4 Lieder

Richard Strauss composed Lieder from the earliest days of his career to the very last. He’d written well over 30 before his 18th birthday, so when he finally published his first mature set of songs in 1885, he was already well practised at writing for the female voice. Just under a decade later, in May 1894, he composed the four songs of Op. 27 as a wedding present for his fiancée, the feisty and gifted soprano Pauline de Ahna. Dedicated to “my beloved Pauline”, they are based upon poems by the German-Scottish poet John Henry Mackay (1864-1933), a political radical who wrote verse that brimmed over with high romantic ardour. The first song of the set is the brooding, philosophical “Rühe, meine Seele”. With “Cäcilie”, raw emotion floods out: in the orchestral version (the original was for piano) Strauss’s surging passion becomes something very like ecstasy. In “Heimliche Aufforderung”, the joyful lovers toast their indifference to the gossiping outside world. The cycle ends with the ravishing “Morgen!”—in which the singer lovingly comments upon, rather than states, the ravishing melody that embodies their devotion: “Speechless we shall gaze into each other’s eyes / And the wordless silence of bliss shall fall on us”. Richard and Pauline were anything but a quiet couple, but throughout their 55-year marriage, that shared devotion was enduring and real.