Wenn im letzten Abendstrahl
Goldne Wolkenberge steigen
Und wie Alpen sich erzeigen,
Frag' ich oft mit Tränen:
Liegt wohl zwischen jenen
Mein ersehntes Ruhetal?

When in the last rays of evening
Golden mountains of clouds rise
And appear like the Alps,
I often ask with tears:
Does my longed-for valley of rest lie among them?

"She remained to the end completely unconscious of her worth and importance. Every homage, every mark of appreciation, every friendly gesture she accepted as an unearned gift a love of which she still had to prove herself worthy.  This unconsciousness gave her character, even in her old age, a charming, moving, childlike quality; and therewith an amiable magic that no frank spirit was long able to resist!' - Lebensabriss 62-63

Josephine Lang was born in Munich, Germany in 1815 and she truly suffered for her art so much that after one performance in 1840 the Queen of Bavaria arranged for her to visit the royal bathhouses to recover however rather than relaxing she started a love affair with a lawyer and poet who fell in love with Josephine's singing voice at first and who soon became her husband and during the next few years her songs were mostly set to his poetry. Her husband became a lecturer at the University of Tübingen which is where the poet, and previously lawyer, Ludwig Uhland was an honorary professor for four years.

Ruhetal is the second song of Sechs Deutsche Lieder published in 1845 and the poetry implies that peace, for the protagonist, can only really exist among the clouds.  Although the subject matter may almost seem bleak it is often cited as human sensitivity and a romanticised nature and Lang finds a melancholy calmness and serenity in the longed for peace of death.  Her use of the chorale-like first two bars sets the tone and gives us the dotted motif that after disappearing after the first beat appears again and remains with us until the very final bar. 
Although the song is about peace the singer has to master big leaps and a conscious control of dynamics and legato which makes the song an excellent study.
The score can be found here on page 5 https://vmirror.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/a/a5/IMSLP616472-PMLP990505-JLang_6_Deutsche_Lieder,_Op.11_color.pdf

Lang's husband dying of cancer in 1956 started a long period of grief and suffering for her where she lost beloved family, including her three sons, and friends as well as her daughters leaving to start their own independent lives. She suffered a heart attack and died in 1880 with an enormous catalogue of music left behind and she continues to inspire and entertain us with her vast legacy of songs.

As far as I am aware there are no commercial recordings of Ruhetal and if you would like to record it and have it posted here I am very happy to receive recordings from you and it would be great to see how many of you can add this beautiful song to your repertoire.

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Carrie Jacobs-Bond was one of the greatest songwriters of her generation. She was born in Janesville in either 1861 or 1862, her father lost their family fortune and died while Carrie was still a child and her marriage at 18 years old only lasted seven years before she remarried.  Within seven years of her second marriage she began to suffer from terrible rheumatism and then her husband lost his job and in 1894 died leaving her a single mother of a five year old son.  "It was the necessity of supporting myself and my little son that made me a writer of songs. It is true that even as a little girl, when I thought of the future, I always thought of myself as a songwriter."

She was immensely generous to the extent that she invited a homeless family to live with her even though she was having to sell her possessions just to make ends meet and then a fortunate accidental meeting with a neighbour's friend who saw the manuscripts and the piano in her room and started playing her song 'I Love You Truly' with which he was very impressed and promised to help her.

Her first songs published became extremely successful and she decided to start her own publishing company with her son.

Because Carrie Jacobs-Bond published her own work and wrote her own lyrics she was one of just a handful of composers that personally owned every word and every note of her compositions.

Carrie Jacobs-Bond died in 1946 of a brain haemorrhage and is honoured by Los Angeles City Council as "one of America's greatest women".

3 Songs as Unpretentious as The Wild Rose are beautiful miniatures dedicated to three sopranos Jennie Osborne Hannah who was well know in Michigan in oratorio and song, Clara Henley Bussing from Chicago and known throughout America in opera and concert, and Mary Peck Thompson who played both Siebel and Marthe in a concert performance whilst a student and performed in the closing concert of the formal dedication of the Eliza Fowler Hall at Purdue University.  

The first song considers the frailty of a plucked flower comparing it to a friendship that doesn't last yet leaves good memories.  The second song tells of a young woman hopelessly in love and pondering the faithfulness of her lover ending with 'He loves me, he loves me not, loves me!'.  The third song begins with a slowly descending chromatic bass highlighting loss and sadness whilst the only diatonic final four bars attempt to make us believe her hopes are fulfilled.

The score can be found below, please sing and play through it and leave your comments below.

https://s9.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/a/af/IMSLP196066-SIBLEY1802.10653.a41d-39087011999754three_songs.pdf

Ann Mounsey was born in Soho, London in 1811. Ann composed for piano, organ, choirs and the solo voice as well as many cantatas and an oratorio (The Nativity).  She was an outstanding organist for well over fifty years famously accompanying the world premiere of Hear My Prayer by Mendelssohn, a piece that was written specially for her concert series as well as being a founder member of the Society of Female Musicians.
Her Six Songs were reviewed in 1882
These Six Songs are a worthy contribution to the somewhat limited store of high-class vocal music by modern composer, for not only has Mrs. Bartholomew given an exquisite colouring to the words she has chosen, but the words are those which can only be fitly treated by a kindred artist. In No. 1 Shakespeare’s verses are set with a truly sympathetic feeling to a quaint subject in A minor, the modulations in the course of the song growing up naturally with the text, and the accompaniment forming so integral a portion of the composition as to demand something more than the average accompanist at the pianoforte.’ [...] No. 6, from the 'Percy Relics,’ effectively terminates a series of songs standing so completely apart from our fashionable works of the day as to make us believe that they must command the attention of all real artists."
Ann died in 1891 and left an enormous legacy as a musician and educator.
I first performed the Six Songs with the fabulous pianist Yoshie Kawamura at the Literary & Philosophical Society Recital Series in 2023.

The score can be found here https://vmirror.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/f/f1/IMSLP723081-PMLP1151613-D1477-27.pdf

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