Performance Studies Of The Piano Parts Of Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs

The Four Last Songs for soprano and orchestra are the final completed works of Richard Georg Strauss.These masterpieces are perfectly fusing the orchestra and the vocals,highly valued on artistic merit,and honored as “swan’s voice”.This article takes the Four Last Songs as the subject.The first chapter analyzed their overall features.The second studied the specific characteristics,analyzing the correlation of piano parts,melody,and the lyrics,hence concluded that the piano parts are not only accompaniment but having the same importance with the melody voice parts,commonly explaining the connotation of the pieces.The last chapter based on the previous two,studied the performing treatments of the piano parts,especially the difficult points and key points,concluded with the cooperation methods with the voice parts.