skip navigation | text only | accessibility | site map
Share

Morgen

About the Work

Richard Strauss
Quick Look Composer: Richard Strauss
Program note originally written for the following performance:
National Symphony Orchestra Heinz Fricke, conductor/Christine Brandes, soprano Jan. 13 - 15, 2005
© Richard Freed

Morgen! (“Tomorrow!”), Op. 27, No. 4, is the last in a set of four songs composed in 1894, the last two of which are settings of poems by Strauss's contemporary John Henry Mackay (1864-1933), a Scots-born German writer (his mother was German and he grew up in Germany) whose poetry every now and then is said to be on the verge of a large-scale revival. This is another of the few songs Strauss orchestrated fairly close to the time of composition: his orchestral setting of 1897, with its melting violin solo, has made it one of the most widely beloved of his songs.