Beim Schlafengehen by Richard Strauss

Not the greatest of titles (German for “Going to Sleep”); but a heart-rendingly beautiful five-minute setting for soprano voice (though it needs a pretty hefty one) and orchestra of a poem by Hermann Hesse.

It is the third of the group called the Vier Letzte Lieder, or Four Last Songs, written by Richard Strauss (not to be confused with the waltzing Johann Strauss II and that crowd from Vienna, who are no relation) when he was in his eighties. You can download (free, gratis and for nothing) pretty good mp3 performances of all four here .

**Update: that link now seems to be defunct.The good news is that you can hear (and in the case of this song, see) performances of all four songs on YouTube by the incomparable Jessye Norman. The audio versions feature the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Kurt Masur, making this the greatest free distribution of art that I know of.

I’ve known them all, and other works by Strauss, for years, and I can’t think of anything even remotely as good in the song department.

Beats anything else into a cocked hat.

Except, maybe, Im Abendrot (In the Twilight), the last of the four… but I think this one wins by a short head. It's the section after the violin solo just short of halfway through that decides it for me.

Just.