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The Four Last Songs (German: Vier letzte Lieder) for soprano and orchestra were the final completed works of Richard Strauss, composed in 1948, when the composer was 84.
Rehearsal!
1. “Frühling”
(“Spring”) (Text: Hermann Hesse)
In dämmrigen Grüften
träumte ich lang
von deinen Bäumen und blauen Lüften,
Von deinem Duft und Vogelsang.
Nun liegst du erschlossen
In Gleiß und Zier
von Licht übergossen
wie ein Wunder vor mir.
Du kennst mich wieder,
du lockst mich zart,
es zittert durch all meine Glieder
deine selige Gegenwart!
In shadowy crypts
I dreamt long
of your trees and blue skies,
of your fragrance and birdsong.
Now you appearin all your finery,
drenched in light like a miracle before me.
You recognize me,
you entice me tenderly.
All my limbs tremble at
your blessed presence!
2. “September”
(Text: Hermann Hesse)
Der Garten trauert,
kühl sinkt in die Blumen der Regen.
Der Sommer schauert
still seinem Ende entgegen.
Golden tropft Blatt um Blatt
nieder vom hohen Akazienbaum.
Sommer lächelt erstaunt und matt
In den sterbenden Gartentraum.
Lange noch bei den Rosen
bleibt er stehn, sehnt sich nach Ruh.
Langsam tut er die müdge
word’nen Augen zu.
The garden is in mourning.
Cool rain seeps into the flowers.
Summertime shudders,
quietly awaiting his end.
Golden leaf after leaf falls
from the tall acacia tree.
Summer smiles, astonished and feeble,
at his dying dream of a garden.
For just a while he tarries
beside the roses, yearning for repose.
Slowly he closes
his weary eyes.
3. “Beim Schlafengehen”
(“Going to sleep”) (Text: Hermann Hesse)
Nun der Tag mich müd gemacht,
soll mein sehnliches Verlangen
freundlich die gestirnte Nacht
wie ein müdes Kind empfangen.
Hände, laßt von allem Tun
Stirn, vergiß du alles Denken,
Alle meine Sinne nun
wollen sich in Schlummer senken.
Und die Seele unbewacht
will in freien Flügen schweben,
um im Zauberkreis der Nacht
tief und tausendfach zu leben.
Now that I am wearied of the day,
my ardent desire shall happily receive
the starry night
like a sleepy child.
Hands, stop all your work.
Brow, forget all your thinking.
All my senses now
yearn to sink into slumber.
And my unfettered soul
wishes to soar up freely
into night’s magic sphere
to live there deeply and thousandfold.
Composed: August 4, 1948
4. “Im Abendrot”
(“At sunset”) (Text: Joseph von Eichendorff)
Wir sind durch Not und Freude
gegangen Hand in Hand;
vom Wandern ruhen wir
nun überm stillen Land.
Rings sich die Täler neigen,
es dunkelt schon die Luft.
Zwei Lerchen nur noch steigen
nachträumend in den Duft.
Tritt her und laß sie schwirren,
bald ist es Schlafenszeit.
Daß wir uns nicht verirren
in dieser Einsamkeit.
O weiter, stiller Friede!
So tief im Abendrot.
Wie sind wir wandermüde–
Ist dies etwa der Tod?
We have gone through sorrow and joy
hand in hand;
Now we can rest from our wandering
above the quiet land.
Around us, the valleys bow;
the air is growing darker.
Just two skylarks soar upwards
dreamily into the fragrant air.
Come close to me, and let them flutter.
Soon it will be time for sleep.
Let us not lose our way
in this solitude.
O vast, tranquil peace,
so deep at sunset!
How weary we are of wandering–
Is this perhaps death?
Note: Towards the end of Im Abendrot, exactly as the soprano’s final intonation of “der Tod” (death) ceases, Strauss musically quotes his own tone poem Death and Transfiguration, written 60 years earlier. As in that piece, the quoted six-note phrase (known as the “transfiguration theme”) symbolizes the fulfillment of the soul into death.
Composed: May 6, 1948
Zueignung (Strauss) “Dedication”
Zueignung (“Dedication”), Op. 10, No. 1, was composed in 1885 as the first in a set of eight songs to texts from Heinrich von Gilm zu Rosenegg’s collection Letzte Blätter (“Final Pages”).
Ja, du weißt es, teure Seele,
Daß ich fern von dir mich quäle,
Liebe macht die Herzen krank,
Habe Dank.
[Hielt ich nicht]1, der Freiheit Zecher,
Hoch den Amethysten-Becher,
Und du segnetest den Trank,
Habe Dank.
Und beschworst darin die Bösen,
Bis ich, was ich nie gewesen,
[Heilig an das Herz]2 dir sank,
Habe Dank.
Yes, you know it, dearest soul,
How I suffer far from you,
Love makes the heart sick,
Have thanks.
Once I, drinker of freedom,
Held high the amethyst beaker,
And you blessed the drink,
Have thanks.
And you exorcised the evils in it,
Until I, as I had never been before,
Blessed, blessed sank upon your heart,
Have thanks.
Richard Strauss:
Stamp issued in 1954
Richard Strauss died at the age of 85 on 8 September 1949, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. Georg Solti, who had arranged Strauss’s 85th birthday celebration, also directed an orchestra during Strauss’s burial.[23] During the singing of the famous trio from Rosenkavalier, Solti described how “each singer broke down in tears and dropped out of the ensemble, but they recovered themselves and we all ended together.” Strauss’s wife, Paulina, died eight months later, on 13 May 1950, at the age of 88.[24]
During his lifetime Strauss was considered the greatest composer of the first half of the 20th century, and his music had a profound influence on the development of 20th-century music. There were few 20th-century composers who compared with Strauss in terms of orchestral imagination, and no composer since Wagner made a more significant contribution to the history of opera. And Strauss’s late works, modelled on “the divine Mozart at the end of a life full of thankfulness,”[25] are perhaps the most remarkable works by any octogenarian composer.
Strauss himself declared in 1947 with characteristic self-deprecation, “I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.” The Canadian pianist Glenn Gould described Strauss in 1962 as “the greatest musical figure who has lived in this century.”[26]
Sir Georg Solti’s Memoir Notes:
“Munich’s favorite son was Richard Strauss. I met him only three times, but he had a great influence on my professional life. Strauss had spent the immediate postwar years in Switzerland, where he composed his Four Last Songs, but he returned to his home in Garmisch, in the Bavarian Alps, shortly before his eighty-fifth birthday, on June 11, 1949. In honor of his birthday and homecoming, the Staatsoper put on a new production of Der Rosenkavalier. Strauss, whose health was frail, declined to attend any of the public performances, but he let us know that he would attend the dress rehearsal.”
“A few years ago, when I was conducting Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Salzburg Festival, I spoke with his grandson. As we sat talking in a friend’s garden, he told me that after the war his grandfather had despaired for the future of German opera houses, most of which were in ruins and the rest of which were an artistic and administrative shambles. Strauss thought this was the end—and in a sense it was, because the old German lyric-theater tradition died out within the following decade. But after my visit to Garmisch, he told his family, ‘This young man gives me a little hope.’ I hadn’t known this and I was of course delighted to hear it forty-five years later. I think Strauss must have sensed my enthusiasm and determination to do as much as I could, as well as I could. But I regret very much that my time with him was so short, because his advice has been a guide for me throughout my entire career.”
And finally, here is a video of the great Strauss conducting his last performance:
from
Brendan ____
sender-time
Sent at 9:13 AM (GMT-05:00). Current time there: 8:38 AM. ✆
to
Jeremy _____
cc
Sharon ____ <
Jackie ____ <
date
Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 9:13 AM
subject
BOATLIFT, An Untold Tale of 9/11 Resilience
Important mainly because of the people in the conversation.
hide details Feb 15 (3 days ago)
If you haven’t already seen this, watch it when you have some time alone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MDOrzF7B2Kg#!
Tom Hanks narrates the epic story of the 9/11 boatlift that evacuated half a million people from the stricken piers and seawalls of Lower Manhattan. Produced and directed by Eddie Rosenstein. Eyepop Productions, Inc.
YouTube – Videos from this email
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Forward
Jeremy L. ____ ✆ to Brendan, me, Jackie
show details 4:36 AM (4 hours ago)
Thank you for this.
On the morning of 9/11 I was sleeping. The phone rang and it was my oldest son’s voice. “Jeremy just called to tell us he is alright. A plane has hit the World Trade Center.” I jolted awake. My husband Lewis was already at work. I was alone.
As with most Americans that day, I was filled with a fear I had never felt before. I turned on the TV and watched with disbelief as the news anchors began to reveal the danger befalling our nation that September morning.
I was stunned as the second plane hit the world trade tower and the broadcasts began to replay the graphic images of terror and destruction. When I began to realize the scope of the attacks, I desperately clung to the reassurance Jeremy had given his brother.
I reluctantly dressed and went to work to meet my first patient of the day. We introduced ourselves and began our session but then soon decided to watch the emerging news on a small black and white transistored antenna TV I kept on a shelf in our office.
We learned that all air traffic was halted but that another flight was believed to be enroute to the Capitol area. Brendan and Lewis were within the beltway. There was no way to predict the scope of the attack.
Here is the video that my oldest son sent to me and his brother and his wife by email this week. As you can see, he did not mince words.
At 4:36 a.m. this morning his young brother simply replied, “Thank you for this.” 4:36.
The film tells a powerful and touching story about the resiliency of New Yorkers and their neighbors on that fateful day.
Just Like Heaven
written by a member of The Morning News staff and excerpted…
Question: Is there an afterlife? —Matt
Answer: If you ever need to make your own Grand Canyon, start with a river and lift up the earth. As the ground rises the river will carry some of it away. Wait seven million years, at which point tourists will come. Some will see eons of erosion at work; others will believe that, a mere 4,500 years back, God dragged His fingernail across the desert. Like the group of evangelical-Christian creationists that rafted through in 2005. “One of the things it says to me,” a rafter was quoted as saying, “is I’m small and God and the world He created is huge. This is a man-dwarfing place.” Some things to see in the Canyon: rattlesnakes; Buddha Temple; burros; Confucius Temple; condors; Cremation Creek; and, in particular, Darwin Plateau.
In Latin evolvere means “to unroll,” like a sacred scroll. The word “evolve” implies action. But evolution isn’t what happens; it’s what’s left over. Traits arise in populations; death sweeps through; some traits survive to the next generation. And repeat. Species don’t evolve—they erode. And the rock keeps lifting.
Know The Canyon’s History, Study Rocks Made By Time. That is a mnemonic to help you remember the layers of the Canyon: Kaibab limestone, Toroweap formation, Coconino sandstone, and so forth. The mnemonic leaves out the Vishnu Schist, and makes no note of the Great Unconformity, which is not a layer but the absence of a layer. For an unconformity to form, one stratum is exposed and erodes (in this case for between 250 million and 1.2 billion years). Then new sediment is deposited and hardens, and the old layer is finally buried, after a gigayear in the sun. Eventually the ground lifts and erosion begins anew.
After enough erosion you get tourists, 4.5 million a year, interested in the old rock. They ignore—because it’s long gone—the sediment washed away, but visit an old lady in a hogan to buy a blanket, a turquoise necklace, and a Kachina doll. Then they go home as citizens of a broader world, simultaneously humbled and embiggened, leaving behind empty water bottles.
Detail from Tertiary History of the Grand Cañon District, With Atlas
There is tourism for the body—a trip to the Jersey Shore or Ibiza, waterparks and nightclubs. Return relaxed, brain scooped. There is tourism for the mind—a walk through the Louvre, a visit to the Liberty Bell. The Grand Canyon is a little of each.11.
…Joan Didion in The Year of Magical Thinking couldn’t throw away her dead husband’s shoes, for fear that he’d need them when he returned. After my grandfather died I used to fantasize that I could call him and he would answer. “Hey buddy,” he’d say. “I was just thinking of you.” But they changed the area code for that part of Pennsylvania, from 215 to 610, sold the house, and got rid of his clothes.
He died in the mid-1990s, when there was much talk, as the internet emerged as a social force, of the imminent Singularity, the emergence of total intelligence. The human could be translated out of its body and into machines, free of the meat, of the flesh. We would hang there, wired into a reticulation of phosphorescent splines. “Cyberspace is where you are,” wrote John Perry Barlow, “when you’re on the phone.” When bloggers die their comment boxes are often filled with spam; sometimes the domain names expire; and, later, squatters take over. “Communication,” wrote William S. Burroughs, “must become total and conscious before we can stop it.”
…There are moments that come to me in the shower. Emotions combine in certain alchemical ways and bring upon me a desire to fall to my knees, heart pregnant with celestial fire. I am ready to subjugate myself to the sky sprites; prepared to say, “Not my will, but Thine.” But, sadly, I am apostate. I don’t believe.
My mother lives in the panhandle of Maryland, near West Virginia. I visited her not long ago and we went to her small hilltop Methodist church. The service was halfway between evangelical (PowerPoint) and mainstream (hands clasped, not raised, in prayer). The minister spoke against internet pornography and warned of the unchecked rise of godlessness. Darwin was not in fashion there. The pews were half-full. When they passed the plate I put in $5. It’s not atheism keeping people at home.
In their graceless state the godless are supposed to be allergic to places of terror and emptiness. Foxholes, Ground Zero, outer space—all locations, I’ve been told, where you won’t find atheists. “Clay is fashioned into vessels,” reads the 11th chapter of the Tao Te Ching (written 2,500 years after Noah’s flood carved out the Grand Canyon), “but it is on their empty hollowness that their use depends.”
At the Canyon it’s the distances that make the picture. Seven million years of the river slicing open a billion years of rock, leaving thousand-foot drops; tens of millions of tourists, running their fingers over the surface, slowly buffing it to a gloss—ministers and geologists alike. The walls hold in the hollowness.
I believe there is an afterlife. When we die we go to the Grand Canyon. There we hover in the vastness as soft pipes play. We become a useful emptiness above the green, blue, Red River; we become the thing that tourists cannot see. Natives.
http://www.themorningnews.org/files/Ford-JustLikeHeaven.mp3 Listen to Ford read his words…
Thich Nhat Hanh
Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.
When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending.
People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.
People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.
To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.
Smile, breathe and go slowly.
Because you are alive, everything is possible.
The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don’t wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy.
Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.
Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.
When we are mindful, deeply in touch with the present moment, our understanding of what is going on deepens, and we begin to be filled with acceptance, joy, peace and love.
For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.
Suffering is not enough. Life is both dreadful and wonderful…How can I smile when I am filled with so much sorrow? It is natural–you need to smile to your sorrow because you are more than your sorrow.
The source of love is deep in us and we can help others realize a lot of happiness. One word, one action, one thought can reduce another person’s suffering and bring that person joy.
The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.
Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos — the trees, the clouds, everything.
The wave does not need to die to become water. She is already water.
Feelings, whether of compassion or irritation, should be welcomed, recognized, and treated on an absolutely equal basis; because both are ourselves. The tangerine I am eating is me. The mustard greens I am planting are me. I plant with all my heart and mind. I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Buddha or Jesus a bath. Nothing should be treated more carefully than anything else. In mindfulness, compassion, irritation, mustard green plant, and teapot are all sacred.
The true miracle is not walking on water or walking in air, but simply walking on this earth.
We often think of peace as the absence of war, that if powerful countries would reduce their weapon arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds- our own prejudices, fears and ignorance. Even if we transport all the bombs to the moon, the roots of war and the roots of bombs are still there, in our hearts and minds, and sooner or later we will make new bombs. To work for peace is to uproot war from ourselves and from the hearts of men and women. To prepare for war, to give millions of men and women the opportunity to practice killing day and night in their hearts, is to plant millions of seeds of violence, anger, frustration, and fear that will be passed on for generations to come.
It is my conviction that there is no way to peace – peace is the way.
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