Drei Lieder der Ophelia, Op.67, Nos.1-3

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Drei Lieder der Ophelia, Op.67

Wie erkenn ich mein Treulieb vor andern nun?

Guten Morgen, ‘s ist Valentinstag

Sie trugen ihn auf der Bahre bloss

Ich wollt’ ein Sträusslein binden, Op.68, No.2

Das Rosenband, Op.36, No.1

Cäcilie, Op.27, No.2

Cäcilie, one of Vier Lieder, Op.27, dedicated to Pauline Strauss as a wedding present in 1894, 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 - discreetly but effectively held back by changes in harmony and colour in the central stanza - certainly suggest that Hart’s declaration to his wife Cäcilie found an immediate and spontaneous response in the composer.

Drei Lieder der Ophelia - Shakespeare, from Sechs Lieder, Op.67 1918

trans1 K. Simrock 2 and 3? - no recording

Ich wollt’ein Sträusslein binden - Brentano from Sechs Lieder, Op.68 1918 (all Brentano) - Schwarzkopf not CD

Das Rosenband - Klopstock from Vier Lieder, Op.36, 1897 - DFD CD

Cäcilie - Hart from Vier Lieder, Op.27, 1894 - Sass CD

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

3 Lieder der Ophelia, Op.67, Nos.1-3

Wie erkenn ich mein Treulieb vor andern nun?

Guten Morgen, ‘s ist Valentinstag

Sie trugen ihn auf der Bahre bloss

Richard Strauss did not set much Shakespeare. Nor did Brahms. Strangely, however, they both wrote songs for Ophelia - Brahms in the classic translation by Schlegel and Tieck, Strauss in the rather less inspired German version of Hamlet by Karl Simrock. Composed for very different reasons, they are very different in character. Brahms’s were written in folk-song style for the actress Olga Precheisen and were intended to be performed on stage unaccompanied. Strauss’s are part of the Op.67 set of songs written in a not very good mood for the Berlin publishers Bote und Bock who in 1918 had applied legal pressure on him to fulfil a long-delayed contract. So he sent them three mad songs and three bad-tempered songs, the latter drawn from the Buch des Unmuts (“The Book of ill humour”) in Goethe’s Westöstlicher Divan. The mad songs are short but haunting settings of three cryptic utterances of the demented Ophelia in Act IV, Scene 5 - “How should I your true love know from another one?” set over a persistently syncopated and unresolved dissonance in the accompaniment, “Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day all in the morning betime” presented as a crazy kind of moto perpetuo, “They bore him bare fac’d on the bier” incongruously but intriguingly mixing lament and waltz-time tunefulness.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Drei Lieder der Ophelia, Op.67, Nos.1-3

Wie erkenn ich mein Treulieb vor andern nun?

Guten Morgen, ‘s ist Valentinstag

Sie trugen ihn auf der Bahre bloss

Ich wollt’ ein Sträusslein binden, Op.68, No.2

Das Rosenband, Op.36, No.1

Cäcilie, Op.27, No.2

Richard Strauss was not in a good mood when he wrote his Sechs Lieder, Op.67. Forced by law in 1918 into fulfilling a long-delayed contract to the Berlin publishers Bote & Bock, he sent them three mad songs and three bad-tempered songs, the latter drawn from the Buch des Unmuts (“The Book of ill humour”) in Goethe’s Westöstlicher Divan. The mad songs are settings of three cryptic utterances of the demented Ophelia in Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5 - “How should I your true love know from another one?” set over a persistently syncopated and unresolved dissonance in the accompaniment, “Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day all in the morning betime” presented as a crazy kind of moto perpetuo, “They bore him bare fac’d on the bier” incongruously but fascinatingly mixing lament and waltz-time tunefulness.

Strauss was determined that Bote & Bock would not get to publish the Brentano settings of his Sechs Lieder, Op.68, which he was writing at much the same time and which include Ich wollt’ ein Sträusslein binden, one of the most delightful and at the same time most poignant of all his songs. Das Rosenband, which finds more sentiment behind the anacreontic surface of Klopstock’s memorial to his late wife than Schubert’s setting of the same poem, was written more than twenty years earlier. Cäcilie, one of Vier Lieder, Op.27, dedicated to Pauline Strauss as a wedding present in 1894, 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 composer.