7 Lieder

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

7 Lieder

Ständchen Op. 17 No.2 (1887)

Ich trage meine Minne    Op.32 No1 (1896)

Die Nacht Op.10 No.3 (1882-3)

Schlechtes Wetter Op.69 No.5 (1918)

Mit deinen blauen Augen Op.56 No.6 (1906)

Allerseelen Op10 No 8 (1882-3)

Hat gesagt - bleibt’s nicht dabei Op.36 No.3 (1898)

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 in suggesting the quivering excitement of the lovers and the nocturnal activity of nature around them - the greatness of the song rests in the ecstatic expansion of the vocal line into a new melodic shape in the climactic last stanza. Although Max Reger was moved to make a solo transcription of Ich trage meine Minne, it was presumably not its piano writing that attracted him so much as its folk-like melodiousness and the harmonic and textural interest of the middle section.   

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. Far from hushed, Schlechtes Wetter - which Gieseking also arranged for solo piano, incidentally - begins by matching Heine’s irony in the overstated storm imagery in the piano part and ends by excelling it in an exuberant waltz spiced by harmonies which, had they been written ten years later, could be described as jazzy. Also inspired by Heine, Mit deinen blauen Augen betrays- in a fervently romantic setting worthy of the last act of Der Rosenkavalier - not a hint of irony.

Allerseelen, another Gilm setting by a composer still in his teens, and Hat gesagt, written fifteen years later, are well paired: the deeply poignant nostalgia of the one should be most effectively purged by the cheeky here-and-now realism of the other.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

7 Lieder

Ständchen Op. 17 No.2 (1887)

Ich trage meine Minne Op.32 No1 (1896)

Die Nacht Op.10 No.3 (1882-3)

Schlechtes Wetter Op.69 No.5 (1918)

Mit deinen blauen Augen Op.56 No.6 (1906)

Allerseelen Op10 No 8 (1882-3)

Hat gesagt - bleibt’s nicht dabei Op.36 No.3 (1898)

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 in suggesting the quivering excitement of the lovers and the nocturnal activity of nature around them - the greatness of the song rests in the ecstatic expansion of the vocal line into a new melodic shape in the climactic last stanza. Although Max Reger was moved to make a solo transcription of Ich trage meine Minne, it was presumably not its piano writing that attracted him so much as its folk-like melodiousness and the harmonic and textural interest of the middle section.

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. Far from hushed, Schlechtes Wetter - which Gieseking also arranged for solo piano, incidentally - begins by matching Heine’s irony in the overstated storm imagery in the piano part and ends by excelling it in an exuberant waltz spiced by harmonies which, had they been written ten years later, could be described as jazzy. Also inspired by Heine, Mit deinen blauen Augen betrays- in a fervently romantic setting worthy of the last act of Der Rosenkavalier - not a hint of irony.

Allerseelen, another Gilm setting by a composer still in his teens, and Hat gesagt, written fifteen years later, are well paired: the deeply poignant nostalgia of the one should be most effectively purged by the cheeky here-and-now realism of the other.

Allerseelen is, by contrast, a commemoration rather than a celebration. Written nine years before Heimliche Aufforderung and included in Strauss’s first published set of songs, it is an early indication of his ability both to match the poetry of the text in spontaneously inflected melody and to intensify its sentiment through a flexible construction embracing a lyrical piano introduction and postlude.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

7 Lieder

Ständchen Op. 17 No.2 (1887)

Ich trage meine Minne Op.32 No1 (1896)

Die Nacht Op.10 No.3 (1882-3)

Schlechtes Wetter Op.69 No.5 (1918)

Mit deinen blauen Augen Op.56 No.6 (1906)

Allerseelen Op10 No 8 (1882-3)

Hat gesagt - bleibt’s nicht dabei Op.36 No.3 (1898)

1 (Schack) note development and expansion in last stanza

the delicate activity of the piano part - which so aptly suggests the murmuring of the stream, the trembling of the leaves in the breeze, the elfin footsteps of the lovers as they might at night - and partly to the seductive vocal line

2 (Henckell)

happy in its folk-song simplicity, in spite of the intrusion of a darker atmosphere in the central stanza.

Artlessness of folk song, change to minor in the middle, imitative repetition of voice and piano

3 (Gilm)

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

dm mentions Walther’s Preislied and love duet from Gounod’s Faust but also compares opening phrase to the oboe solo from Don Juan (5 years later)

4 (Heine) transformation of bad weather into a waltz - wit

There are Strauss songs for most times of the day. Of those set after dark, none is more entertaining than Schlechtes Wetter, which begins by matching Heine’s irony in the overstated storm imagery in the piano part and ends by excelling it in an exuberant waltz coloured by harmonies which, had they been written ten years later, could be described as jazzy

5 (Heine)

Schubertian turn of phrase - similar to closing duet of Rosenkavalier ‘Ist ein Traum…” (s would switch between the two)

6 (Gilm)

Allerseelen is, by contrast, a commemoration rather than a celebration. Written nine years before Heimliche Aufforderung and included in Strauss’s first published set of songs, it is an early indication of his ability both to match the poetry of the text in spontaneously inflected melody and to intensify its sentiment through a flexible construction embracing a lyrical piano introduction and postlude.

Cf Zueignung - another broad effusion

7 (Wunderhorn) cf Mariandl - less parodistic version

father boiling water? (Youens)

each verse treated separately, each with a full close and fermata in a different key …rapturous third verse, entry of turn