6 Lieder

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

6 Lieder

Ständchen Op. 17 No.2 (1887)

Ich schwebe Op.48 No.2 (1900)

An die Nacht Op.68 No.1 (1918)

Schlagende herzen Op.29 No.2 (1895)

Morgen Op.27 No.4 (1894)

Zueignung Op.10 No.1 (1885)

Although, unlike Robert or Clara Schumann, neither Sibelius nor Strauss has much of a reputation as a composer of piano music, Strauss’s accompaniments to his songs are among the most accomplished of their kind. Ständchen is so brilliantly written for piano that at one time it was almost as popular in Walter Gieseking’s solo arrangement as in the original version. And yet, highly effective though the piano part is, the greatness of the song rests in the ecstatic expansion of the vocal line into a new melodic shape in the climactic last stanza.

Never a composer to duck a challenge, Richard Strauss was clearly not intimidated by Karl Henckell’s allusion in Ich schwebe to “the sweetest of melodies.” He turned to the sketches for his unfinished Kythere ballet and pulled out a plum of a Viennese waltz tune which, attractively presented in sixths in the piano part, is by no means unworthy of the poet’s fantasy. If the piano part of An die Nacht is not the most idiomatically written - it is an orchestral version waiting to happen - its harmonies are extraordinary. “What a modulation!” Strauss remarked one day, “Can this really be right?” The contrastingly sunny Schlagende Herzen is correspondingly bright in its piano colouring and by no means unadventurous in its harmonies at the same time.

In Morgen, one the Vier Lieder Op.27 that Strauss presented to Pauline on their wedding day in 1894, it is the piano that carries the melodic interest by way of a perilously but expressively sustained line reflecting the erotic intensity of John Henry Mackay’s words, while the voice reacts to the rapture of the situation in quiet wonder. Zueignung, on the other hand, one of the first of Strauss’s songs to achieve publication, is dedicated wholeheartedly to the voice.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

6 Lieder

Ständchen Op. 17 No.2 (1887)

Ich schwebe Op.48 No.2 (1900)

Die Nacht Op.10 No.3 (1885)

Schlagende herzen Op.29 No.2 (1895)

Morgen Op.27 No.4 (1894)

Zueignung Op.10 No.1 (1885)

Although, unlike Robert or Clara Schumann, neither Sibelius nor Strauss has much of a reputation as a composer of piano music, Strauss’s accompaniments to his songs are among the most accomplished of their kind. Ständchen is so brilliantly written for piano that at one time it was almost as popular in Walter Gieseking’s solo arrangement as in the original version. And yet, highly effective though the piano part is, the greatness of the song rests in the ecstatic expansion of the vocal line into a new melodic shape in the climactic last stanza.

Never a composer to duck a challenge, Richard Strauss was clearly not intimidated by Karl Henckell’s allusion in Ich schwebe to “the sweetest of melodies.” He turned to the sketches for his unfinished Kythere ballet and pulled out a plum of a Viennese waltz tune which, attractively presented in sixths in the piano part, is by no means unworthy of the poet’s fantasy. If the piano part of Die Nacht seem unremarkable, that’s the point: the una corda ostinato of even quavers in the right hand throws into relief the youthful lyricism of a vocal line offset from time to time by suggestions of melodic counterpoint in the left hand. The contrastingly sunny Schlagende Herzen is correspondingly bright in its piano colouring and by no means unadventurous in its harmonies at the same time.

In Morgen, one of the Vier Lieder Op.27 that Strauss presented to Pauline on their wedding day in 1894, it is the piano that carries the melodic interest by way of a perilously but expressively sustained line reflecting the erotic intensity of John Henry Mackay’s words, while the voice reacts to the rapture of the situation in quiet wonder. Zueignung, on the other hand, like Die Nacht one of the first of Strauss’s songs to achieve publication, is dedicated wholeheartedly to the voice.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

6 Lieder

Ständchen Op. 17 No.2 (1887)

Ich schwebe Op.48 No.2 (1900)

Die Nacht Op.10 No.3 (1885)

Schlagende herzen Op.29 No.2 (1895)

Morgen Op.27 No.4 (1894)

Zueignung Op.10 No.1 (1885)

Although, unlike Robert or Clara Schumann, neither Sibelius nor Strauss has much of a reputation as a composer of piano music, Strauss’s accompaniments to his songs are among the most accomplished of their kind. Ständchen is so brilliantly written for piano that at one time it was almost as popular in Walter Gieseking’s solo arrangement as in the original version. And yet, highly effective though the piano part is, the greatness of the song rests in the ecstatic expansion of the vocal line into a new melodic shape in the climactic last stanza.

Never a composer to duck a challenge, Richard Strauss was clearly not intimidated by Karl Henckell’s allusion in Ich schwebe to “the sweetest of melodies.” He turned to the sketches for his unfinished Kythere ballet and pulled out a plum of a Viennese waltz tune which, attractively presented in sixths in the piano part, is by no means unworthy of the poet’s fantasy. If the piano part of Die Nacht seem unremarkable, that’s the point: the una corda ostinato of even quavers in the right hand throws into relief the youthful lyricism of a vocal line offset from time to time by suggestions of melodic counterpoint in the left hand. The contrastingly sunny Schlagende Herzen is correspondingly bright in its piano colouring and by no means unadventurous in its harmonies at the same time.

In Morgen, one of the Vier Lieder Op.27 that Strauss presented to Pauline on their wedding day in 1894, it is the piano that carries the melodic interest by way of a perilously but expressively sustained line reflecting the erotic intensity of John Henry Mackay’s words, while the voice reacts to the rapture of the situation in quiet wonder. Zueignung, on the other hand, like Die Nacht one of the first of Strauss’s songs to achieve publication, is dedicated wholeheartedly to the voice.

Strauss was little over twenty when he completed his first published set of songs, the Acht Gedichte, Op.10. Bearing that in mind - together with the not very exciting quality of the texts chosen from the late work of the Tyrolean poet Hermann von Gilm zu Rosenegg - it would not be at all surprising if they were merely conventional settings with nothing much to distinguish them from so many others of their kind and of their time. In fact, although the young Strauss was clearly not averse to the conventional gesture, there are anticipations of the mature composer in every song in the set: the seductively shaped melody which opens Die Nacht, and which recurs in varying harmonic circumstances in each of the four stanzas, is just one example.

Of the two night pictures, Die Nacht from Strauss’s first published set of songs and Schlechtes Wetter written 35 years later, the second is much the more sophisticated. Die Nacht is irresistible, even so, in its youthful lyricism and its hushed colouring for a mainly sotto voce voice and a una corda piano.