In Lust und Schmerzen op. 4,1

Peter Cornelius once described himself as a "poet-composer", for he wrote the texts for many of his songs himself. This is the case with In Lust und Schmerzen, the first song of the three Liebeslieder which make up op. 4. Cornelius composed these songs in 1854 in Weimar, where he was living near Franz Liszt whom he greatly admired. Liszt’s influence can be discerned in the urgent piano accompaniment and the cumulative chromaticism which Cornelius chose as a means of expressing the emotional content of the text in music, alternating between "Lust und Leiden", between "Kampf und Ruh". The marking "Leidenschaftlich bewegt" ("passionately agitated") aptly describes the character of the song.

This art song was originally composed not for chamber choir, but for solo voice and piano. Denis Rouger has carefully adapted it to suit the requirements and expressive possibilities offered by a larger ensemble, without losing the any of the qualities of the original in the process. Each part in the choir has a melodic line drawn from the harmonic and rhythmic framework. In the process, the variety and refinement of the choral language combines with an enormous flexibility in form and expression, as French melodies or German art song demand from a soloist and pianist. The songs have been recorded by the figure humaine chamber choir on the CD "Kennst du das Land ..." (Carus 83.495).