Violine I (Italienisches Liederbuch)

"...songs from the Italian Songbook sophisticatedly arranged for voice and string quartet by Jehi Bahk...." - Wilhelm Sinkovicz, Die Presse

The texts of the 46 songs in Hugo Wolf's "Italian Songbook" (Volume 1: 1890/91, Volume 2: 1896) are taken from Paul Heyse's "Italian Songbook" (1860), which contains a collection of translations of folkloristic ballads, elegies and songs ("rispetti"). Wolf's settings are almost exclusively transcriptions of "rispetti", which are mostly six- to eight-line songs in which lovers express their derisive, amorous or passionate thoughts to their partners or to other people. 

Compared to the first volume, it is noticeable that the piano part in the second volume has more complex polyphonic structures, which is possibly why Hugo Wolf once told Edwin Mayser that the second volume contained more absolute music than the first and that much of it could just as well be played by a string quartet. Whatever motivated Hugo Wolf to make this statement: He found a compositional way to find the highest degree of sublime expression in these miniature songs with the simplest of means, a way that Anton von Webern later also elevated to his creative maxim.

Hugo Wolf's statement to Edwin Mayser and the 100th anniversary of his death (2003) prompted me to transcribe a selection of songs from the second volume for voice and string quartet. It was important to me to remain as close as possible to the original musical text, while at the same time making the polyphonic structures more transparent and giving the songs an even more concentrated drama and lyrical density in the new sound form.