These three songs are settings of poetry of Otto Julius Bierbaum (1865 - 1910). As a whole, the set serves to show (as do many songs of Schubert and Brahms) that less-than-stellar poems can inspire the most exquisite of lieder. All three of the Bierbaum songs appear to have been composed in a single day: June 7, 1895.

Bierbaum, an almost exact contemporary of Strauss', became a friend of the composer after Strauss returned to Munich from Weimar to take up a position as co-conductor of the Munich Court Opera. Bierbaum and some other poets had formed a poetic group called the Überbrettl movement. Strauss became interested in them as potential librettists for his operatic projects; one of them, Ernst von Wolzogen, eventually did write the text for Strauss' early opera, Feuersnot (The Fire-Famine).

The first of the three is one of Strauss' leading masterworks in the song genre, "Traum durch die Dämmerung" (Dream at Twilight). The original poetic text is pretty enough, though ultimately the subject matter is conventional. Strauss' setting lifts the words to an almost ecstatic plane. A recurrent figuration in the accompaniment is a chord in oscillating 16th-note triplets during the first half of a beat and a pause on the second half, while the melody proceeds in regular dotted eighth and 16th notes; the bass is often displaced from the beat by a 16th.

All this technical description cannot explain the magical, almost achingly nostalgic mood of this lovely song. It is one of Strauss' most-recorded songs, particularly in the orchestral version, which was made by R. Heger.

Strauss selected this song for quotation in the section of his autobiographical tone poem Ein Heldenleben called "The Hero's Works of Peace."

The second song is a bit more commonplace. "Schlagendes Herzen" (Beating Hearts) pictures a lovestruck youth happily rushing to meet his beloved, remarking on the beating of his heart as he foresees their meeting. Her heart, too, is beating for him, he notes. It is a lively, folk-like song. It has been noted that Strauss happily avoids using the more prosaic ways musicians have to imitate the sound of one's heartbeat, but instead uses high, chiming sounds like small bells. While it is not the exalted masterpiece that "Traum durch die Dämmerung" is, it is an excellent song, nonetheless.

The third lied, "Nachtgesan" (Nightsong), uses a text that is derivative in style and mood of the early Romantic poet Heinrich Heine. Perhaps, therefore, it is not unremarkable that Strauss also reverts to an earlier style, for this song sounds much like his more youthful efforts, which were overly influenced by the songs of Robert Schumann. It is a pretty song, but is not an outstanding one.

© Joseph Stevenson, Rovi

1.Traum durch die Dämmerung

This lyrical song establishes an aura of great repose and tranquility. This is the narrator's state of mind at twilight, a mood that is only momentarily disturbed by the images of the "dream" that occupies the singer's spirit.

Setting a German text by Otto Julius Bierbaum, the song's opening is marked sehr ruhig (very peacefully) and pianissimo. The gently rolling, pastorale-like accompaniment pattern of a sixteenth-note triplet followed by an eighth note is stated from the outset and maintained throughout the piece.

The first melodic phrase has an innocent, mildly skipping, almost children's song quality. "Weise Wiesen im Dämmergrau; Die Sonne verglomm, die Sterne ziehn..." (Wide meadows in the gray of twilight, the sun has set, the stars are seen...).

The harmony is slightly disturbed by a chromatic modulation from E major to A flat major that describes an urgency felt by the singer "going forward on my way...." The next measures then resolves back into the peaceful atmosphere with the words "...to the most beautiful woman." The word "schönsten" (most beautiful) is held on a high note sung in an airy, restrained pianissimo.

The harmonies and melody then begin to wander more freely as they head toward C flat major through a chromatic forest: "...weit über Wiesen im Dämmergrau, tief in den Busch von Jasmin" (Far, over the meadows in the gray of twilight, deep into the bushes of jasmine).

An enharmonic change (C flat = B major) brings the tonal center back to the key of E major, and a line like the first melodic phrase introduces the image of proceeding "through the twilight gray of the land of love, I don't hurry, I move without haste."

Another winding chromatic passage expresses a gradually mounting sense of anticipation: "I am drawn by a soft, velvety band through the gray of twilight in love's land...." The second peak note (on "blaues") is reached during the line's conclusion, "...into a blue, gentle light."

Two lines of the text are then combined by the composer for an atmospheric coda on the original rolling pattern: "I don't hurry, I move without haste, through the gray twilight of the land of love in a gentle, blue light." Three pianississimo chords close the work in a quiescent mood.

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3.Nachtgang

Strauss wrote his Lieder (3) von Bierbaum in summer 1895 after he and his new wife returned to the city of his birth so that Strauss could take up his post as conductor of the Munich Court Opera. Otto Julius Bierbaum's poems are barely sublimated invitations to seduction and Strauss, already intoxicated with his wife and his success as a composer, set the songs with great sensitivity and extreme sensuality. Nachtgang (Night Walk) is the third of his Bierbaum songs, a quietly passionate hymn to the wonders of passion in the moonlight woods. Strauss' melody is simple and heartfelt, with marvelous chromatic inflections; his piano accompaniment supports the melody with warm harmonies and rich countermelodies. The song's climax is intimately orgasmic and the coda that follows is very brief, but unutterly poignant.

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