Only Strauss (and Richard Dehmel) could come up with a cradle song so erotic. Rather than focussing on the child – as Brahms does with his famous setting of words from
Des Knaben Wunderhorn – Dehmel's poem, taken from the 'Venus Mater' section of his erotic rhapsody
De Verwandlungen der Venus, remembers the moment of conception. The piano accompaniment, marked
sehr leicht und flüchtig, echoes the shimmering blossoms mentioned in each of the three verses. Strauss matches Dehmel's tripartite structure with a gently varied strophic setting of the text. There is a sweet pain to its comely, diminished harmonies, heightening the mood of an diatonic song, which then peaks during the final verse.
Click here to listen to a performance by Christine Brewer.
The painting is 'Lied aus der Ferne' by Ferdinand Hodler.
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