5 Lieder Op.15 (1884–6)

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

5 Lieder Op.15 (1884–6)

Madrigal

Winternacht

Lob des Leidens

Aus den Liedern der Trauer

Heimkehr

2 Lieder from Acht Gedichte Op .10 (1885)

Allerseelen

Zueignung

To include one Michelangelo setting in the same set as four songs to poems by the composer’s Munich contemporary Graf von Schack, a generous patron of the arts, might seem a questionable decision on the young composer’s part. Leaving aside the politics, however, a likely explanation is that the Michelangelo Madrigal, set here with appropriately melodious resignation, is inspired by the same theme, of consolation in adversity, as the first three of the Schack poems. In Winternacht the threat of the blizzard melts away like Strauss’s stormy piano figuration in the last stanza. Lob des Leiden Strauss treats like a spring song – until, that is, the funereal turn of events at the end. Consolation in Aus den Liedern der Trauer turns out, in spite of the bravado so vividly reflected in the setting, to be no more than wintry irony. True consolation is to be found at last in the peacefully lyrical treatment, with its gentle hints of a barcarolle, of Schack’s Heimkehr. Both of Strauss’s next two sets of songs, incidentally, are based on poems by Schack.

There is no more cherished expression of consolation than Allerseelen, which has achieved scarcely less popularity than the youthfully ardent Zueignung from the same set of songs, the first he published, to words by Herrmann von Gilm.