Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian
composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras.
Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast
oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works
(mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of
piano and chamber music. His major works include the
art song "Erlkönig", the Piano Trout Quintet in A
major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the
"Great" Symphony No. 9 in ...(+)
Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian
composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras.
Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast
oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works
(mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of
piano and chamber music. His major works include the
art song "Erlkönig", the Piano Trout Quintet in A
major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the
"Great" Symphony No. 9 in C major, a String Quintet,
the three last piano sonatas, the opera Fierrabras, the
incidental music to the play Rosamunde, and the song
cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise. He was
remarkably prolific, writing over 1,500 works in his
short career. His compositional style progressed
rapidly throughout his short life. The largest number
of his compositions are songs for solo voice and piano
(roughly 630).
This is another oriental evocation from Rückert’s
Östliche Rosen. In reading this text about an old man
who is still capable of summoning all his memories of
love, it is impossible not to think of the
semi-autobiographical character that the ageing Goethe
created in his West-Östlicher Divan: Hatem the
potentate who, despite the fullness of his years, was
the mentor and ardent lover of Suleika. There is
something about a white-headed sage which suggests
eastern wisdom, and something about his pronouncements
on life and love, as Schubert sets them at least, which
calls for a certain musical weight. Thus there could be
no better voice for this character than the bass with
its ripe and rumbling tessitura. (Wolf on the other
hand casts Hatem as a tenor). Greisengesang is
accordingly written in the bass clef, although the
Peters Edition, following the first edition rather than
the autographs, prints it in the treble.
The opening vocal melody is determined without being
exactly agile. This tune is accompanied in octave
unisons in the lower reaches of the piano which expand
into unusually low-lying harmonies at the end of the
phrase. This unison device is prophetic of another
celebrated Schubert song about an old
man—Totengräbers Heimwehe from 1825. In the middle
of that song there is a similar shape to the vocal line
(also accompanied in octaves between the hands in a
similar tessitura) with the words ‘Von allen
verlassen, dem Tod nur verwandt’ (By all forsaken,
kin to death alone). This is near enough to
Greisengesang with its imagery of frost and winter, and
the final season of a man’s life, for us to see the
parallels in the composer’s unique language of tonal
analogues. Here it is not the words themselves which
summon the similar music, but the situations, as well
as the ages of the protagonists at the edge of the
grave. Such portentous unisons represent the inexorable
workings of fate, loneliness, and perhaps more
mundanely, the creaking of old limbs,. We also hear
traces of this ominous music in the first movement of
the A minor Piano Sonata D845 (also 1825). In the case
of Greisengesang such dark doubts are only set up to be
knocked down.
Source: Hyperion
(https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dw.asp?dc=W1744_GBA
JY0003507)
Although originally composed for Voice & Piano, I
created this Interpretation of "Greisengesang" (Song of
old age D.778 Op. 60 No. 1) for Flute & Strings (2
Violins, Viola & Cello).