Five songs with orchestra

Richard Struass (1864-1949)

Five songs with orchestra

Morgen, Op.27, No.4

Meinem Kinde, Op.37, No.3

Muttertändelei, Op.43, No.2

Freundliche Vision, , Op.48, No.1

Die heiligen drei Könige, Op.56, No.6

Richard Strauss didn’t improve every song which he orchestrated. It is surprising, however, that there could be any doubt - though some has been expressed by authoritative opinion - about the superiority of the orchestral version of Morgen over the original piano version. The whole point of the song is the lovely nostalgic melody which gently rises and falls in the accompaniment but which, ironically, never enters the vocal part. It suggests the memory of a blissful past and, at the same time, the hope for a similarly blissful future. The singer, all too aware of the present reality, can dream of that happinness but she cannot actually grasp it in the vocal line. In the original version the composer has to stress the need to sustain that slow-moving arching melody in the piano part. Obviously a string instrument is better than a piano at doing that sort of thing, which is why the orchestral version is so much more satisfactory, particularly since Strauss retains the intimacy of th original by restricting the melody to solo violin supported only by a harp and exceptionally discreet horns and strings.

Morgen, a setting of words by John Henry Mackay (who was born in Scotland and brought up in Germany), was one of a set of four songs, Op.27, presented by Strauss to Pauline de Ahna on their wedding day in 1894. Meinem Kinde was written three years later and presented to Pauline, with the five other songs of Op.37, on the first birthday of their son, Franz Alexander. In orchestrating it for her - as part of a set (including Morgen) which she frequently sang at her husband’s concerts - Strauss again took great care not to intrude on the intimacy of the original setting. The tender and fanciful words, addressed by a mother to her sleeping baby, are delicately accompanied by no more than ten instruments - two flutes, two bassoons, a hsarp, and five solo strings.

Muttertändelei, one of “Three Songs by Earlier German Poets,” Op.43, was written in 1899. It too was orchestrated for Pauline who performed it in a group of “Mother Songs” (with Meinem Kinde and Wiegenlied) in several of Strauss’s concert in 1900 and 901. Reminiscent of Mahler’s Wunderhorn setting Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht? even in the piano original, it sems closer still in its orchestral coours - although this version does hae the advantages of witty clarinet comments on the words mürrisch and wählig and materiaistic tinkle on the triangle when gold coins are on offer. Moreover, Bürgr’s wors playful though they are, do not ha the folk-song iinnocence of the Wunderhorn poems, and the artifice behind them is reflectd in the sophisticated changes of harmony in

Strauss’s setting.

The next song in this group differs from the earlier ones in that whereas they wer all rearranged within six months of their composition, it had to wait as long as eighten yars for its orchestral consummation. In deed, at first sight, it doesn’t

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Five songs with orchestra

Ruhe meine Seele, Op.27, No.1

Waldseligkeit, Op.49, No.1

Morgen, Op.27, No.4

Wiegenlied, Op.41, No.1

Befreit, Op.39, No.4

Richard Strauss didn’t improve every song which he orchestrated: in something approaching forty transcriptions of Lieder originally written for voice and piano even he could make the occasion miscalculation. As far as Ruhe, meine Seele is concerned, however, there is no comparison: the two versions are virtually different songs. Written originally for the set of four Lieder, Op.27, which the composer presented to the soprano Pauline de Ahna on their wedding day in 1894, it was orchestrated in a quite different biographical context as long 54 years later. There are a few small revisions in the 1948 version but what is more important is that a whole new layer of meaning is added to the harmonies by the orchestral colouring. As it achieves its C major ending, Ruhe, meine Seele enters the same area of serenity as the Four Last Songs.

Waldseligkeit, which Strauss dedicated to his wife in 1901, is the same song in the orchestral version of 1918 but better. When it comes to obscure forest murmurs the piano cannot compete with muted lower strings and woodwind, discreetly tinged here with the darkest of colours of the harmonium. And, as in both the previous and the next song in this evening’s selection, the solo violin is there to act as the soul’s intimate companion.

It is for that reason that Morgen, which was originally written for the same wedding-present set as Ruhe, meine Seele, is more effective in the orchestral version Strauss made for Pauline in 1897. The whole point of the song is the nostalgic melody which gently rises and falls in the accompaniment but which, ironically, never enters the vocal part. In the original version the composer has to stress the need to sustain that slow-moving arching melody on the piano. The melody is effortlessly sustained on a solo violin here and, supported only by a harp and exceptionally discreet horns and strings, with no less of intimacy.

Wiegenlied was written in 1899 and orchestrated for Pauline, who per­formed it in a group of “Mother Songs” (with Muttertändelei and Meinem Kinde) in several concerts she gave with her husband in 1900 and 1901. The quality of the melody in the vocal line here is so sublime that it seems almost irrelevant to draw attention to the accompaniment but it really is worth listening to the whispered arpeggios on three muted violins combined with delicate harmonics, gentle pizzicato notes and quietly sustained chords elsewhere in the strings. The doubling of the vocal line with cor anglais to emphasise the changing harmonies in the verse beginning Träume, träume, Knospe meiner Sorgen and the gradual lightening of the colours thereafter are further examples of Strauss’s mastery in this particular art.

Befreit, which was written for voice and piano in 1898, must have oc­cupied a special place in Strauss’s affections since it is the only piece of its kind quoted in the “Works of Peace” section of Ein Heldenleben. When he came to orchestrate it in 1933 - as one of a group of four songs for Viorica Ursuleac, wife of Clemens Kraus - he added not only a coat of oil-paint to the modestly etched original but also decades of experience of married life.

Gerald Larner©