The first of Richard Strauss' many but undeservedly neglected songs to appear in print were the Acht Gedichte aus "Letzte Blätter" von Hermann Gilm (Eight Poems from Hermann Gilm's "Letzte Blätter"), Op. 10, of 1885 (published in 1887 by Joseph Aibl Verlag of Munich). In this remarkable octet of songs, composed when Strauss was just past 20 years old, are three of the composer's best-loved songs: "Zueignung," "Allerseen," and "Die Nacht."

The first song in the set, "Zueignung" (Dedication), is a C major setting of a poem originally titled "Habe Dank"; Strauss orchestrated and substantially altered this song in 1940 (over five decades after first composing it!). The popularity of the gorgeous E flat major "Allerseen" (All Souls' Day), Op. 10, No. 8, is shown by the fact that two very prominent contemporaries, or near-contemporaries, of Strauss loved it enough to put their own stamp on its music: Max Reger fashioned it into a version for solo piano, and Robert Heger made a version for voice and orchestra. "Die Nacht" (The Night), Op. 10, No. 3, tells its nocturnal story using hushed pulsations in the piano and a gently rotating chromatic spectrum.

The songs of Op. 10, in order, are: "Zueignung," "Nichts," "Die Nacht," "Die Georgine," "Geduld," "Die Verschwiegenen," "Die Zeitlose," and "Allerseen."

© Blair Johnston, All Music Guide

1.Zueignung

Richard Strauss composed his Opus 10 songs in 1882 - 83, at the age of 18 and while still living in his native town of Munich. Although Strauss had previously composed no fewer than 39 songs for voice and piano, the eight songs of Opus 10 are the first songs about which Strauss was confident enough to attribute an opus number. His Acht Gedichte aus "Letzte Blätter" (Hermann von Gilm) thus mark the beginning of Strauss' life-long activity in the genre of the German Lied. In 1940, Strauss orchestrated Zueignung for the soprano Viorica Ursuleac, whom he wished to provide a showcase suitable for her to take on solo concert tours.

Strauss' musical setting of Gilm's poem faithfully reflects the poem's versification scheme and strophic disposition. Strauss gives each of the four verses in a strophe its own two-measure musical phrase and acknowledges the commas at the end of the first three lines by cadencing only after the refrain "Habe Dank," which returns at the end of each strophe. The musical setting of the second text strophe begins identically to that of the first, but modulates in the third verse to the closely related key of F major. Strauss moves through the key of D minor and back to the tonic key of C major in a brief piano interlude before the third strophe. The song melody recurs identically for the first two verses of the third and final strophe before the soprano, doubled in the right hand of the piano, swells up majestically to the registral climax on A with the only repeated word in the song, "heilig" (blessed), at the beginning of the third line. The transparent harmonic motion and contrapuntal texture of the piano accompaniment provide a bed of support for the solo soprano voice and participate in the dramatic pacing. Eighth-note triplet arpeggios roll gently forward throughout the song above the harmonic foundation of the slowly-moving bass. A third line in the accompaniment texture surfaces occasionally in the right hand to double or provide a countermelody to the song tune. The piano part expands in range during the third strophe, both hands enriching the texture by filling in the open intervals of the previous two strophes with chord tones and emphasizing the climax with emphatic triplets. Both voice and piano float blissfully upwards in the final two measures and the song gently drifts away.

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3.Die Nacht

Richard Strauss (1864-1949) composed his first set of songs in the autumn of 1885, some while the 16-year-old was still living at home in Munich in his parents' house and the rest after he took up his position in Meiningen as assistant musical director under Hans von Bülow of the Royal Court Orchestra. His friend and fellow composer Ludwig Thuille had introduced Strauss to the sentimental Romantic poetry of civil servant Hermann von Gilm and it was love at first sight. When the songs were published two years later, Strauss arranged the eight songs so that Allerseelen, the most ecstatic song of the set, came at the end, and Die Nacht, the most rapturous song of the set, came third after the achingly beautiful Zueignung and the playfully joyous Nichts. Die Nacht (The Night) is a soft, sweet, and voluptuously sensuous through-composed song with long, yearning melodies suspended over exquisitely shaped harmonies. With it, the 16-year-old Strauss equaled Schumann's and Brahms' setting of Eichendorff's Mondnacht in the nocturnal realm of the blissfully Romantic lied.

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8.Allerseelen

"Allerseelen" is the last of eight songs that make up Richard Strauss' Opus 10 Acht Gedichte aus "Letzte Blätter" (Hermann von Gilm), which he composed in 1885 at the age of 21. Perhaps the song's nostalgic charm and sentimental warmth were responsible for its immediate and continued popularity. Dedicated to Heinrich Vogl, a singer at the Munich Hofoper, "Allerseelen" was a staple in the concert repertory of Strauss and his wife, the soprano Pauline (née de Ahna) Strauss.

Strauss' rhapsodic approach to Gilm's text yields a fantasy of poetic imagery bathed in shimmering late Romantic sound. As though swept away by the graceful simplicity of the poem's nature and love imagery, Strauss subverts its cerebral strophic construction with a musical setting that hints at ternary form in a largely through-composed arrangement. The only significant repetition in the song occurs at the beginning of the third text strophe, where the solo piano introduction is repeated with the soprano "doubling" the melody. The harmonic language is marked by quintessentially Straussian chromatic shifts (as in the approach to A flat major in first iteration of the refrain "Wie einst im Mai"), dramatic modal chiaroscuro (with the willful assertion of C minor as the new tonic key at the beginning of the second strophe and the sudden return to the home key of E flat major in the refrain before the third and final strophe), and far-reaching tonal planning (in the brief tonicization of B minor, related to the home tonic E flat major by the distant interval of a tritone, in the second strophe, with the words "deiner süßen Blicke"). Strauss' largely syllabic vocal declamation and frequent repetition of pitches underscore the nostalgic simplicity of the text. The waves of graceful arpeggiated sweeps in the piano accompaniment throughout the song reinforce Gilm's interpretation of All Souls' Day, suggesting the yearning for the ideal springtime place where love is innocent and lovers are united in otherworldly bliss.

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