Einsame Nacht
A Song Cycle for Baritone and Piano
by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich
Chamber Music - Sheet Music

Chamber Music Baritone Saxophone solo, Piano

SKU: PR.441410170

A Song Cycle for Baritone and Piano. Composed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Score. With Standard notation. Composed 1971. Duration 14 minutes. Theodore Presser Company #441-41017. Published by Theodore Presser Company (PR.441410170).

UPC: 680160094752. Text: Henry Ramsden Blamley.

A song cycle on six poems of Hermann Hesse by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer. About 14 min. For college, conservatory, professional. Dificult.
Einsame Nacht (1971) is a song-cycle for baritone and piano on six poems from Herman Hesse’s Die Gedichte.  Einsame Nacht, roughly translated as “lonely night” is the title of a poem I originally intended to include in the cycle and later discarded, however, and the title (and indeed the poem itself) seemed to provide a focus for the set of poems I finally used.The poems of this cycle, like much of Hesse’s poetry, are concerned with existential loneliness (elsewhere Hesse has written: “Leben ist Einsamsein,” roughly “To live is to be lonely”).  Yet, while themes of homesickness, alienation and loss are explored, there is a wonderful life-affirming sensuousness and immediacy in the poetry.  The images are almost palpable and there is sheer joy in the words themselves.  One experiences, with Hesse, a recognition of the isolation of the human condition together with a profound yearning for connection.