Die Nacht, Op.10, No.3 (1885)

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Die Nacht, Op.10, No.3 (1885)

Allerseelen Op10 No 9 (1885)

All mein Gedanken Op.21, No.2 (1889)

Cäcilie Op.27, No.2 (1894)

Richard Strauss was little over twenty when he completed his first published set of songs. Although he was clearly not averse to the conventional gesture at this stage, there are anticipations of the mature Strauss in every one of them: 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. From the same set Allerseelen - inspired perhaps by the young composer’s fairly hopeless love for Dora Wihan, wife of the cellist Hanus Wihan - transforms the frank sentimentality of the poem into the melodic beauty of the piano prelude and postlude, while the actual word-setting is breathtaking in its harmonic spontaneity and linear flexibility.

If the delightful miniature All mein Gedanken seems a little naive in this company that is precisely the effect Strauss wanted to make and, by actually very sophisticated technical means, duly achieved. Cäcilie, one of four songs dedicated to Pauline Strauss as a wedding present, is said to have been written in a few hours on the very eve of the ceremony. Its ecstatic vocal line and its sweeping momentum certainly suggest that Hart’s declaration to his wife Cäcilie found an immediate and spontaneous response in the bridegroom composer.