‘Einklang’ is the second of Hugo Wolf’s Six sacred songs for unaccompanied choir. All six are based on texts by Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, the quintessential poet of early German Romanticism, and all were given new titles by Wolf to suggest a cycle based on night-time reflection. The songs were written in 1881 in response to the break-up of Wolf’s relationship with Vally Franck, his first great love. ‘Einklang’, originally entitled ‘Nachtgruß’ (Night Greeting), addresses one of Eichendorff’s recurrent themes, the search for inner peace. It bears comparison with another Eichendorff text, ‘Abschied vom Wald’, set most famously by Mendelssohn: both poems talk of retreating from the deceptions of a busy world, in one case into nature, here into the peace that only ‘another King’ can bring. The title ‘Einklang’, usually translated as ‘harmony’, is particularly apposite, as both words and music are infused with a deep sense of repose; what’s more, the text is set almost entirely in four-part harmony. Perhaps unsurprisingly given the date of composition—Wolf had just entered his twenties—the style is relatively traditional, with each of the three stanzas ending unambiguously in the home key. That said, there are frequent harmonic side-steps and unorthodox voicings that hint at the advanced chromatic language of Wolf’s more mature compositions.

from notes by Martin Ennis © 2020