Classical Music | Soprano

Recorded on 08/11/2011, uploaded on 09/26/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Richard Strauss was a master of vocal composition, and he had a particular reverence for the soprano voice, in part inspired by his happy marriage to the operatic soprano Pauline de Ahna. On one occasion, he commented, “I thank my Almighty Creator for the gift and inspiration of the female voice.” Strauss began composing lieder in his early years as a composer, and continued to do so right up until his death in 1949. Some of Strauss’s songs, such as the famous “Allerseelen,” have entered the standard repertoire. Yet, despite his superb writing for the voice, and his ability to masterfully handle the dramatic as well as the sentimental, many of his songs are often overlooked.

Composed in 1897, “Das Rosenband” from the 4 Lieder, op. 36 is based on a text by the 18^th century poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. An image of youthful, springtime love, Strauss sets Klopstock’s charming poem with the sensual lyricism and lush harmonies characteristic of the late Romantic period. Marked to be played Andante, the piano opens the song with a delicate and affectionate melody in A major, which is soon taken up and expanded by the voice for the first stanza. The following stanza, then, changes to the remote key of E-flat major, which was strikingly presaged in the introduction, and adopts a new melody, while the piano abandons its lyricism for an anxious accompaniment of syncopated chords. Beginning in G major and making a return to the tonic key, the third stanza begins similarly to the first, but ultimately presents an altered version of the melody already once heard. Lastly, the final stanza recalls the music of the second stanza at its tart, but builds instead to a heartwarming climax, and a beautiful melisma on the last word of Klopstock’s poem—“Elysium”—after which the piano ascends into its brilliant upper register before bringing the song to a serene close.      Joseph DuBose