Nikolai Medtner - 3 Nocturnes for violin and piano Op. 16 (audio + sheet music)
The year 1907 found the composer in Germany where many superb settings of Goethe, one of his favourite poets, were written: the Twelve Goethe Songs, Op. 15 and Six Poems of Goethe, Op. 18. Among the poems originally considered was Nachtgesang, which Schubert had set in 1814. Sketches for a vocal version were made but, unsatisfied, Medtner fashioned them into an instrumental “song without words“; thus was born his first work for violin and piano, the Three Nocturnes, Op. 16. Goethe’s poem, with its evocative reference to a stringed instrument, appears as a preface to the published score:
O lend, from your soft pillow,
Dreaming, half-an-ear!
To the playing of my strings
Sleep! What more do you want?
To the playing of my strings
The host of stars
Blesses eternal feelings;
Sleep! What more do you want?
Eternal feelings
Lift me, high and glorious,
Above the earthly tumult;
Sleep! What more do you want?
From the earthly tumult
You remove me