Leaf by leaf, they fall from the Tree of Life
Words and music
by Hermann Hesse and Bertold Hummel

1. Adagio Op. 62a2
2. the last summer of his life …
3. Fantasia Op. 83,1
4. The brief summer night melted away feverishly …
5. Six Songs based on poems by Hermann Hesse, Op. 71a
6. In the mist
7. The Journeyman’s Pen
8. Blue Butterfly
9. Night-time feeling
10. Somewhere
11. Sometimes
12. High above, they sat in a floating swing over the abyss of the world and night …
13. Giocoso, Op. 83, No. 2
14. The last day of July had arrived …
15. Kopflos – song cycle based on whimsical poems by Hermann Hesse, Op. 108
16. Kopflos
17. A reply to friends who had sent me a very difficult poem in the new style and asked whether I understood it
18. Forest Night – a poem by a Schwabing Symbolist
19. Portrait of a writer who has grown too old
20. Soirée
21. Instruction
22. Suddenly the music fell silent …
23. Sostenuto, Op. 83, No. 3
    

Martin Hummel (baritone/narrator)
Markus Bellheim (piano)

Recorded: April/July 2006

About the programme on this CD:

When my father died on 9 August 2002, his last completed work was a short song cycle entitled ‘Kopflos’. It had been composed for a festival in Hesse’s birthplace, Calw, and was due to be premiered there on 17 August 2002.

At the time, I did not realise that Hermann Hesse had died on the very same day, 40 years earlier. This curious coincidence prompted me to revisit Hesse’s novels. Various passages from *Klingsor’s Last Summer* moved me deeply, as I felt I could discern parallels with the final weeks of my father’s life. I was also deeply moved by the fact that the 40-year-old Hermann Hesse had so vividly foreseen his own death during the scorching, feverish month of August.

I premiered the programme recorded on this CD with Markus Bellheim on the anniversary, 9 August 2003, in Calw. In my view, the two piano compositions that Bertold Hummel wrote in memory of Benjamin Britten and Alban Berg blend seamlessly with Hermann Hesse’s world-embracing thoughts from *Klingsor’s Last Summer*, so that this document, which is so personal to me, can also captivate a wider audience.

Martin Hummel