Sechs Gesänge nach Gedichten von M. Maeterlinck op.13 für mittlere Stimme und Orchester

“SIX SONGS”, OP. 13 (Sechs Gesänge nach Gedichten von M. Maeterlinck, op. 13 für mittlere Stimme und Orchester) were composed by Alexander Zemlinsky based on poems by his contemporary, the Belgian symbolist poet, playwright and novelist, one of the most outstanding philosophers and mystics of Europe, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911, Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949). Maeterlinck’s second collection, Quinze chansons (Fifteen Songs, 1900), is regarded as a kind of crowning achievement of his poetic oeuvre.

Zemlinsky’s song cycle was originally composed for middle voice and piano. The first, second, third and fifth of the songs (“Three Sisters”, “The Blindfolded Maidens”, “Song of the Virgin” and “And If He Does Not Return”) were composed in 1910, and premiered on December, 11th  of that year in Vienna. The performer was Margaret Boom (née Pollack), known primarily as a concert singer. The other two songs, “When Her Darling is Gone” and “She Came to the Castle Door”, appeared three years later. In 1924 Zemlinsky made an orchestral version, adding an introduction.

Zemlinsky grew up with the German art song “Lied,” with models set by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and Hugo Wolf. After active formative years devoted to major projects such as operas and orchestral works, the composer returned to song in the summer of 1910. Holidaying in the Austrian spa town of Bad Ischl, he got inspired by the collection Fifteen Songs. The poetry is typical of Maeterlinck’s style: clear, sensuous, mysterious and evocative, rich in symbols. (Maeterlinck’s Fifteen Songs became known in Bulgaria a few years after their publication through the French translations of Peyo K. Yavorov and Geo Milev.)

Zemlinsky’s music evokes the mysterious poetic atmosphere and unpredictability of verse. The vocal part is clear, expressive and emotional, embedded in the orchestral texture, full of wandering chromaticisms and shifting harmonic relationships. The composer creates imaginatively expressive and artistically sublime song masterpieces. “Six Songs, Op. 13“ is an example of the modern reinterpretation of the “art song” genre in the first decades of the twentieth century and is one of Zemlinsky’s finest works.

 

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