A meditation on a painting of the Christ child by Francesco Albani (1578-1660), Schlafendes Jesuskind (The Sleeping Christ-child) is a song of such intimacy that it resists performance in a venue too large for notes and words voiced with exceeding softness. Still, the song has taken its place among Wolf's masterpieces, a work of such piercing beauty and hushed radiance that discerning audiences are willing to brave the difficulties in presentation in exchange for the possibility of something incomparable. Schlafendes Jesuskind emerged on October 6, 1888, as part of a second set of songs set to Eduard Mörike's poetry. The writer had been inspired by Albani's painting, which gripped him with its dark beauty and the placing of the infant Jesus on "the wood of sorrows," an allusion to the cross yet to come. Capturing Mörike's fervid religiosity tinged with humanistic impulses, the painting drew from him an expression of inward, yet cosmic wonderment. The Son of the Virgin, the poet observes, is seen asleep on the ground, cradled on the wood of sorrows by the pious artist, laid beneath His quiet dreams. He is a bud in which is concealed the majesty of the Father. If only, the poet wonders, one could see those images that pass behind that brow and dark eyelashes. The pianist begins in great solemnity, sounding simple hymn-like chords that quietly rise, then fall in a gentle chromatic scale, as though in an opening prayer. The singer enters with a seven-note phrase that descends in two whole steps before rising a fifth and obliquely lifting on "Heaven's child." The effect is of an awed contemplation that can scarcely be put into words. The beholder notes the import of the artist's decision to place the Christ child on the wood of sorrows to cradle His quiet dreams. "Blume du" (You blossom) remains in an intimate framework, but resolutely shines in voice and piano. Finding a musical expression for contemplation of the Child's dreams led Wolf to weave the same materials into a different fabric, still more finely spun. The passage holds another rising phrase ending, suggesting still further wonderment. The pianist repeats the prelude and Wolf, departing from his customary strict adherence to the poet's exact words and order, rightly repeats the singer's opening cadence, this time to be sung with even deeper reverence, rapt and contemplative. So softly is this to be sung that the phrase can vaporize if the singer's technique is faulty. When, however, the singer can spin the sound into infinity while maintaining a core to the tone, the song can move the listener to tears. In this song, Wolf caught and held an aura so rarefied and so elusive that Schlafendes Jesuskind must be ranked as one of the most sublime experiences to be found in all of music. ~ Erik Eriksson, Rovi
