Ok, let’s put the sentence out here — but sorry, I don’t have oranges for you, even though I write this in Florida, I can only offer German apples, more exactly, blossoming apple tree branches. Does your memory kick in??

DER MOND STEIGT HINTER BLUEHENDEN APFELBAUMZWEIGEN AUF.
The moon rises behind blossoming apple tree branches.

With this image in mind we can let our imagination roam. We probably come up with some experience we have had that relates to this. Good, enjoy!

Now we change the sentence slighty:

HINTER BLUEHENDEN APFELBAUMZWEIGEN
STEIGT DER MOND AUF.
Behind blossoming apple tree branches
rises the moon.

What happens? We created two lines of different length. The first has four metrically accentuated syllables: “hi-”, “blueh-”, “ap-”, and “zwei-”. The second has only two: “stei-” and “mo-”. In the first line there are twice two syllables without accent in-between the accented ones. That makes for an up-and-down movement of an almost cradling nature, in contrast to the regularity of the second line.

What is even more important: the lines have a very different weight. It is fascinating how this difference comes about: we humans have an innate need and desire for balance, harmony and some kind of order, otherwise every single one of us would fast sink into chaos. Here this need plays out as the balance of the two lines: the second one becomes heavy and extended in order to match the length of the first one.

Yeah!! Music of a different sort, just get used to it!

Of course, we have to ask, what is the purpose of all this? Before we can answer, there is one more striking difference between the prose version and the poetic one. There is a line-break in mid-sentence, — rather needless and ornamental, you might be tempted to think. However, the line-break is easily the single most exciting and meaningful element a poet has to work with. In my decades of experience in my work with singers, collaborative pianists and native speakers, I have seen only a handful of artists who were aware that these line-breaks are more than a waste of paper, which usually remains half empty. Yes, yes, and yes, it is more than luxury and elitism to not fill the page!

Now — the line-break has a different expressive quality and meaning in every single place where it appears. Most of all, it depends on the connective tissue of the sentence that is being broken.

In our sentence the modality of place is separated from the subject and verb that follow in the second line. That does not create a radical cut, but it works more like an emphasized, slightly halting transition. It expresses expectation of something special. And really, there it appears! By sheer slow regular movement and weight rises the mighty moon.

We no longer talk about it in descriptive terms. In speaking and hearing these two lines, we experience the little scene with all our senses. From the criss-crossing delicate movement of the beautiful and fragrant branches we then focus on the celestial wonder.

The remembrance of our own experience of something similar moves into the background, we experience something new and unique, we experience it now. It is totally appropriate to call this “The Power of Now” of poetry!!

This is, in short, what texts of German Lieder are all about. If you are not aware of it, you miss what makes the balance of words and music so fascinating and rewarding for singers and pianists alike. By the way, the composers knew it, that is why they read the poems aloud over and over again, before sitting down to compose.

I wonder whether there is anybody else out there who remembers this sentence?

It is a charming sentence.