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13. Schlafendes Jesuskind (Mörike Lieder No. 25)
Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) / Eduard Friedrich Mörike (1804-75) Trans. Eric Sams (1926-2004)
Lied - picture etc... a religious meditation on the painting by Francesco Albani (1578-1660), written in 1888 (and orchestrated in 1890).
To the simple beauty of the homophonic piano (Malcolm in his element making this sing), three voices add to the melody a choral texture
which draws us from the gallery to the church.
Eric Sams says:
"In both source and song-book the poem is laconically headed, 'Gemalt von Franc. Albani'. We know from a letter to Wilhelm Hartlaub
(23 March 1862), enclosing a copy of the poem, that Mörike had seen the picture he describes, by Francesco Albani (1578-1660),
reproduced in the journal Freya with the caption 'The child Jesus in an agreeably shady spot in the open air asleep on a small and, as
it were, decorative cross'.
"The final verbal repetition is Wolf's, not Mörike's."
If you want to find out more about the songs, we recommend The Songs of Hugo Wolf by the late Eric Sams
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