So far on Liederabend we have heard three songs that set the William Shakespeare's poem that begins with the line “Come away, come away, death,” a poem found in Twelfth Night. In the context of the play it is a song sung by the clown Feste at the request of his master, Duke Orsino, who is lovesick (here you can find a synopsis).
All three pieces share one thing in common (apart from the text, I mean): they were composed during the 20th century: Sibelius’s in 1909, Korngold’s in 1937, and Finzi’s in 1943. The piece I’m proposing today, by contrast, is considerably earlier: it dates from 1859 and comes to us from Germany. From Hamburg, specifically, because Johannes Brahms wrote it for the Hamburger Frauenchor, a women’s choir he himself had founded a few months earlier and which was disbanded in 1863 when the composer left the city to live in Vienna.
Lied von Shakespeare (also known by its first line, Komm herbei, Tod) is the second of the Vier Gesänge für Frauenchor, Op. 17; as you can see, Brahms does not use the original English text but relies on the widely used German translation of Shakespeare by August Wilhelm von Schlegel, from the late XVIIIth century (to whom he would return years later for the Ophelia-Lieder). The song is strophic and, like the other pieces in the set, has an unusual accompaniment: two horns and harp. I find it a very beautiful piece that adds a quite different perspective to the interpretations of this lament we have heard so far; we will listen to the version by the RIAS Kammerchor conducted by Marcus Creed, with horn players Stefan Jezierski and Manfred Klier and harpist Marie Pierre Langlament. I hope you enjoy it!
Komm herbei, komm herbei, Tod,
Und versenk’ in Cypressen den Leib;
Lass mich frei, lass mich frei, Not,
Mich erschlägt ein holdseliges Weib.
Mit Rosmarin mein Leichenhemd,
O bestellt es!
Ob Lieb’ ans Herz mir tötlich kommt,
Treu’ hält es.
Keine Blum, keine Blum süß,
Sei gestreut auf den schwärzlichen Sarg;
Keine Seel’, keine Seel’ grüß
mein Gebein, wo die Erde es verbarg.
Um Ach und Weh zu wenden ab’,
bergt alleine
mich, wo kein Treuer wall’ ans Grab
und weine.
Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown:
A thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, O where
true lover never find my grave,
To weep there!
