Day 22 — Im Abendrot (from the Four Last Songs)

The last of the Four Last Songs sets ‘Im Abendrot’ by Eichendorff, a poet to whom Strauss had first turned in 1876 for the texts of his two unaccompanied choral songs 'Morgengesang' and 'Frühlingsnacht'. Strauss had, however, never used Eichendorff's words for a solo song until this slow but soothing farewell (though it was the first of these songs Strauss composed). Gone are the churning harmonies of ‘Frühling’ and in their stead comes an airy, almost Parsifalian sense of time and space, extending far beyond ‘this quiet land’.

Click here to listen to Jessye Norman's recording with the Gewandhausorchester and Kurt Masur.
The painting is 'Rhythmische Landschaft am Genfersee' by Ferdinand Hodler.

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