And it is heavenly still, never being out of print since its first release. There are in fact sketches for a fifth song, Nacht by Hesse again, but Strauss died before its completion.Įlisabeth SchwarzkopfGramophone magazine wrote of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf's 1965 recording a heavenly record, so beautiful that it goes against the grain to analyse it. Whether Strauss intended them to be performed as a set is arguable, but the common theme of peacefully nearing the end of one's life naturally groups them together. The last song, Im Abendrot ( At Dusk) is to a poem by Joseph von Eichendorf. The first three songs are set to texts by Hermann Hesse Früling ( Spring), September, Beim Schlafengehen ( Going to Sleep). The music of Richard Strauss is the natural progression of the Romantic movement, expressive, emotional, complex.Īnd so to the Four Last Songs ( Vier letze Lieder), finished in September 1948, near the end of Strauss' life, a work that his publisher described as a farewell of serene confidence. ![]() He refused to follow the footsteps of the modernists, and in fact rejected what he saw as the twentieth century's decay into disorder. His early compositions were heavily influenced by Wagner, and Strauss inherited Wagner's like of large orchestras and their rich and complex tone color.īut bit by bit Strauss found his own voice. ![]() Strauss lived through those times, and his music reflected the changes around him. From early Romantic, the Wagnerian excesses, and finally the angular modernism of Stravinsky, Bartok and Prokofiev. Music had, in those 85 years, gone through its most rapid evolution ever. When he was born, Brahms was still the undisputed king of German music, and by the time he died, the world was a place of aeroplanes and atom bombs. Richard Strauss had seen a lot in his 85 years.
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