“Music exalts each joy, allays each grief
Expels diseases, softens every pain,
Subdues the rage of passion and the plague.”
John Armstrong MD (1709-79)
The Art of Preserving Health, 1744
This week I have been inspired by the connections between science and music. Both subjects require you to combine logic with creative thinking to achieve results that are both enlightening and inspirational. During my research of Frühlingsmorgen by Gustav Mahler, I realised that the poet, Richard Leander, embodies this combination. Not only was he gifted in the art of writing but in the science of medicine.
Richard Leander was the pen name of Richard von Volkmann, who worked as an orthopaedic surgeon and dealt with issues relating to the bones and connective tissues (such as ligaments and tendons). As a freelance surgeon, Volkmann was assigned the role of chief physician for the German military during two wars, the Prussian-Austrian war in 1866 and the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. In reaction to his war efforts, he was appointed Professor of Surgery at the University of Halle, Germany. Volkmann compared the mortality of civilian and war injuries and investigated the general poor hygienic conditions in civilian hospitals. His findings became the subject for the first conference of the German Society of Surgeons, (Beiträge zur Chirurgie), which he helped to found. Volkmann’s interest in this subject encouraged him to introduce Lister’s “antiseptic technique” to Germany. The antiseptic technique was founded by Joseph Lister, an English surgeon, who brought about a dramatic decrease in postoperative mortality thanks to the sterilization of surgical instruments. Volkmann’s contribution to surgical science lead him to be considered as one of the prominent surgeons of his day and his statue still stands outside of the Surgical University Hospital in Halle.
Volkmann was a gifted writer and his ability to communicate through the written word was not restricted to his scientific findings. During the wars, he wrote a collection of children’s fairy tales and poems under the pseudonym Richard Leaner. Gustav Mahler set two of his poems to music in his song cycle Lieder und Gesänge: Aus der Jugendzeit (Songs from the Youth) Erinnerung and Frühlingsmorgen.
Frühlingsmorgen
Gustav Mahler
Es klopft an das Fenster der Lindenbaum.
Mit Zweigen blütenbehangen:
Steh’ auf! Steh’ auf!
Was liegst du im Traum?
Die Sonn’ ist aufgegangen!
Steh’ auf! Steh’ auf!
Die Lerche ist wach, die Büsche weh’n!
Die Bienen summen und Käfer!
Steh’ auf! Steh’ auf!
Und dein munteres Lieb’ hab ich auch schon geseh’n.
Steh’ auf, Langschläfer!
Langschläfer, steh’ auf!
Steh’ auf! Steh’ auf!
You can hear the latter on my album, Songs from our Balcony. Here is a translation:
Spring Morning
Poem by Richard Leander
The linden tree taps at the window
With flower-laden boughs:
Get up! Get up!
Why do you lie dreaming?
The sun has risen!
Get up! Get up!
The lark is awake, the bushes are stirring!
The bees hum and beetles too!
Get up! Get up!
And I have already seen your cheery lover.
Get up, sleepy-head!
Sleepy-head, get up! Get up! Get up!
