Rickard Söderberg - Vier Letzte Lieder (2021)

Singer Rickard Söderberg and pianist Johan Reis have performed over 400 concerts together and built up a unique intuitive co-music. At this concert, they offer music from their first joint album - Vier Letzte Lieder.

Richard Strauss was active during the first half of the 20th century and can without exaggeration be called one of the most important operatic composers in music history, who in his music also managed to connect different musical eras. During his last year in life, he summarizes everything in his Vier Letzte Lieder, the Four Last Songs. It was to be the very last Strauss completed.

Filled with a bright melancholy and certainty about the impending death, he created in the songs a world of sound that has enchanted people ever since they were premiered by Kirsten Flagstad in 1950. The lyrics are written by Herman Hesse and Joseph von Eichendorff.

The album also contains Franz Liszt's three magnificent compositions by the Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarca. They almost resemble minioperor with recitatives, arias and cabalets where the entire register of the voice is displayed in caressing melodies and dramatic outbursts.