Three Versions Of The Comparison And Analysis For Richard Strauss’ Vocal Suite Four Last Songs

Four last songs is the great opus of Richard Strauss before his decease as well as arepresentative work of German and Austrian art songs, This orchestra accompanied soprano suite,instrumentalizes vocals to forge the perfect blending of voice and instrument. Since it’sprocreation, there has been around seventy performance versions. This article selects the threeversions performed by the three vocalists, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Tiri Te Kanawa and JessyeNorman to compare and contrast. Encompassing voice timbre, singing speed, singing strength,language articulation, breath management and emotion execution, it provides a comprehensiveand detailed analysis. The end of the article discusses the helpfulness this comparison of thethree performances can provide for future performances. I.e. the performance methods toinstrumentalizedv of vocal performance and aspects of caution to breathe control will act asvaluable references to the future studies of musical performers and scholars surrounding thiswork.