Liederabend - SV22 | Was du mir bist?

A few years ago, I first spoke to you about Eleonore van der Straaten. Well, it's a saying because the most strange thing about this author was, precisely, the lack of information about her. I wasn't even sure if the few data I had collected actually corresponded to our Eleonore because I found two different birthdates and several similar surnames.

Her name appeared again when I chose this week's song and, of course, I searched for information again. This time, I was luckier. The Schott-Music publishing house is a reliable source, and its website confirms the dates of birth and death that I ventured back then, (1876–1960). Subsequently, I can say that she was born in Pohořelice, near Brno, and was of noble family: her father was Count Leopold von Sternberg. She married twice: first, to a prince with whom she had two children; second, to an count, Alexander van der Straaten.

I wonder if they knew each other with Eric Wolfgang Korngold (it might well be because Korngold was born in Brno), and the composer knew her poems first-hand. He could also get them through common acquaintances, or he may have read them in Erntekranz-Geschichten und Gedichte, published in 1815, or in Etwas für Jedermann, from 1918. The point is that I couldn't find any poem by her musicalized by any other composer, so from a musical perspective, the name of Eleonore van der Straaten (or van der Straten, or van der Straten-Sternberg, or van der Straten-Ponthoz...) is linked only to that of Korngold.

If in 2017 I talk to you about the cycle Unvergänglichkeit, this week I'm talking about another beautiful song, Was du mir bist? [What you are for me?] It was premiered in December 1928, in a concert in which, in addition to the composer and soprano Margit Angerer, the poet herself would have participated. In 1930, the lied was published in the Op. 22, along with two other lieder with a poem by musicologist Karl Kobald.

I'm telling you about Was du mir bist? because this little gem will be one of the songs Andrè Schuen and Daniel Heide will perform at their recital in Vilabertran on August 20; the other recital we're looking over is that of Tuesday 16, with Catriona Morison and Ammiel Bushakevitz. The two concerts have wonderful programs! As always, at the end of the article, you will find the list of the songs we heard so far.

Before, however, Was du mir bist?, performed by Sarah Connolly and Iain Burnside. If this article wouldn't have a set title as a part of a series, I would have name it after the last words of the poem, the answer to the question "What are you for me?" in the title: "My faith in happiness".

Was du mir bist?