As 2024 winds down to its last hours, The Gaggle Music Club has selected Richard Strauss's "Four Last Songs" (Vier letzte Lieder) as a fitting coda to the year. "Four Last Songs" are among Strauss's most moving and most celebrated works, epitomizing his late Romantic style.

Written in 1948, near the end of his life, the songs express themes of farewell, parting, acceptance and transcendence. Strauss died in 1949 before the songs could be performed. The first performance took place in London on May 22, 1950, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler, and soprano Kirsten Flagstad.

Composed after the devastation of World War II, the songs reflect the pain and sadness Strauss felt that the carefree and delightful world that he had once written operas about and for was lying under the rubble of a devastated Europe. It was a world gone forever.

Strauss was unfairly attacked for collaborating with the Nazis, though--to their credit--the Allies cleared him of any wrongdoing.

The texts of three of the songs (Frühling, September and Beim Schlafengehen) are settings of poems by Hermann Hesse, a German-Swiss author whose works explored themes of spirituality and self-discovery. The fourth song (Im Abendrot) is a setting of a poem by Joseph von Eichendorff, a Romantic poet who was much preoccupied with nature.

The songs were not initially conceived of as a unified cycle but were posthumously titled Four Last Songs by Strauss's friend Ernst Roth.
The orchestral score demonstrates Strauss's mastery of lyrical expression, blending simplicity with Wagnerian richness.

The first song, "Frühling" (Spring) is a lyrical celebration of renewal and nature, tinged with nostalgia.The soprano’s line shifts between yearning and fulfillment, capturing the joy of life's fleeting beauty.

The second song, "September" explores autumnal decline. Strauss paints a melancholic yet serene atmosphere, with lush string writing mimicking the falling leaves and the stillness of nature preparing for dormancy.

The third song, "Beim Schlafengehen" (At Bedtime) conveys longing for rest and release from life's struggles. The song is famous for a radiant violin solo, symbolizing the soul’s ascent. The soprano’s voice, introspective at first, blossoms into a transcendental affirmation of peace.

The fourth song, "Im Abendrot" (At Sunset) is a serene farewell and a confrontation with the sublime. In Eichendorff’s poem, the protagonists are an elderly couple contemplating the end of life together. Strauss quotes his "Death and Transfiguration" tone poem in the final orchestral bars, suggesting an ultimate transformation.

Though "Four Last Songs" express Strauss’s farewell to life, they are not at all morbid. Instead, they radiate acceptance, gratitude, and spiritual resolve.

This performance from the Alte Oper Frankfurt in 1992 features soprano Julia Varady and conductor Kurt Masur with the Orchestra of Leipzig.