Richard Strauss composed Allerseelen ( “Stell auf den Tisch die duftenden Reseden”) for solo voice and piano in 1885 when, at the age of 21, he had just become the new court music director in Meiningen. Today it is one of his most popular songs. Strauss’s Op. 10 features a total of eight settings of texts from the collection Letzte Blätter (Last Leaves) by the Austrian poet Hermann von Gilm. This early opus paved the way for a rich lifelong output of nearly 200 art songs.

The song laments a...