''Sechs Lieder'' (Six songs),
Op. 35, is a set of six ''
Lied
In Western classical music tradition, (, plural ; , plural , ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music to create a piece of polyphonic music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German, but among English and French s ...
er'' for medium voice and piano by
Max Reger
Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger (19 March 187311 May 1916) was a German composer, pianist, organist, conductor, and academic teacher. He worked as a concert pianist, as a musical director at the Paulinerkirche, Leipzig, Leipzig University ...
. He composed the first five of them in
Berchtesgaden
Berchtesgaden () is a municipality in the district Berchtesgadener Land, Bavaria, in southeastern Germany, near the border with Austria, south of Salzburg and southeast of Munich. It lies in the Berchtesgaden Alps, south of Berchtesgaden; the ...
in June and July 1899, and the last one in
Weiden in August that year. Dedicated to different people, they were published by
Jos. Aibl Verlag in Munich the same year.
The texts are poems by five authors:
# "Dein Auge" (
Felix Dahn)
# "Der Himmel hat eine Thräne geweint" (
Friedrich Rückert
Friedrich Rückert (16 May 1788 – 31 January 1866) was a German poet, translator, and professor of Oriental languages.
Biography
Rückert was born in Schweinfurt and was the eldest son of a lawyer. He was educated at the local '' Gymnasium'' ...
)
# "
Traum durch die Dämmerung
"" ("Dream in the Twilight", literally "Dream through the twilight"), is both a German poem by Otto Julius Bierbaum and a (art song) by Richard Strauss, his Op. 29/1. The opening line is "" ("Broad meadows in grey dusk"). It is the first of th ...
" (Otto Bierbaum)
# "Flieder" (Bierbaum) (also in arrangement for voice and orchestra)
# "Du liebes Auge" (
Otto Roquette Otto Roquette (April 19, 1824 – March 18, 1896) was a German author.
Life and work
Roquette was born in Krotoschin, Prussian Province of Posen. The son of a district court councillor, he first went to Bromberg (modern Bydgoszcz) in 1834, and from ...
)
# "Wenn lichter Mondenschein" (
D'Annunzio)
In 2008, the musicologists Richard Mercier and Donald Nold dedicated a book to Reger's songs. They noted that he chose texts not by literary significance but for their theme and mood. The texts of Opus 35 have in common that they are love poems by contemporary writers. Some poems deal with the eye of a beloved woman, others with twilight and night. Reger composed individual songs, not
song cycle
A song cycle (german: Liederkreis or Liederzyklus) is a group, or cycle (music), cycle, of individually complete Art song, songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online''
The songs are either for solo voice ...
s, and selected for his performances songs from different collections. Most of his songs are through-composed, even when beginnings of stanzas at times begin with the same material. He favours syllabic rendition of the text, which helps its intelligibility. Usually his melodies require the accompaniment for expression. Complex harmonies support text of "unsettling" and passionate content. The first recorded performance was of #3 in Heidelberg on 5 November 1899 by Maria Hösl and the pianist Otto Seelig. Reger arranged #4 also for voice and orchestra, and wrote a version for voice and harmonium for 3–5.
The work is the first by Reger with parts dedicated to various notable personalities, to aid publicity. However, one of them,
Ludwig Wüllner, only mentioned the songs without detailed analysis in his biography of the composer.
Mercier and Nold noted that the collection is "consistently on a high level with beautiful sonic textures and rich harmonies throughout", and that "the 'love' theme in these poems inspires some of Reger's most magical sonorities".
In the Reger-Year 2016, students of the
Musikhochschule München
The University of Music and Performing Arts Munich (german: Hochschule für Musik und Theater München), also known as the Munich Conservatory, is a performing arts conservatory in Munich, Germany. The main building it currently occupies is t ...
performed the songs in a concert in Berlin on 18 May. The
Musikhochschule Saarbrücken focused on chamber music by Mozart and Reger, presenting the six songs on 12 June.
References
Bibliography
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External links
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Otto Seelig pianist of the first performance
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sechs Lieder Op 35
Lieder
Compositions by Max Reger