Strauss Songs - Soile Isokoski

Richard Strauss (1864-1949) is the kind of composer that ordinary punters like me sometimes miss. Of course, everyone has heard Thus Spake Zarathustra, a tune that has suffered from being abused badly. In recent times it has been used as a fanfare to introduce a crap motor car and some exciting new accounting software, but of course we remember it from 2001, A Space Odyssey.

But I digress.

This album is a selection of Strauss' orchestral songs, sung by the Finnish Soprano, Soile Isokoski. The crystalline purity of her voice, first encountered by me in her Sibelius work, has made me a fan. The piece I include here is Morgen/Tomorrow. Interesting because the lyrics were written in German by John Henry Mackay, a self confessed pederast and Scotsman who died in Berlin shortly before the Nazis did the job for him.

As you listen, you may find the translation helpful:

And tomorrow the sun will shine again

And on the way which I shall follow

She will again unite us lucky ones

As all around us the earth breathes in the sun

Slowly, silently, we will climb down

To the wide beach and the blue waves

In silence, we will look in each other's eyes

And the mute stillness of happiness will sink upon us

 And here then, is Morgen!, by Richard Strauss and John Henry Mackay, sung by Soile Isokoski: