2 Lieder

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

2 Lieder

Weihnachtslied (1870)

Weihnachtgefühl (1899)

In this programme of Christmas songs and children’s songs there is one song actually by a child - a charmingly innocent Weihnachtslied composed by Strauss at the absurdly early age of six: “I put the notes in myself,” he recalled, “but my mother wrote the words below the notes since I could not then myself write small enough.” Dating from twenty-nine years later, Weihnachtsgefühl is scarcely more elaborate but at the same time so much more artful in its shapely vocal line and its discreetly but exquisitely chosen harmonies.