Classical Music | Soprano

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

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

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

Geduld
Patience

"Patience!" you say, and point with a white finger
to my future's firmly closed door.
Is the minute in which I now live less important
than those that are yet to come? Tell me!
If you can delay the Spring with love,
then I will owe you for eternity,
but with the Spring love will also end,
and time pays no debts of the heart.

"Patience!" you say and let your dark locks fall,
and petals fall hourly from the flowers,
and funeral bells demand hourly
the last travel-toll of tears for the grave.
Just see how quickly the days run past,
listen how urgently they knock upon the breast!
Open up! Open up! What we do not gain today
is tomorrow's irrecoverable loss.

"Patience!" you say and droop your eyelids,
denying my question about happiness;
therefore, fare thee well, I will never see you again:
my adamant fate thus wills it.
You believed that, because others must wait -
and can wait - then I too must and can wait;
but for love and kisses I have
only one Springtime, like the rosebush.

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.