Leaf by leaf falls from the tree of life
Words and music
by Hermann Hesse and Bertold Hummel

1. Adagio op. 62a2
2. last summer of his life ...
3. Fantasia op. 83,1
4. Feverishly the short summer night melted away ...
5. Six songs after poems by Hermann Hesse op. 71a
6. In the fog
7. Handwerksburschenpenne
8. Blue butterfly
9. Night feeling
10. Somewhere
11. Sometimes
12. High they sat in a floating swing above the abyss of the world and night ...
13. Giocoso op. 83,2
14. The last day of July had come ...
15. Headless - Song cycle after whimsical poems by Hermann Hesse op. 108
16. Headless
17. Reply to friends who had sent me a very difficult poem in the new style and asked whether I understood it
18. Waldnacht - poem by a Schwabing symbolist
19. Portrait of a man of letters who has grown too old
20. Soirée
21. Instruction
22. The music was suddenly silenced ...
23. Sostenuto op. 83,3
    

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

Recording: April/July 2006

About the programme of this CD:

When my father died on 9 August 2002, the last completed work he left behind was a small song cycle entitled "Kopflos". It was composed for a festival in Hesse's native town of Calw and was to be premiered there on 17 August 2002.

At the time, I didn't realise that Hermann Hesse had died 40 years earlier on the same day. This peculiar connection inspired me to read Hesse's novels again. Various passages from Klingsor's Last Summer touched me deeply, as I thought I discovered parallels to the last weeks of my father's life. I was also moved by the fact that the 40-year-old Hermann Hesse so vividly anticipated dying in the burning, feverish month of August.

I premiered the programme recorded on this CD with Markus Bellheim on the memorial day of 9 August 2003 in Calw. In my opinion, the two piano compositions that Bertold Hummel wrote in memory of Benjamin Britten and Alban Berg combine seamlessly with Hermann Hesse's worldly thoughts from Klingsor's Last Summer, so that this document, which for me is so personal, can also cast its spell over a wider audience.

Martin Hummel