Hugo Wolf – The Complete Mörike Lieder, part 1

7pm (free): Pre-concert talk

Natasha Loges: "A Perfect Marriage of Sense and Sound; Wolf's Mörike Lieder"

Hugo Wolf wrote almost nothing other than songs, but the legacy he left is a rich one. His writing found its peak with his settings of the poet Eduard Mörike, often compared to Britten and Auden or Schubert and Goethe for the perfect marriage of composer and poet.

Mörike was a pastor and painter as well as a poet and a great lover of music. His poems range from short, bright reflections on nature and simple love poetry to much darker introverted worlds. Wolf evidently felt a great affinity with the poet and his works: of his 53 settings (notwithstanding a handful of earlier efforts), every one is a gem and a remarkable number are considered masterpieces of the song repertoire.

Over the next two nights, 150 years on from the composer's birth, we hear all 53 of these extraordinary settings, performed by four singers who are firm favourites with Oxford Lieder audiences.

Programme:

PRELUDE (four early songs)

Suschens Vogel
Mausfallen-Sprüchlein
Die Tochter der Heide
Der König bei der Krönung


THE 53 MÖRIKE LIEDER

Der Genesene an die Hoffnung
Der Knabe und das Immlein
Ein Stündlein wohl vor Tag
Jägerlied
Der Tambour
Er ist's
Das verlassene Mägdlein
Begegnung
Nimmersatte Liebe
Fußreise
An eine Aeolsharfe
Verborgenheit

INTERVAL

Im Frühling
Agnes
Auf einer Wanderung
Elfenlied
Der Gärtner
Zitronenfalter im April
Um Mitternacht
Auf eine Christblume I
Auf eine Christblume II
Seufzer
Auf ein altes Bild
In der Frühe
Schlafendes Jesuskind