Classical Music | Soprano

Recorded on 08/04/2012, 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.

Closing the set is Strauss’s beautifully setting of “Allerseelen” (“All Souls’ Day”), which gained an instant popularity, and was frequently performed by Strauss and his wife the soprano Pauline de Ahna. Taking its name from the Christian holiday falling on November 2 for the commemoration of the dead, particularly of loved ones, Gilm’s interpretation is instead the memory of youthful springtime love, of innocent affection, and an invitation by the poet to his beloved to return to that blissful moment as those around them pay tribute to those they have lost. Reverently, in the key of E-flat major, Strauss opens the song with a quasi-religious melody in the piano, sounding almost hymn-like in its serenity, and amplified by lush late Romantic harmonies. The voice then enters with its own nostalgic melody, joining the piano midstream, so to speak, and without disrupting its course towards the first cadence in the tonic key. Following a deceptive conclusion at the end of the first stanza on an enharmonically spelt dominant seventh on A, Strauss passes to the key of C minor for the opening of second stanza. While presenting a new melody, the music passes through the distant key of D major before Strauss makes a deft modulation back to the tonic key of E-flat for the beginning of the third and final stanza. The voice and piano finally unite as the poet offers his invitation to his beloved, and the song builds to its climax on the final lines of text. A repetition of the final line ends the vocal melody, after which the piano provides a tender and brief coda to close the song.       Joseph DuBose

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

Allerseelen
All Souls’ Day

Place on the table the fragrant mignonettes,
bring inside the last red asters,
and let us speak again of love,
as once we did in May.

Give me your hand, so that I can press it secretly;
and if someone sees us, it's all the same to me.
Just give me your sweet gaze,
as once you did in May.

Flowers adorn today each grave, sending off their fragrances;
one day in the year are the dead free.
Come close to my heart, so that I can have you again,
as once I did in May.

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.