Alexander Blechinger
Dunkle Stunde / Dark Hour
Duration: 3'
Solos:
voice
Instrumentation details:
piano
violin
violoncello
Dunkle Stunde / Dark Hour
Sample pages
Audio preview
Work introduction
Paula von Preradovic (12.10.1887 – 25.05.1951)
Dark Hour
Oh, someone should be playing now!
Should play a quiet one,
Cool, gentle, old tune.
Blowing like a distant wind.
Possible that then my soul,
Which has lost itself completely to you,
Would find its way back to the gates,
Where life begins anew!
LIEBESLIEDER, op. 14T
is a loosely arranged song cycle based on six poems by Paula von Preradovic.
This version is for dramatic soprano or mezzo-soprano and piano trio. There is also a version for chamber orchestra and one for piano.
1. Dark Hour,
2. You are enthroned in Purple, 3. Old-fashioned Song
4. Love, once flown away
5. Stream and Sea
6. Sad Song
Duration approx. 20 minutes
Six love songs based on texts by the Old-Austrian poet Paula von Preradovic radiate a golden glow - six different ways of looking at love!
Special features: Each song has its own character. The music interprets the text succinctly: e.g. Number one: low flute and harp ".... A distant wind..."
Number two: string runs: pulsation of the blood,
Number three: "...circles..." also the music, "scatters along the way (flute and clarinet), Number four: "...mocks..." the clarinet as love for the one who wants to capture it,
in number five: the music depicts the roaring waters,
in number six it expresses the lamenting cry of the lonely through two chords (A flat major sixth chord - C major).
The sixth song also takes the form of a passacaglia and layers melody upon melody, so that in the third verse the melodies of the second and first are instrumentally audible.
This form is intended to emphasize the compulsive nature of these states, which are all based on a pattern; from the threshold of death onwards, the compulsion is lifted and the music now moves without the "corset" of the passacaglia and reinterprets the words "...long enough!" in a hopeful way.
The cycle offers the soloist the opportunity to show herself from many sides thanks to its many colors. Numbers one and three: Iyrical; number two: extremely rhythmic; number four: agile; number five: operatically dramatic, number six: lyrical - dramatic.