Rainer Maria Rilke wrote his extended prose poem "Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Kornetts Christophe Rilke," in 1899, but it wasn't until a new edition appeared in 1912 that it skyrocketed in popularity and attracted the attention of many composers.
Rilke felt the words of his text were music enough, and objected in general to settings of his poem, but he paradoxically gave Danish composer Paul von Klenau (1883-1946) permission to use it. Klenau's 1918 setting of the entire poem for chorus and orchestra prominently uses a baritone soloist. Klenau (who went on to adopt serial techniques and wrote a twelve-tone opera about the same time as
Berg was working on Lulu) uses a Straussian post-romantic harmonic vocabulary here, but his music has an emotional objectivity and reserve more characteristic of French sensibilities of the era. His settings are pastel-hued and evocative, with genuine sensitivity to the subtleties of the text, and the lush middle section of the piece, which describes the Cornet's first romantic encounter, is particularly effective. Klenau's vocal writing tends to be metrically free and is strongly lyrical without being memorably melodic. His orchestration is inventive and highly colorful and clearly shows an awareness of the aesthetic of the Impressionists.
Bo Skovhus sings the solo part with an entirely appropriate blend of understatement and passion, and with secure, ringing tone. The
Czech Philharmonic Choir and
Odense Symphony Orchestra, under
Paul Mann, perform with shapeliness and nuanced attention to the score's detail. The sound of Dacapo's hybrid SACD is warm and atmospheric, with good balance between the voices and the orchestra.