Der Arbeitsmann

Strauss set 11 poems by the German poet Richard Dehmel over the period 1895-1901, four of them in his Opus 39 collection (Leises Lied, Befreit and Lied am meinem Sohn being the other Opus 39 Dehmel settings) and another the 1899 orchestral song Notturno. Dehmel was a controversial figure in the Germany of Kaiser Wilhelm II, a socialist who had been convicted for blasphemy in Berlin during 1897.^[1] He was the same age as Strauss, and “Dehmel worked squarely within the aesthetic territory occupied by Strauss”.^[2] Whilst Strauss had little interest in the politics of Dehmel, he shared the Nietzschean perspective that human lives are lived among and controlled by physical forces. Whilst the two had corresponded for several years, they first met on March 23, 1899 (Hugo von Hofmannsthal was accompanying Dehmel, and also met Strauss for the first time).^[3]

According to Norman Del Mar, "Strauss was the last one to become involved in social reform, but where his art was concerned he was equally fearless in his adoption of inflammatory subject-material. Hence, when during his study of Dehmel his eye lighted upon this stirring poem of protest, he entertained no more thought of the disapproval it might arouse than he would a few years later, over the sexual extravagances of Wilde's Salome. To him, here was a magnificent vehicle for music, and of it he made one of his very greatest songs, full of drama and pathos".^[4] Alan Jefferson wrote:

Der Arbeitsmann...is a hard and remorseless setting to equally rough and rugged words that express extreme bitterness, while again the character in the poem who utters them seems, although forced to do the most wretched and demeaning work, to possess some education. The almost military funeral march in F minor which pervades the song has a fearsome...accompaniment for the pianist, extremely difficilt as it is written. Only the last two bars of the song are free of accidentals.; and the doleful and pessimistic harmonies, constantly shifting, spell the tota unhappiness and hopelessness of the workman. Only the mention of walks in the fields on Sundays brings a major key introduction - F Major - and the descending thirds with trills to signify the totally free birds. But this is soon turned back into despairing downward thrustsof the piano as it grows in fierceness and intensity. Iron is in the soul of the singer, for time is against him, time - for him - is out of joint.^[5]

Following Strauss, several composers wrote songs that were settings of Dehmel poems, including Reger, Schoenberg, Sibelius and Szymanowski. Hans Erich Pfitzner also set the poem Der Arbeitsmann in his op. 30 (4 Lieder) no. 4 in 1922.