Drei Lieder

In the last few years, Clytus Gottwald’s sophisticated arrangements have very successfully established themselves in the choral repertoire all over the world. In his choral transcriptions, Gottwald applies the vocal compositional techniques of contemporary music to traditional compositions, using the highly differentiated sound to reveal the structures of these works.

Hugo Wolf's 53 Lieder on poems by Eduard Mörike were composed during the years 1888 1890, almost simultaneously with the Lieder cycles on poems by Goethe and Eichendorff. In 2013, Clytus Gottwald transcribed three of the "Mörike Lieder" for vocal ensemble. In "In der Frühe" [At Dawn], the disturbing opening lines leadinto chords depicting the comforting ringing of the morning bells.

Gottwald's transcription aims at dramatizing this by making use of sonorities derived from the spectra of bell sounds. The famous "Gebet" [Prayer] is modeled after a chorale, but Wolf contradicts the "holdes Bescheiden" [beautiful humility] for which Mörike prays by means of a not at all humble reminiscence of "Isolde's Liebestod." In the third Lied, "Um Mitternacht" [At Midnight], Wolf paints a somber world with gently blurred dissonances.