Adrianne Pieczonka Sings STRAUSS • WAGNER

Adrianne Pieczonka sings STRAUSS • WAGNER

Brian Zeger

piano DE 3474 1 0 13491 34742 4 DELOS DE 3474 ADRIANNE PIECZONKA DELOS DE 3474 ADRIANNE PIECZONKA Adrianne Pieczonka sings STRAUSS • WAGNER

Brian Zeger, piano

RICHARD STRAUSS Meinem Kinde (To My Child) Rote Rosen (Red Roses) • Begegnung (Encounter) Nichts (Nothing) • Morgen! (Tomorrow!) Die Nacht (The Night) • Einerlei (Sameness) Befreit (Released) • Zueignung (Dedication) RICHARD WAGNER: Du meines Herzens Krönelein (You, my Heart’s Wesendonck-Lieder Coronet) Der Engel (The Angel) • Stehe Still! (Stand Still!) Ruhe, meine Seele! (Rest, My Soul!) Im Treibhaus (In the Greenhouse) Traum durch die Dämmerung (Dream into Dusk) Schmerzen (Agonies) • Träume (Dreams)

Total time: 51:22 ORIGINAL ORIGINAL DIGITAL DE 3474 © 2015 Delos Productions, Inc., DIGITAL P.O. Box 343, Sonoma, CA 95476-9998 (800) 364-0645 • (707) 996-3844 [email protected] • www.delosmusic.com SIX SONGS by RICHARD STRAUSS 1. Rote Rosen, WoO. 76 • Red Roses (2:08) 2. Begegnung, WoO. 72 • Encounter (1:52) 3. Die Nacht, Op. 10, No. 3 • The Night (2:54) 4. Einerlei, Op. 69, No. 3 • Sameness (2:35) 5. Befreit, Op. 39, No. 4 • Released (4:50) 6. Zueignung, Op. 10, No. 1 • Dedication (1:49)

RICHARD WAGNER Wesendonck-Lieder, WWV 91 7. Der Engel • The Angel (3:14) 8. Stehe Still! • Stand Still! (3:34) 9. Im Treibhaus • In the Greenhouse (5:47) 10. Schmerzen • Agonies (2:26) 11. Träume • Dreams (4:27)

MORE SONGS by RICHARD STRAUSS 12. Du meines Herzens Krönelein, Op. 21, No. 2 • You, my Heart’s Coronet (1:55) 13. Ruhe, meine Seele! Op. 27, No. 1 • Rest, My Soul! (3:18) 14. Traum durch die Dämmerung, Op. 29, No. 1 • Dream into Dusk (2:46) 15. Meinem Kinde, Op. 37, No. 3 • To My Child (2:19) 16. Nichts, Op. 10, No. 2 • Nothing (1:30) 17. Morgen! Op. 27, No. 4 • Tomorrow! (3:49)

Total time: 51:22

Adrianne Pieczonka, soprano Brian Zeger, piano 2 ichard Strauss was one of Richard life and occupied him at crucial points in Wagner’s foremost inheritors; his between. father Franz Strauss disapproved of RWagner, but the young Strauss became an By 1883, Strauss was going beyond the ardent Wagnerian at an early age. These more Schubertian contours of his earliest two men, born over fifty years apart, both songs; increasingly, we hear the elements pushed the language of music to new of his own unique idiom in formation. lengths, saturating their music with com- In the summer of 1883, the 19-year-old plex chromaticism and inventing novel Strauss went to the spa town of Bad Hei- tonal procedures; both men were ob- lbrunn near Munich for ten days and sessed with opera, and both wrote songs. there met Lotti Speyer, granddaughter But Strauss wrote many more Lieder over of the song composer Wilhelm Speyer. his long life than did the operatic genius Strauss clearly liked her: he wrote Rote who died when Strauss was only 18. The Rosen expressly for her, and then fol- Lied was fundamental to him in ways it lowed it with “Die erwachte Rose,” and was not for Wagner, and he began com- “Begegnung,” united by their common posing songs when he was only 6 ½ years references to roses as the archetypal sym- old. His aunt Johanna Pschorr was a gift- bol of passion. These three songs were ed amateur mezzo-soprano, and his wife, only discovered in 1958 and performed Pauline de Ahna, was an accomplished for the first time the next year by Eliza- professional soprano: vocal music ran beth Schwarzkopf and Gerald Moore. in the family. “Actually, I like my songs “Rote Rosen” is a setting of a poem by the best,” Strauss would tell the great bass travel writer Karl Stieler, member of the Hans Hotter, and he created 158 songs famous Munich literary circle called Die between 1885 and his death in 1949. In Krokodile and son of Joseph Karl Stieler, fact, his “last rose” (his tender term for who painted a famous portrait of Beetho- his final composition) was the song “Mal- ven; in this work, we hear a dreamy, ten- ven,” written some nine months before he der love song whose off-tonic beginning died on September 8, 1949: songs were is typical of Strauss’s songs from the time the bookends that frame either side of his of first maturity onward. In the middle

3 section, the gentle, harp-like arpeggiat- was working as assistant conductor of ed harmonies in the piano give way to the ducal court orchestra in Meiningen; throbbing chords indicative of more at the time, he was in love with a married heated passion. woman, Dora Wihan, the wife of a cellist who was a colleague of his father’s. Strauss What a fascinating coincidence that came to know the Letzte Blätter (Last Al- two ardent “Wagnerianer”—Strauss and bum-leaves) of the Austrian civil servant Hugo Wolf—each wrote a song entitled Hermann von Gilm zu Rosenegg—mar- Begegnung about gleeful confessions ried at 49, a father at 50, dead at 51— of young love. Strauss’s is a setting of a through the auspices of his young friend poem by Otto Friedrich Gruppe, an an- and fellow composer Ludwig Thuille. In ti-Hegelian philosopher, classicist (he Die Nacht, night is represented as a thief discovered the poetry of a rather mys- of all beauty, but Strauss in October and terious Augustan woman named Sulpi- November of 1885 mutes both the men- cia), and poet whose poems were set by ace and the poet’s fear of losing the one Brahms (“Das Mädchen spricht”) and he loves in order to bring to sounding life Carl Loewe, among others. Here too, “a a lover’s nocturnal ecstasy. maiden speaks,” in a song whose refrains convey secrecy by means of Straussian The poet ofEinerlei was one of the in- trademark chromaticism, followed by ventors of German Romanticism, the a fermata that first sustains the crucial writer and folklorist Achim von Arnim verb “kissed” and a tiny postlude or in- (co-editor of the famous anthology Des terlude that descends in three stages from Knaben Wunderhorn); here, he indulg- the high treble down (the first words of es in word-play on the similar sounds the song are “Jumping down the stairs”), of “einerlei” (the same) and “mancher- with a cross-relation between A-flat and lei” (diverse) for a love-poem about the A-natural to color the proceedings. beloved’s simultaneous sameness and diversity. Strauss’s expansive piano in- The songs of Op. 10—the composer’s first troduction culminates with an exquisite song opus—were created when Strauss coda featuring the first wordless appear-

4 ance of the refrain “O du liebes Einerlei, / Zueignung is the first song in his first Wie wird aus dir so mancherlei!” (O you Lied opus (Op. 10): we can hear it in one dear sameness, the diversity that comes sense as the “dedication” at the start of his from you!”) in the left hand. Only Strauss life on the stage of print as a song com- could have composed this song, with its poser. Its poet was the German-Austrian lyrical melisma on “derselbe” (the same) writer Hermann von Gilm zu Rosenegg, and its side-slipping tonal excursions in whose Jesuitenlieder and Zeitsonette Strauss’s signature manner. caused a stir for their political content— but here, the subject is love. The persona Richard Fedor Leopold Dehmel was a of this song invokes, first, the sufferings literary sensation in the last years of the of love, then the freedom of his former 19th century and first two decades of single state, and finally the bliss of recip- the 20th century, with rapturous critics rocated love, each stanza concluding with declaring that he was the greatest Ger- the same fervent thanks to the beloved. man lyric poet since Goethe—but now Paeans of rapture are on display at the his name endures almost solely because end. Strauss, Schoenberg, Berg and others set his poems to music (the eroticism In November 1856, Richard Wagner of certain poems drew fire from the le- wrote Princess Marie von Sayn-Wittgen- gal system as pornography). He was not stein (the daughter of the Polish-born pleased with Strauss’s setting of Befreit; Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgen- it was, he thought, “a little too soft for the stein, Liszt’s partner in life for 40 years) poem.” A lover releases his beloved to that while working on the opera Siegfried, the death they both know is coming; for he had slipped “unaware into Tristan . . . this somewhat questionable “liberation,” music without words for the present.” Strauss devises a song that begins softly Wagner cared little for song composi- but builds to climaxes sufficient to thrill tion after his student years in Leipzig us, if not the picky poet. and found no occasion to compose songs until 1857, when he was embroiled in an affair with a silk merchant’s wife, Mathil-

5 de Wesendonck who wrote these five a Woman’s Voice by Richard Wagner.” sensual-ecstatic or sorrowful poems, Since the idea was that Mathilde would two of which became studies for Tristan. accompany herself at the piano, Wagner Wagner first met Otto and Mathilde We- orchestrated only one setting, “Träume,” sendonck in February 1852: the 37-year- for her birthday in December 1857. (The old Otto was a rich businessman from orchestral versions of the other four the Rhineland, a partner in a New York songs most often heard are the work of silk firm, while the 23-year-old Mathilde Felix Mottl, rescored by Hans Werner was the daughter of a leading financier. Henze in 1977.) Otto was building a neo-Renaissance vil- la in Zurich, and when he learned that It is a singularity in the history of the someone was planning to build a men- nineteenth-century lied that song should tal hospital next door, he swiftly bought be so nakedly conceived as the servant up the land to prevent it. The land had a to opera; Wagner himself was surprised half-timbered house that the Wesendon- by the success of the dual venture, telling cks offered to Richard Wagner and his Mathilde in a letter of 1861 (the affair was wife Minna for nominal rent. over, but they remained friends) that he had placed a copy of “Träume” next to Wagner completed the score of act 1 of the love duet: “As God is my witness, Tristan on April 3, 1858. Four days later, the song pleased me more than the noble Minna intercepted a letter written in a scene! Heavens, it is more beautiful than state of high emotion from her husband everything else I’ve made!” One suspects to Mathilde, and the discovery precipitat- him of exaggeration in order to flatter her ed a stormy scene. The idyll in the garden as poet and Muse, but the songs are truly house was over, and the composer and beautiful. In the first, Der Engel, we hear Minna were now married in name only; of legends told in childhood about angels Wagner left for Venice on August 17 and whose special mission is to succor souls stayed there until March 1859. Wagner’s in sorrow by bearing them heavenwards. original title for this work reads “Five Even as the singer tells of souls in grief, Poems by an Amateur Set to Music for the music darkening to minor at the first

6 invocation of pain, Wagner begins to lift home and hence overcome with grief. the passage upward in three stages: “daß, “Mute witness of sorrows, sweet scent ris- wo bang ein Herz,” “daß, wo still es will es upwards,” Mathilde writes, and Wag- verbluten,” and “daß, wo brünstig sein ner over and over bids phrases both in the Gebet,” that we might hear celestial el- piano and the vocal line rise upward in evation enacted in sound. The triadic yearning. In mid-song, we hear the open- harmonies melting into one another in ing figures repeated over and over in the the first section of this song (G major, C bass. Futile yearning becomes the very major, F major, E major) return in the fi- ground on which she walks. Schmerzen nal section in reverse order; heaven and is a passionate outburst of gratitude for earth exchange places in an eternal circle, those sorrows that give birth to ecstasy, the harmonic symbolism extraordinarily just as the sun’s “death” by night must moving. In Stehe still!, the poetic perso- precede the glory of its victorious dawn- na implores the cosmic wheel of Time to ing. The beginning and end of the final stop so that the lovers’ “Augenblick” (mo- song, Träume, runs parallel to parts of ment), when two souls fuse and become the great love duet, “O sink hernieder, as one, might endure forever. For the Nacht der Liebe” in act 2 of Tristan. This “Rad der Zeit” (wheel of Time), we hear song is a distillation-in-a-nutshell of the powerful wheeling, circling figures in the tonal revolution Wagner brought into piano, with a majestically primal conclu- being, with its chromatic harmonies that sion in C major, unlocking the secrets of refuse quiescence and resolution, enact- “holy Nature.” The first Tristan study is ing in dream-like motion the ongoing Im Treibhaus: the major mode portion perpetuation of desire. of the piano accompaniment recurs in the introduction to act 3 and the beginning For the final group, we return to Strauss, of Tristan’s account of the “Weiten Reich whose tonal language is both original and der Weltennacht” (the wide realm of the yet inspired by Wagner’s revolution. Felix world’s night). In this song, the persona Dahn, the poet of Du meines Herzens compares herself to plants in a hothouse, Krönelein, was famous in his own day bathed in light but far from their native for historical novels about ancient Ger-

7 many’s Ostrogoth empire in Italy, but he only lighten at the very end of the song, wrote poetry as well. Strauss entitled the which Strauss orchestrated much later in five songs of Op. 21 “Schlichte Weisen” or 1948, the year before his death. The words “Simple Melodies,” but this is artful (and “Diese Zeiten sind gewaltig” (These times relative) simplicity. The persona sings are violent) might well have had special the praises of a beloved whose beauty is meaning for him by then, in the wake of enhanced by utmost sincerity; Strauss World War II. creates a telling contrast between the dis- sonance-spiked depiction of those who According to Strauss, he was waiting seek love with false words and “thou . . . for his wife Pauline one day in 1895 and like a rose in the forest.” put the twenty-minute wait to use by composing Traum durch die Dämmer- Unlike his contemporary Hugo Wolf, ung—an astonishing inception for one Strauss gravitated to poets of his own of his loveliest songs. We know his poetic generation, including the Socialist Karl contemporary Otto Julius Bierbaum best Henckell. When Strauss sent him a as the masterful translator of the Belgian dedicatory copy of Ruhe, meine Seele!, poet Albert Giraud’s Pierrot lunaire, from Henckell responded, ‘It seems to me that which Schoenberg selected the twen- you have transcribed the verse, or ab- ty-one texts for his pathbreaking 1912 sorbed it, or whatever the correct expres- song cycle, but this poem has nothing of sion is, quite magnificently’. It is amusing grotesquerie about it. In Strauss’s hands, to see a poet being flummoxed about the the gently swaying, hovering harmonies proper terminology for the transfer of and rhythms cast a spell right away. poetry into music. Henckell invokes rest and peace for the soul in Nature’s midst, Inspired by the approaching birth of his whatever history’s storms raging outside; son Franz, Strauss composed Meinem complex harmonies right up to the final Kinde for a singer and chamber group chord tell us how fragile, how threat- of ten instruments, but then rewrote ened, this peace is. The ambiguous, dark, the song for piano accompaniment. The threatening harmonies of the beginning rocking motion of the triplets in the right

8 hand part, the slower rocking in the bass, not political verse but Mackay’s blissful and the beautifully expansive vocal line vision of union on the “sun-breathing make this an entrancing hymn to mater- earth.” The touch of reverential dark- nal love. When the poet fancies that Love ness at the end, as the silence of love’s searches in heaven for “ein Glückskräut,” communion enfolds singer and listener “a herb of grace,” to lay on the baby’s cov- alike, is heart-stopping: this is on every- erlet, the music briefly flies away to other one’s short list of Strauss’s most beautiful and distant tonal spheres, before coming songs. home to coo once again at the sleeping child. — Susan Youens

With Nichts, we return once more to Strauss’s first song opus and to another of Gilm’s “Sophienlieder,” inspired by his passion for a young woman named So- phie Petter. In high spirits, the persona compares his beloved to the sun as the source of all life and light, but of which we know—nothing. The song embodies Schwung (lilt); this is love as a force that warms and exhilarates.

John Henry Mackay, the poet of three of the four Op. 27 gems, including Morgen, was brought to Germany as an infant and remained there the rest of his life; his left- wing, even anarchistic leanings endeared him to the young Strauss, also a rebel against convention. But for his wedding gift to Pauline de Ahna, Strauss chose

9 SIX SONGS BY RICHARD STRAUSS Red roses (1864-1949) Do you recall the rose you gave me? Rote Rosen The shy violets’ proud, ardent sister, WoO. 76 Its fragrance still drew life from your text by Karl Stieler (1842-1885), 1883 bosom, And I imbibed that fragrance with ever Weißt du die Rose, die du mir gegeben? greater glee. Der scheuen Veilchen stolze, heiße Schwester; I see you before me, forehead and Von deiner Brust trug noch ihr Duft das temples ablaze, Leben, Your nape defiant, your hands soft and Und an dem Duft sog ich fest mich und white, fester. Spring still in your eyes, but your figure in full Ich seh’ dich vor mir, Stirn und Schläfe Bloom, lie the meadow in midsummer. glühend, Den Nacken trotzig, weich und weiß die Night, cool and cloudless, weaves itself Hände, around me, Im Aug’ noch Lenz, doch die Gestalt But day and night are blended into one. erblühend I dream of your red rose Voll, wie das Feld blüht um Sonnenwende. And of the garden where I won it.

Um mich webt Nacht, die kühle, wol- kenlose, Begegnung Doch Tag und Nacht, sie sind in eins WoO. 72 zerronnen. text by Otto Friedrich Gruppe (1804- Es träumt mein Sinn von deiner roten Rose 1876), 1880 Und von dem Garten, d’rin ich sie gewonnen. Die Trepp’ hinunter gesprungen Komm ich in vollem Lauf, 10 Die Trepp’ empor gesprungen I come into the room Kommt er und fängt mich auf; That thronged and teemed with guests; Und wo die Treppe so dunkel ist, My cheeks were burning, Haben wir vielmals uns geküßt, And my lips were burning too. Doch niemand hat’s gesehen. I imagined that, looking at me, all would know Ich komm in den Saal gegangen, What we did there together, Da wimmelt’s von Gästen bunt, But not a soul was watching. Wohl glühten mir die Wangen, Wohl glühte mir auch der Mund: I had to go out into the garden, Ich meint’ es säh mirs jeder an, I wanted to look at the flowers, Was wir da mit einander getan, – I simply could not wait Doch niemand hat’s gesehen. To go out into the garden. And the roses were blooming everywhere, Ich mußte hinaus in den Garten The birds were singing full-throatedly, Und wollte die Blumen sehn, As if they’d been watching. Ich konnt’ es nicht erwarten In den Garten hinaus zu gehn. Da blühten die Rosen überall, Da sangen die Vögel mit lautem Schall, Die Nacht Als hätten sie’s gesehn. from Acht Gedichte aus ‘Letzte Blätter’, Op. 10, No. 3 Encounter text by Hermann von Gilm zu Rosenegg (1812-1864), 1885 Jumping down the stairs I come at full speed; Aus dem Walde tritt die Nacht, Running upstairs Aus den Bäumen schleicht sie leise, He takes me in his arms. Schaut sich um in weitem Kreise, And where the stairs are darkest, Nun gib Acht! We exchanged many kisses, But not a soul was watching. 11 Alle Lichter dieser Welt, The bush stands plundered: Alle Blumen, alle Farben Draw closer, soul to soul, Löscht sie aus und stiehlt die Garben Ah the night, I fear, will steal Weg vom Feld. You too from me.

Alles nimmt sie, was nur hold, Nimmt das Silber weg des Stromes Einerlei, Nimmt vom Kupferdach des Domes Op. 69, No. 3 Weg das Gold. text by Karl Joachim (Achim) Friedrich Ludwig von Arnim (1781-1831), 1918 Ausgeplündert steht der Strauch: Rücke näher, Seel’ an Seele, Ihr Mund ist stets derselbe, O die Nacht, mir bangt, sie stehle Sein Kuß mir immer neu, Dich mir auch. Ihr Auge noch dasselbe, Sein freier Blick mir treu; The night O du liebes Einerlei, Wie wird aus dir so mancherlei! Night steps from the woods, Slips softly from the trees, Sameness Gazes about her in a wide arc, Now beware! Her mouth is always the same, Its kiss is ever new, All the lights of this world, Her eyes remain the same, All the flowers, all the colours Their frank gaze true to me; She extinguishes and steals the sheaves O you dear sameness, From the field. The diversity that comes of you!

She takes all that is fair, Takes the silver from the stream, Takes from the cathedral’s copper roof The gold. 12 Befreit Released Op. 39, No. 4 text by Richard Dehmel (1863-1920), You will not weep. Gently, gently 1898 you will smile; and as before a journey I shall return your gaze and kiss. Du wirst nicht weinen. Leise, leise You have cared for the room we love! wirst du lächeln; und wie zur Reise I have widened these four walls for you geb ich dir Blick und Kuß zurück. into a world – Unsre lieben vier Wände! Du hast sie O happiness! bereitet, ich habe sie dir zur Welt geweitet – Then ardently you will seize my hands o Glück! and you will leave me your soul, leave me to care for our children. Dann wirst du heiß meine Hände fassen You gave your whole life to me, und wirst mir deine Seele lassen, I shall give it back to them – läßt unsern Kindern mich zurück. O happiness! Du schenktest mir dein ganzes Leben, ich will es ihnen wiedergeben – It will be very soon, we both know it, o Glück! we have released each other from suf- fering, Es wird sehr bald sein, wir wissen’s so I returned you to the world. Beide, Then you’ll appear to me only in dreams, wir haben einander befreit vom Leide, and you will bless me and weep with so gab’ ich dich der Welt zurück. me – Dann wirst du mir nur noch im Traum O happiness! erscheinen und mich segnen und mit mir weinen – o Glück!

13 Zueignung And you banished the evil spirits, Op. 10, No. 1 Till I, as never before, text by Hermann von Gilm zu Rosenegg Holy, sank holy upon your heart – (1812-1864), 1882-3 Be thanked.

Ja du weißt es, teure Seele, Daß ich fern von dir mich quäle, RICHARD WAGNER (1813-1883) Liebe macht die Herzen krank, Habe Dank. Wesendonck-Lieder, WWV 91 Fünf Gedichte für eine Frauenstimme Einst hielt ich, der Freiheit Zecher, und Klavier Hoch den Amethisten-Becher Five poems for woman’s voice and Und du segnetest den Trank, piano Habe Dank. texts by Agnes Mathilde Wesendonck, Und beschworst darin die Bösen, née Luckemeyer (1828-1902) Bis ich, was ich nie gewesen, Translations by Richard Stokes from The Heilig, heilig an’s Herz dir sank, Book of Lieder (Faber, 2005) Habe Dank. Der Engel Dedication In der Kindheit frühen Tagen Yes, dear soul, you know Hört ich oft von Engeln sagen, That I’m in torment far from you, Die des Himmels hehre Wonne Love makes hearts sick – Tauschen mit der Erdensonne, Be thanked. Daß, wo bang ein Herz in Sorgen Once, revelling in freedom, I held Schmachtet vor der Welt verborgen, The amethyst cup aloft Daß, wo still es will verbluten, And you blessed that draught – Und vergehn in Tränenfluten, Be thanked. 14 Daß, wo brünstig sein Gebet Stehe still! Einzig um Erlösung fleht, Da der Engel niederschwebt, Sausendes, brausendes Rad der Zeit, Und es sanft gen Himmel hebt. Messer du der Ewigkeit; Leuchtende Sphären im weiten All, Ja, es stieg auch mir ein Engel nieder, Die ihr umringt den Weltenball; Und auf leuchtendem Gefieder Urewige Schöpfung, halte doch ein, Führt er, ferne jedem Schmerz, Genug des Werdens, laß mich sein! Meinen Geist nun himmelwärts! Halte an dich, zeugende Kraft, The angel Urgedanke, der ewig schafft! Hemmet den Atem, stillet den Drang, In the early days of childhood Schweigend nur eine Sekunde lang! I often heard tell of angels Schwellende Pulse, fesselt den Schlag; Who exchanged heaven’s pure bliss Ende, des Wollens ew’ger Tag! For the sun of earth, Daß in selig süßem Vergessen So that, when a sorrowful heart Ich mög alle Wonne ermessen! Hides its yearning from the world, Wenn Auge in Auge wonnig trinken, And would silently bleed away Seele ganz in Seele versinken; And dissolve in streams of tears, Wesen in Wesen sich wiederfindet, Und alles Hoffens Ende sich kündet, And when its fervent prayer Die Lippe verstummt in staunendem Begs only for deliverance – Schweigen, That angel will fly down Keinen Wunsch mehr will das Innre And gently raise the heart to heaven. zeugen: Erkennt der Mensch des Ew’gen Spur, And to me too an angel has descended, Und löst dein Rätsel, heil’ge Natur! And now on shining wings Bears my spirit, free from all pain, Towards heaven. 15 Stand still! Im Treibhaus

Rushing, roaring wheel of time, Hochgewölbte Blätterkronen, You that measure eternity; Baldachine von Smaragd, Gleaming spheres in the vast universe, Kinder ihr aus fernen Zonen, You that surround our earthly sphere; Saget mir, warum ihr klagt? Eternal creation – cease: Enough of becoming, let me be! Schweigend neiget ihr die Zweige, Malet Zeichen in die Luft, Hold yourselves back, generative powers, Und der Leiden stummer Zeuge Primal Thought that always creates! Steiget aufwärts, süßer Duft. Stop your breath, still your urge, Be silent for a single moment! Weit in sehnendem Verlangen Swelling pulses, restrain your beating; Breitet ihr die Arme aus, Eternal day of the Will – end! Und unmschlinget wahnbefangen Öder Leere nicht’gen Graus. That in blessed, sweet oblivion I might measure all my bliss! Wohl, ich weiß es, arme Pflanze; When eye gazes blissfully into eye, Ein Geschicke teilen wir, When soul drowns utterly in soul, Ob umstrahlt von Licht und Glanze, When being finds itself in being, Unsre Heimat ist nicht hier! And the goal of every hope is near, When lips are mute in silent wonder, Und wie froh die Sonne scheidet When the soul wishes for nothing more Von des Tages leerem Schein, Then man perceives Eternity’s footprint, Hüllet der, der wahrhaft leidet, And solves your riddle, holy Nature! Sich in Schweigens Dunkel ein. Stille wird’s, ein säuselnd Weben Füllet bang den dunklen Raum: Schwere Tropfen seh ich schweben An der Blätter grünem Saum. 16 In the greenhouse I see heavy droplets hanging (Study for Tristan und Isolde) From the green edge of the leaves.

High-arching leafy crowns, Schmerzen Canopies of emerald, You children who dwell in distant Sonne, weinest jeden Abend climes, Dir die schönen Augen rot, Tell me, why do you lament? Wenn im Meeresspiegel badend Dich erreicht der frühe Tod; Silently you bend your branches, Inscribe your symbols on the air, Doch erstehst in alter Pracht, And a sweet fragrance rises, Glorie der düstren Welt, As silent witness to your sorrows. Du am Morgen neu erwacht, Wie ein stolzer Siegesheld! With longing and desire You open wide your arms, Ach, wie sollte ich da klagen, And embrace in your delusion Wie, mein Herz, so schwer dich sehn, Desolation’s awful void. Muß die Sonne selbst verzagen, Muß die Sonne untergehn? I am well aware, poor plant, That we share a single fate, Und gebieret Tod nur Leben, Though bathed in gleaming light, Geben Schmerzen Wonne nur: Our homeland is not here! O wie dank ich, daß gegeben Solche Schmerzen mir Natur! And just as the sun is glad to leave The empty gleam of day, Agonies The true sufferer veils himself In the darkness of silence. Every evening, sun, you redden Your lovely eyes with weeping, It grows quiet, a whirring whisper When, bathing in the sea, Fills the dark room uneasily: You die an early death; 17 Yet you rise in your old splendour, Dort ein ewig Bild zu malen: The glory of the dark world, Allvergessen, Eingedenken! When you wake in the morning As a proud and conquering hero! Träume, wie wenn Frühlingssonne Aus dem Schnee die Blüten küßt, Ah, why should I complain, Daß zu nie geahnter Wonne Why should my heart be so depressed, Sie der neue Tag begrüßt, If the sun itself must despair, If the sun itself must set? Daß sie wachsen, daß sie blühen, Träumend spenden ihren Duft, If only death gives birth to life, Sanft an deiner Brust verglühen, If only agony brings bliss: Und dann sinken in die Gruft. O how I give thanks to Nature For giving me such agony! Dreams (Study for Tristan und Isolde)

Träume Say, what wondrous dreams are these Embracing all my senses, Sag, welch wunderbare Träume That they have not, like bubbles, Halten meinen Sinn umfangen, Vanished to a barren void? Daß sie nicht wie leere Schäume Sind in ödes Nichts vergangen? Dreams, that with every hour Bloom more lovely every day, Träume, die in jeder Stunde, And with their heavenly tidings Jedem Tage schöner blühn, Float blissfully through the mind? Und mit ihrer Himmelskunde Selig durchs Gemüte ziehn! Dreams, that with glorious rays Penetrate the soul, Träume, die wie hehre Strahlen There to paint an eternal picture: In die Seele sich versenken, Forgetting all, remembering one!

18 Dreams, as when the Spring sun Du ohne Mund- und Augenkunst bist Kisses blossoms from the snow, wert an allen Orten, So the new day might welcome them Du bist als wie die Ros’ im Wald, sie In unimagined bliss, weiß nichts von ihrer Blüte, Doch Jedem, der vorüberwallt, erfreut So that they grow and flower, sie das Gemüte. Bestow their scent as in a dream, Fade softly away on your breast You, my heart’s coronet And sink into their grave. You, my heart’s coronet, you are of pure gold, When others stand beside you, you are More Songs by RICHARD STRAUSS more lovely still. Others love to appear clever, you are so Du meines Herzens Krönelein gentle and quiet; from the Schlichte Weisen, Op. 21, No. 2 That every heart delights in you, is your text by Felix Dahn (1834-1912), 1887- fortune not your will. 1888 Others seek love and favours with a Du meines Herzens Krönelein, du bist thousand false words, von lautrem Golde, You, without artifice of mind or eye, are Wenn Andere daneben sein, dann bist esteemed in every place, du noch viel holde. You are like the rose in the forest, kno- Die Andern tun so gern gescheut, du wing nothing of its flowers, bist gar sanft und stille; Yet rejoicing the heart of every passer-by. Daß jedes Herz sich dein erfreut, dein Glück ist’s, nicht dein Wille.

Die Andern suchen Lieb’ und Gunst mit tausend falschen Worten,

19 Ruhe, meine Seele! Rest, my soul! Op. 27, No. 1 text by Karl Henckell (1864-1929), 1894 Not even A soft breeze stirs, Nicht ein Lüftchen, In gentle sleep Regt sich leise, The wood rests; Sanft entschlummert Through the leaves’ Ruht der Hain; Dark veil Durch der Blätter Bright sunshine Dunkle Hülle Steals. Stiehlt sich lichter Rest, rest, Sonnenschein. My soul, Ruhe, ruhe, Your storms Meine Seele, Were wild, Deine Stürme You raged and Gingen wild, You quivered, Hast getobt und Like the breakers, Hast gezittert, When they surge! Wie die Brandung, These times Wenn sie schwillt! Are violent, Diese Zeiten Cause heart and Sind gewaltig, Mind distress – Bringen Herz und Rest, rest, Hirn in Not – My soul, Ruhe, ruhe, And forget Meine Seele, What threatens you! Und vergiß, Was dich bedroht!

20 Traum durch die Dämmerung Through grey dusk into the land of love, Op. 29, No. 1 Into a gentle blue light. from Drei Lieder nach Gedichten von Otto Julius Bierbaum text by Otto Julius Bierbaum (1865- Meinem Kinde 1910), 1895 from Sechs Lieder, Op. 37, No. 3 text by Gustav Falke (1853-1916), 1898 Weite Wiesen im Dämmergrau; Die Sonne verglomm, die Sterne ziehn; Du schläfst und sachte neig’ ich mich Nun geh’ ich hin zu der schönsten Frau, Über dein Bettchen und segne dich. Weit über Wiesen im Dämmergrau, Jeder behutsame Atemzug Tief in den Busch von Jasmin. Ist ein schweifender Himmelsflug, Ist ein Suchen weit umher, Durch Dämmergrau in der Liebe Land; Ob nicht doch ein Sternlein wär’, Ich gehe nicht schnell, ich eile nicht; Wo aus eitel Glanz und Licht Mich zieht ein weiches, sammtenes Band Liebe sich ein Glückskraut bricht, Durch Dämmergrau in der Liebe Land, Das sie geflügelt herniederträgt In ein blaues, mildes Licht. Und dir aufs weiße Deckchen legt.

Dream into dusk To my child

Broad meadows in grey dusk; You sleep and softly I bend down The sun has set, the stars come out, Over your cot and bless you. I go now to the loveliest woman, Every cautious breath I take Far across meadows in grey dusk, Soars up towards heaven, Deep into the jasmine grove. Searches far and wide to see If there might not be some star, Through grey dusk into the land of love; From whose pure radiance and light I do not go fast, I do not hurry; Love may pluck a herb of grace, I am drawn by a soft velvet ribbon To descend with it on her wings And lay it on your white coverlet. 21 Nichts Ask me about her walk, her dancing, her Op. 10, No. 2, from Acht Gedichte aus bearing – ‘Letzte Blätter’ von Hermann von Gilm Ah! what do I know of all that. text by Hermann von Gilm zu Rosenegg (1812-1864), 1885 Is not the sun the source Of`all life, of all light, Nennen soll ich, sagt ihr, meine And what do we know about it, Königin im Liederreich! I and you and everyone? – nothing. Toren, die ihr seid, ich kenne Sie am wenigsten von euch.

Fragt mich nach der Augen Farbe, Morgen! Fragt mich nach der Stimme Ton, Op. 27, No. 4 Fragt nach Gang und Tanz und Haltung, text by John Henry Mackay (1864-1933), Ach, und was weiß ich davon. 1894

Ist die Sonne nicht die Quelle Und morgen wird die Sonne wieder Alles Lebens, alles Licht’s scheinen Und was wissen von derselben Und auf dem Wege, den ich gehen Ich, und ihr, und alle? – nichts. werde, Wird uns, die Glücklichen, sie wieder Nothing einen, Inmitten dieser sonnenatmenden Erde . . . You say I should name My queen in the realm of song! Und zu dem Strand, dem weiten, wogen- Fools that you are, I know blauen, Her least of all of you. Werden wir still und langsam nieder- steigen, Ask me the colour of her eyes, Stumm werden wir uns in die Augen Ask me about the sound of her voice, schauen,

22 Und auf uns sinkt des Glückes stummes Hailed for her “impeccably pure and iri- Schweigen . . . descent voice” (Financial Times) Cana- dian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka has Tomorrow! appeared on leading opera and concert stages in Europe, North America and And tomorrow the sun will shine again Asia. And on the path that I shall take, It will unite us, happy ones, again, Critically acclaimed for her interpreta- Amid this same sun-breathing earth … tion of Wagner’s strong and tragic wom- en, Adrianne’s portrayals of Senta in And to the shore, broad, blue-waved, Der Fliegende Höllander and Sieglinde We shall quietly and slowly descend, in Die Walküre have taken her to some Speechless we shall gaze into each other’s of the world’s most famed houses – the eyes, Bayreuth Festspiele, Metropolitan Opera, And the speechless silence of bliss shall the Canadian Opera Company, and the fall on us … Opéra de Paris. She is equally renowned for her portrayals of Strauss roles including Chrysothemis in Elektra in Aix-en- Provence, London, Milan and Munich, Die Kaiserin in Frau Ohne Schatten in Florence and Vienna, the title roles of Ar- abella in Vienna and Ariadne auf Naxos in Vienna, Toronto, Tokyo, Valencia, Bil- bao, and Munich, and as the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier in Salzburg, Vienna, and Munich.

Adrianne’s discography includes the JU- NO-Award winning recording Adrianne Pieczonka Sings Puccini (Orfeo), Lohen-

23 24 grin (Hänssler Classics) named 2010 BBC Widely recognized as one of today’s Magazine Disc of The Year/Opera Award, leading collaborative pianists, Brian the JUNO-Award winning Beethoven: Zeger has performed with many of the Ideals of The French Revolution (Ana- world’s greatest singers including Marilyn lekta) featuring Paul Griffiths’s tribute to Horne, Deborah Voigt, Anna Netrebko, Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire The Susan Graham, René Pape, Dame Kiri General with l’Orchestre symphonique Te Kanawa, Frederica von Stade, Piotr de Montréal and Kent Nagano, arias by Beczala, Bryn Terfel, Joyce DiDonato, Wagner and Strauss (Orfeo), Falstaff with Denyce Graves and Adrianne Pieczonka Bryn Terfel and Claudio Abbado (DG), in an extensive concert career that has Don Giovanni (Naxos), The Complete Or- taken him to the premiere concert halls chestra Songs of Richard Strauss (Nightin- and important music festivals throughout gale), and Die Fledermaus (Nightingale). the United States and abroad. Adrianne can be seen on DVD as Chrys- Among his recordings are Dear Theo: 3 othemis in Strauss’s Elektra from Aix-en- Song Cycles by Ben Moore (Delos) with Provence (BelAir Classiques), as Amelia tenor Paul Appleby, soprano Susanna in the Metropolitan Opera’s production Phillips and baritone Brett Polegato; All of Simon Boccanegra, as the Marschallin My Heart (EMI Classics) - American in Der Rosenkavalier (TDK), and as Don- songs with Deborah Voigt; Portraits and na Elvira in Don Giovanni (TDK). Elegies (Innova) - contemporary chamber Adrianne is an Officer of the Order of music with violinist Frank Almond; and Canada, the recipient of the Queen Eliza- a recital disc with tenor Paul Appleby as beth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, and was part of The Juilliard Sessions debut series named a Kammersängerin by the Austri- (EMI Classics). an government. She is an Honourary Fel- Some of Zeger’s critical essays and low of The Royal Conservatory of Music other writings have appeared in Opera and in 2014 she received an Opera Cana- News, The Yale Review and Chamber da ‘Rubies’ award and the Paul de Hueck Music magazine. He has made frequent and Norman Walford Career Achieve- appearances on the Metropolitan Opera ment Award. 25 26 radio broadcasts both on the opera quiz Arts Department at The Juilliard School, and as intermission host and performer and the Executive Director of the and has the distinction of creating, Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young narrating and performing in five Artists Development Program. Mr. Zeger intermission features devoted to art holds a bachelor’s degree in English song, a first in the long history of the Met Literature from Harvard College, a broadcasts. master’s degree from The Juilliard School and a doctorate from the Manhattan In addition to his distinguished concert School of Music. career, he also serves as Artistic Director of the Ellen and James S. Marcus Vocal

Recorded August 2014, Glenn Gould Studio, Toronto, Canada Produced and engineered by Anton Kwiatkowski, www.audio-masters.com Executive Producer: Carol Rosenberger Booklet editor: Lindsay Koob Art design/layout: Lonnie Kunkel

Cover photo: Peter Dusek Booklet photo Adrianne Pieczonka: Bo Huang

Special thanks to Laura Tucker