The cycle of hunting songs we did informally in my home last night with four natural horns and a group of men singers turned out to be far more than mere hunting songs.
The text celebrates the connection between the wild forces of nature and man's natural drive to be part of the wild not as a mere spectator. Schumann clearly equates the pursuit of the hunter with that of the artist. Fully aware of all the dangers that entails he celebrates in tone the half light of predawn in which things are seen as they truly are--already amazing. It is one thing to have a text that states that explicitly, quite another to achieve that in music.
It is all about exposure, danger, mystery, ultimately joy, all the more powerful because the reference is to such ordinary things. As the poem says, it looks so easy and is so difficult--it could be describing Schumann's music.
I am still delirious and have no intention of coming back down to earth.
