LOVE AND LOSS AND WORLD AND DREAM

According to Friedrich von Schiller Der Abend (The Evening) offers refreshment, tranquility and – at least for the god Phoebus! – an opportunity to enjoy some sweet loving. In the other texts for choral music by Strauss and Mahler, however, “Night and Dream” stand for something completely different: they promise the mortal, who suffers from conditions in the real world, utopia and consolation. If longing and pain, especially because of unrequited love here below, still become unbearable, the poets of the romantic era evoke salvation through death. Richard Strauss, renowned for his operas and tone poems, also devoted himself throughout his life with choral music. The Zwei Gesänge (Two Songs) op. 34, with its 16 virtuosically and instrumentally set choral parts is on the same high level as his orchestral works (1897). Der Abend (The Evening) creates a magnificent sound painting. As the sinking sun yields to the fragrant night, the music climbs down from the soprano´s high G in wide arcs to the depth and tranquility of a threefold pianissimo. The Hymne (Hymn) makes it effect through artistic architecture and with its setting for double chorus and its central fugue is reminiscent of baroque techniques. The Drei Männerchöre (Three Male Choruses), written in 1935 are later works of great maturity and subtle wit. Strauss, on the other hand, composed Liebe in July 1899. It is also a work for a male choir only, which seems rather simple.