motet notes - Wolf

Einkehr comes from Sechs Geistliche Lieder (Six Sacred Songs), a setting of poems by Joseph Eichendorff, a favorite among German Romantic composers. He composed these pieces in 1881, at about the time when his fiancée wrote him to break off their engagement. Einkehr reflects the composer's descent into despair. The longing and loss evident in the musical settings of these religious texts may well have been of a more earthly nature.  What we find in the very sparse output of Wolf’s choral music is the sprawling harmonic language of Anton Bruckner condensed into something more akin to the scope of a compact Hugo Wolf song.  

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