Edito de Franz Schreker: Complete Songs For Voice And Piano, Volume 1Schreker?s Lieder: Apprenticeship and First Mastery
Many factors can influence the selection of a song text, the least of which may be its literary quality. Of the poets set here only Tolstoy, Theodor Storm, and perhaps Ferdinand von Saar can lay claim to a place in world literature and each of the three is better known for his narrative prose than his verse. What Franz Schreker found in their poems, as well as in the other texts he set, were sentiments that resonated with his own experiences and a clarity of language and structure that allowed scope for musical elaboration. In style and content these texts range from the simple innocence of folk and folk-like poetry (?Das hungernde Kind? from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Heyse?s ?In alten Tagen?, and the Sturm texts) to the exalted pathos of love (Dora Leen, Lemayer, and Tolstoy). The six Mia Holm poems deal with the grief and loss, while Ferdinand von Saar?s ?Stimmen des Tages? and the texts by Gruppe, Weitbrecht, Scherenberg, and Storm address the poignancy of life?s transience. These are songs of a young man ? all were written before the composer had reached the age of 22 ? but Schreker?s early life had supplied him with ample experience of life?s vicissitudes and in these songs one already finds that characteristic mixture of naiveté, romantic idealism, and tragic irony that permeates the librettos he wrote for his operas....
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