The composite words of this three minute lied form a praise song (auf Deutsch) to night time, as if the dream life fell into our heads with the darkness, as though this was an unexceptionably pleasant thing, and as though dreamers necessarily cry for its return when the morning takes it all away. It is the music that makes this argument, however. The entire score is incredibly quiet (pp) and lulling throughout, but the rhythmic structure is deliberately disjoint; the accompanying piano is much faster than the vocal line, which accordingly floats over the top like a single steadily expanding cloud that does not appear to move as it falls. This song is also one of only two pieces of pre-existing music that Samuel Beckett included in dramatic works (Beethoven’s “Ghost Trio” is the other), this for German television and very late in his life, which this piece appears to capture. A sleeping man twice dreams of himself being comforted (or nursed?) by the hands of an unseen other (possibly himself again), differentiated by the second dream image's greater size as if it is slowly crowding out the dreamer, who may or may not still exist in the waking world.
Note: For Advent, 25 secular essays about 25 songs, one per day from Dec. 1 through Dec. 25. Each essay is exactly 200 words long.
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