Hugo Wolf - “Der Feuerreiter“ (Mörike) Fischer-Dieskau

An exciting ending to my month long tribute to Hugo Wolf, “Der Feuerreiter“ is one of 53 songs composed by Wolf in 1888 to texts of the German lyric poet Eduard Mörike (1804-1875). In this song Wolf “shifts the emphasis from melody and harmony towards rhythm and texture, and to a lesser degree, timbre; in this way he avoids the leitmotif idea in favor of rhythmic motives and textures which are more easily combined according to the dramatic interactive requirements of the text. Wolf’s use of text-painting is