ABSCHIED
Emily Feldberg's Music
UPDATES FROM THE COMPOSER
EMILY FELDBERG'S MUSIC
HOME PAGE
FRAGMENTS:
AUDIO CLIP LINKS
(listed below)
August 1914

Abschied
(This page)

Lament Canary Girls The Knock on the Door Under A Cloudless Blue Sky Kuchen! (Another Mother's Son) Three Tommies Duty Alone Vale Lest we forget
Supported using public funding by ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND

ABSCHIED
Emily Feldberg's Music
UPDATES FROM THE COMPOSER
EMILY FELDBERG'S MUSIC
HOME PAGE
FRAGMENTS:
AUDIO CLIP LINKS
(listed below)
August 1914

Abschied
(This page)

Lament Canary Girls The Knock on the Door Under A Cloudless Blue Sky Kuchen! (Another Mother's Son) Three Tommies Duty Alone Vale Lest we forget
Supported using public funding by ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND



ABSCHIED a setting from
Fragments: Voices from the First World War



DETAILS AND TEXT/TRANSLATION.

Abschied (Song of Parting):
Composer's note: Alfred Lichtenstein wrote this poem4 for his friend Peter Scher shortly before going to the front, where he was killed in September 1914, aged 25. The music aims to reflect both the heartfelt words of the poem and the background of the middle-class German poet, who one assumes would have been familiar with the rich sounds of Brahms and Beethoven. I have set the poem in the original German. (See the Libretto, reproduced below, for the translation.5)

Original text:

Abschied [4]
Vorm Sterben mache' ich noch mein Gedicht
Still, Kameraden, stört mich nicht
Wir ziehn zum Krieg, der Tod ist unser Kitt
O heulte' mir doch die Geliebte nit
Was liegt an mir? Ich geh' gerne ein
Die Mutter weint
Man muss aus Eisen sein
Die Sonne fällt zum Horizont hinab
Bald wirft man mich ins milde Massengrab
Am Himmel brennt das brave Abendrot
Vielleicht bin ich in dreizehn Tagen tot

Parting [5]
Before I die I will write my poem.
Quiet, friends, don't disturb me.
We're heading for war. Death is our bond.
Oh, if only my beloved would stop howling.
What am I to do. I go gladly to it.
Mother is crying. One must be made of iron.
The sun sinks to the horizon.
Soon I will be thrown into the soft mass grave.
The sky is aflame with a splendid sunset
In thirteen days I may be dead.

REFERENCES:

4 Abschied (Farewell) by Alfred Lichtenstein (1889-1914). From Alfred Lichtenstein, Dichtungen. Edited by Kanzog, Vollmer & Raabe (1989). Arche Verlag AG, Zürich.
5 With thanks to Alison Dietz for the translation.


Emily Feldberg's Music

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