The Lieder of Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss had an important part in the development of German Lieder, not only as the composer of such masterpieces as Ständchen, Morgen, and Die heiligen drei Könige aus Morgenland but also because of his affinity with the orchestra as accompanying instrument. To purists who contend that he was not strictly a Lieder composer because true Lieder are always written only for voice and piano, Alan Jefferson replies that it was precisely in the wider scope brought to it with the rich colors that are characteristic of all of his orchestral writing that Strauss directed the Lied along new paths. The Lieder of Richard Strauss gives both music-lover and student an excellent introduction and critical appraisal of Strauss as a profoundly accomplished composer of Lieder 'such as no other composer has written.' After a brief account of Strauss's life and work--his career as a composer and conductor, his success as a piano accompanist for singers of his own works--the author studies in detail a selected number of Lieder, from Weinachtslied, composed in 1870, when Strauss was six years old, to the Vier letzte Lieder (Four last songs) composed in 1948, a year before he died at the age of eighty-four. Under such headings as 'Long songs,' 'Songs of the seasons,' and 'Lusty songs,' Jefferson recounts the circumstances surrounding the creation of the Lieder and discusses their relationships with one another as well as to the rest of Strauss's work, paying special attention to the orchestrated and orchestral songs. And he shows that Strauss's lifelong experience with the orchestra enabled him to lift the Lied above the 'drawing-room or intimate platform into the grand world of the symphony orchestra and major concert hall.'"--Dust jacket.