegen?
- Dehnt auch der Wald sich tief und dicht,
- Doch muß er endlich sich erschliessen;
- Und freundlich wird ein fernes Licht
- Uns aus dem dunkeln Tale grüssen.
- Wohl könnt ich über Berg und Feld
- Auf deinem schlanken Rücken fliegen
- Und mich am bunten Spiel der Welt,
- An holden Bildern mich vergnügen;
- Manch Auge lacht mir traulich zu
- Und beut mit Frieden, Lieb und Freude,
- Und dennoch eil ich ohne Ruh,
- Zurück zu meinem Leide.
- Denn schon drei Tage war ich fern
- Von ihr, die ewig mich gebunden;
- Drei Tage waren Sonn und Stern
- Und Erd und Himmel mir verschwunden.
- Von Lust und Leiden, die mein Herz
- Bei ihr bald heilten, bald zerrissen
- Fühlt ich drei Tage nur den Schmerz,
- Und ach! die Freude mußt ich missen!
- Weit sehn wir über Land und See
- Zur wärmer Flur den Vogel fliegen;
- Wie sollte denn die Liebe je
- In ihrem Pfade sich betrügen?
- Drum trabe mutig durch die Nacht!
- Und schwinden auch die dunkeln Bahnen,
- Der Sehnsucht helles Auge wacht,
- Und sicher führt mich süßes Ahnen.
My German isn't wonderful, but I translate it to be something like:
- Trot briskly without rest, my good horse, through night and rain!
- Why do you shy at bush and branch and stumble on the wild paths?
- Though the forest stretches deep and dense, it must finally open up;
- and a distant light will greet us kindly out of the dark valley.
- I can fly over mountain and field on your slender back
- and enjoy the world's colourful vistas.
- Many a eye laughs intimately at me, with peace, love and joy,
- and yet I hurry without rest, back to my grief.
- For three days now I have been far away from her that I am eternally bound to;
- For three days sun and star and earth and heavens were missing for me.
- Of the delight and grief, that when I was with her, now healed, now tore my heart,
- for three days I have only felt the pain, and oh!, the joy I had to miss!
- We see the bird fly far over land and sea to warm pastures;
- How then should love ever in its path deceive itself?
- So trot bravely through the night!
- Though the dark tracks may fade, the bright eye of yearning still watches, and sweet foreboding guides me safely.]]