Four Last Songs
|
Four Last Songs Vier letzte Lieder |
|
|---|---|
| by Richard Strauss | |
| Text | |
| Language | German |
| Composed | 1948 |
| Scoring |
|
| Premiere | |
| Date | 22 May 1950 |
| Location | Royal Albert Hall, London |
| Conductor | Wilhelm Furtwängler |
| Performers | |
The Four Last Songs (German: Vier letzte Lieder), Op. posth., for soprano and orchestra are, with the exception of the song "Malven" (Mallows) composed later the same year, the final completed works of Richard Strauss, composed in 1948 when the composer was 84.
The songs are "Frühling" (Spring), "September", "Beim Schlafengehen" (When Falling Asleep) and "Im Abendrot" (At Sunset). The title Four Last Songs was provided posthumously by Strauss's friend Ernst Roth, who published the four songs as a single unit in 1950 after Strauss's death.
Strauss died in September 1949. The premiere was given at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 22 May 1950 by soprano Kirsten Flagstad and the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler.
Strauss had come across the poem Im Abendrot by Joseph von Eichendorff, which he felt had a special meaning for him. He set its text to music in May 1948. Strauss had also recently been given a copy of the complete poems of Hermann Hesse, and was strongly inspired by them. He set three of them – Frühling, September, and Beim Schlafengehen – for soprano and orchestra, and contemplated setting two more, Nacht and Hohe des Sommers, in the same manner. He also embarked on a choral setting of Hesse's Besinnung, but laid it aside after the projected fugue became "too complicated".
With the exception of the song "Malven" ("Mallows") composed later the same year, the songs are Strauss's final completed works.
In the 1954 edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the three Hesse songs were listed as a specific group, separate from "Im Abendrot" which had been composed two months prior to those three. The overall title Four Last Songs was provided by Strauss's friend Ernst Roth, the chief editor of Boosey & Hawkes, when he published all four songs as a single unit in 1950, and in the order that most performances now follow: "Frühling", "September", "Beim Schlafengehen", "Im Abendrot".
...
Wikipedia