Notturno (Schoeck)

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Notturno (5 movements for deep voice and string quartet ) is a song cycle for deep voice (mostly baritone ) and string quartet by the Swiss composer Othmar Schoeck (1886–1957). The Notturno was composed between 1931 and 1933 and published as Schoeck's Op . 47 published.

The Notturno consists of nine poems by the Austrian poet Nikolaus Lenau (1802–1850) and one by the Swiss poet Gottfried Keller (1819–1890). It consists of 14 parts. The 5 movements refer to the 5 poems (4 by Lenau and 1 by Keller), which are separated from each other by pure interludes of the four strings.

  • "See the mountain there with its meadow slope" (Lenau)
  • "See the brook here, the forest rose enclosed" (Lenau)
  • Andante appassionato (string quartet solo)
  • "The dark clouds were hanging" (Lenau)
  • "Did you see happiness pass by" (Lenau)
  • Presto (string quartet solo)
  • "The dream was so wild" (Lenau)
  • "The wind blows so cool" (Lenau)
  • "All around a silence, a discoloration" (Lenau)
  • "Oh, who wants to drink lonely" (Lenau)
  • Allegretto (string quartet solo)
  • "O loneliness! How I like to drink" (Lenau)
  • Allegretto tranquillo (string quartet solo)
  • "Army car, mighty constellation of the Teutons" (Keller)

Stylistically, the cycle shows a late romantic, dark, chromatic and expressionistic character. It is divided into five parts: Quiet, a nature scene, pondering about the death of love; Presto, a nightmare; Restlessly moved, memories of a dead friend; Quiet and quiet, birds and nature remind the poet of the death of a friend; Quick and powerful, quasi recit., The poet seeks solitude, looks at the stars and asks for peace.

Schoeck's biographer Chris Walton writes that Alban Berg found words of praise for the nocturne . The work was premiered in 1933. For years it went almost unnoticed until Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and the Juilliard String Quartet performed it again in 1967 and also recorded it on record. It has been recorded at regular intervals and sung by well-known singers since the 1980s.

A performance of the Notturno takes about 45 minutes.

Discography