These four songs to poems by Lenau were written in Dusseldorf during March of 1851. Schumann's mental and physical health were not far from their final collapse, and so it's no surprise that these songs are not given the completely straightforward settings that one might expect from the superficially simplistic texts. While Schumann sympathized with the revolutions of 1848, he had also closely seen the cruelty of the bloodshed, and this shows in his settings.

The first is a swaggering, exhibitionistic piece, with its pounding four-note motif and frequent fortissimi in voice and piano. If more sparingly applied, the motif might seem jolly and even harmless, like a soldier's song in an operetta, but Schumann's setting pushes it from repetition to near-obsession. In the second, he uses understatement rather than overstatement, in a chilling portrait of a Hussar who has grown tired of peace. Instead of exuberance, the song expresses grim, knowing satisfaction at the thought of bloodshed; this is not a recruit who's not yet been in war, but rather a veteran who drinks to pass the tedious time between wars. The slow pace further suggests this man's cold dedication to systematic killing, and the final, unexpected chord is like the door closing behind him as he leaves to resume killing. The third song brings these first two together, with its hint of a marching or drinking song combined with a matter-of-fact, even brusque delivery. It ends with an almost confused postlude that suggests that this is indeed a drinking song, and that the singers are staggering around in a drunken haze. The fourth, with its image of the victorious Hussar riding through the carnage after the battle is won, is a forerunner to the final song of Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death. It shares the same setting, a battlefield after the carnage is finished, though in this case it is one of the victorious Hussars gloating over the dead rather than Death himself. This gloating is drawn with the same calloused understatement as in the second, the voice descending as if the Hussar's eyes are contemptuously looking down from his horse at the dead, but with an occasional flourish from the first and third ones. The accompaniment vividly paints the final image of the horse's hooves, red with blood, galloping off, and the remains left on the field.



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