Classical Music | Soprano

Recorded on 08/01/2012, uploaded on 12/04/2012

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Richard Strauss composed his 8 Gedichte aus “Letzte Blätter” von Hermann Gilm in 1885. By no means his first essays in the genre of the German Lied, these eight songs were, however, the first Strauss felt confident enough to assign an opus number to, and the collection was published in 1887 by Joseph Aibl Verlag in Munich. Though Strauss’s many songs perhaps do not receive the attention and praise they deserve, the song of opus 10 mark the beginning of the composer’s lifelong devotion to the German Lied. Of its eight songs, “Zueignung,” “Allerseelen,” and “Die Nacht” standout from the remainder of the collection, and are among Strauss’s most well-known creations for the voice.

Third in the set is the haunting and ethereal “Die Nacht” (“The Night”). For the poet, night creeps from the dark recesses of the forest and steals away all the things that bring glory to daytime—the flowers and colors of the world, the gleaming silver of the stream, and the gold-like glistening of the cathedral’s roof. He fears, too, that it will take away his beloved, and he implores her to draw near—“Seel an Seele” (“soul to soul”)—before she is lost in the night’s all-encompassing shroud. Strauss’s setting, in D major, begins with a softly reiterated A, further marked to be played una corda, which then quickly grows into a rich accompaniment of lush late Romantic harmonies beneath the voice’s sensual melody. From the tonic key, the music passes through F-sharp minor and B minor during the course of the second and third stanzas. The fourth and last begins in the key of the tonic minor, and makes a luscious chromatic transition back into the major mode during the poem’s final words—“ Rücke näher, Seel an Seele; / O die Nacht, mir bangt, sie stehle / Dich mir auch” (“Draw near, soul to soul; / O the night, I fear, will steal you from me”). Deceptively, Strauss slips back into the minor mode at the voice’s final cadence, and closes the song with an eerie chromatic oscillation on the dominant, leaving the two lover’s fate unsettled as the final tonic chord is reached.      Joseph DuBose

Acht Gedichte aus "Letzte Blätter"
Eight Poems from "Letzte Blätter"
Richard Strauss
Text by Hermann von Gilm

Die Nacht
The Night
Night steps out of the woods,
and sneaks softly out of the trees,
looks about in a wide circle,
now beware.

All the lights of this earth,
all flowers, all colors
it extinguishes, and steals the sheaves
from the field.

It takes everything that is dear,
takes the silver from the stream,
takes away, from the cathedral's copper roof,
the gold.

The shrubs stand plundered,
draw nearer, soul to soul;
Oh, I fear the night will also steal
you from me.

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.