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Born into a Jewish family of indifferent religious observance, Heine converted to the Lutheran faith at age 28. But that didn’t stop the Nazis from banning his poetry. There was something too knowing, too corrupt, too sarcastic for them.
Robert Schumann (1810-1856) spent 1840 setting one poem to music after another, a true miracle year for the composer. He took 16 of the 65 poems in Heine’s “Lyrical Intermezzo” and set them to music under the title “A Poet’s Love” (“Dichterliebe”). The high point is the seventh song, “I Don’t Complain” (“Ich grolle night”), the greatest F-U letter ever set to music. Here is the English translation with Schumann’s interpolations.
I don’t complain,
Even if my heart is breaking.
Love lost forever!
Love lost forever!
I don’t complain.
I don’t complain.
Even though you gleam with the glory of diamonds.
No gleam falls into the night of your heart.
I knew it long ago.
I don’t complain.
I saw you in my dreams,
And saw the night in the confines of your heart,
And saw the snake that gnaws at your bosom,
I saw, my love, how wretched you are.
I don’t complain.
I don’t complain.
You would expect Schumann to set the poem in a minor key, but he sets it in a glorious blaze of C major. It’s unspeakable bitterness smiling through murderous rage.
It's a hazy moon here.
