Strauss, Richard

the words by Gustav Falke "Du schläft und sachte neig' ich mich", notated in the key of G flat major for soprano and two flutes, two bassoons, harp and five solo strings, in black ink on two systems per page of ten staves each, annotated by Strauss in pencil ("Auf in Es"), with rehearsal numbers for the conductor added in blue crayon and a few corrections to accidentals in pencil and orange crayon 

3 pages, large quarto (c.34.5 x 26.9cm), 26-stave paper by Lard Esnault of Paris, dark green-gilt folder, Charlottenburg, 24 March 1900, some staining and wear to lower leading corners

Trenner 187 no.3; RSQV ID w0323 (this source is listed as "unbekannt": RSQV ID q01083). Norman Del Mar, Richard Strauss. A Critical Commentary on his Life and Works III (1972), pp.309-311.

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate
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This is a most attractive and unusual manuscript by Strauss of "one of his most beautiful songs...especially so in its delicate setting for a chamber ensemble of ten solo instruments" (Del Mar).  Strauss originally composed Meinem Kinde in February 1897 for voice and piano in G major. For his beautiful and restrained chamber version, Strauss has chosen the key of six flats (traditionally associated with operatic love duets).  Norman Del Mar observes that "the key of G flat in which the instrumental original is set has a particularly apt velvety quality and is infinitely preferable to the generally accepted transposed version for high voice". 

This manuscript was evidently used for performance, and is well-thumbed, but shows no sign of having been used for publication.  The chamber version of Meinem Kinde was sung at the first performance by Strauss's wife Pauline de Ahna, with Strauss directing, on 3 October 1900.  It was not published until 1911, as one of Five Orchestral Songs, in the higher key of G, and with a full body of strings.  No manuscript source is recorded for the chamber version in either key by the Richard Strauss Quellenverzeichnis (the autograph manuscript for soprano and piano is in the Austrian National Library).