Evening prayer

Starry Night - J.F. Millet

As I told you last week, I'm on holiday; that's why you get again a postcard, that this time brings us the voice of Fritz Wunderlich. It was the anniversary of his death (56 years) a few days ago, and last Monday marked his birth (92 years); as every year, I would like to pay a small tribute to him.

This time I'm sharing with you a rarity. If I talk to you about Fritz Neumeyer, you might relate him to the Ancient Music because he was one of the “fathers” of historically informed performances, and he dedicated his entire career to that, also as a pedagogue; after teaching at the Musikhochschule in Berlin, in 1946 he moved to the new Musikhochschule in Freiburg. A few years later, in 1950, a twenty-year-old passed the entrance examination for this university, as many others did; his first subject would be singing, and the second, French horn. I don't know if he was a good horn player, but he left everybody stunned with his voice. That boy was called Fritz Wunderlich.

Neumeyer and Wunderlich became friends, beyond the teacher-student relationship. In 1960, when the tenor was already a successful singer, Neumeyer asked him to sing one of his pieces, written in 1923, at a concert celebrating his sixty years. The work was Studentenlieder, a cycle of eight songs for tenor and string ensemble, with texts written around the 17th century. Wunderlich accepted his friend's request and sung so without any fee (or for a symbolic fee), aware that the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra, founded only a few years earlier, could not pay him.

The singer and the orchestra, conducted by Karl Ristenpart, performed Neumeyers's work on 26 May; I guess the concert was broadcasted live, and it also was recorded. Thanks to this, we can hear nowadays a work that, if I'm not wrong, has received little attention since then. I suggest we hear the fifth Lied of Studentenlieder, Abendsegen [Evening prayer]; the text belongs to Des Knaben Wunderhorn and has ten stanzas, of which Neumeyer only set two, the first and the last one. I hope you like it, and you feel like listening to the whole cycle.

Abendsegen

Der Tag hat seinen Schmuck für heute weggetan,
es ziehet nun die Nacht die braunen Kleider an
und deckt die Welt mit angenehmer Ruh,
mit ihren Schatten zu.

Nun dir befehl ich mich, du angenehme Nacht;
und wenn das Morgengold am frühen Himmel lacht,
so werde doch dem Herzen das geschenckt,
woran es schlafend denkt.

El dia s'ha llevat les joies per avui;
ara es vesteix la nit amb el vestit bru
i cobreis el món amb una agradable pau,
amb les seves ombres.

Ara m'encomano a tu, oh nit plaent,
i quan l'aurora daurada somrigui al cel matiner,
que el cor rebi allò
amb el que ha somiat.