The Four Orchestral Songs (Ger: 4 Orchesterlieder), Op. 1, is a musical work for voice and orchestra by Czech composer Hans Krása.
The work was composed in 1920, setting nonsense verses from the collection Galgenlieder (Eng: Gallows Songs) by Christian Morgenstern.[1] The first performance took place at the Neues Deutsches Theater in Prague in May 1921 with the Czech Philharmonic under the direction of Krása's composition teacher Alexander Zemlinsky.[2] The soloist was baritone Max Klein. The performance caught the attention of the writer and critic Max Brod who from then on took a close interest in Krása's career.[3] The work was subsequently taken into the publishing house of Universal Edition.[4]
The titles of the four songs are as follows:-
The set has a performance duration of approximately 8 minutes.
The orchestra consists of: two piccolos, two flutes, two oboes, cor anglais, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, four trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, celesta, and strings.