September, Strauss & Hesse

Richard Strauss wrote his last four songs when he was 84. He used poems by his old friend Herman Hesse. With this last song by Richard Strauss, which he wrote in September 1948, one year before he passed away, I would like to wish you a blissful September month. Summer is almost over… but dreams, projects and life go on. How are you going to live them?

The garden is in mourning.
Cool rain seeps into the flowers.
Summertime shudders,
quietly awaiting his end.

Golden leaf after leaf falls
from the tall acacia tree.
Summer smiles, astonished and feeble,
at his dying dream of a garden.

For just a while he tarries
beside the roses, yearning for repose.
Slowly he closes
his weary eyes.

(Gedicht von Herman Hesse. Soprano: Gundula Janowitz)

Michael Thallium
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