Winterreise

This recital by Joyce DiDonato, mezzo, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, piano, of Schubert's Die Winterreise has a gimmick.  This is a long letter from her beloved which she reads as she sings.  This overcomes the masculine oriented text and allows her to read the text.  Interesting.  It also allows her to dramatize more than normally is done in a recital.  She begins seated and stands later on.  I think Joyce enjoys Lieder as theater.  Why not?

She is performing with the lid all the way up on the piano, something that doesn't often happen in a piano vocal recital.  This may be the explanation for my experience of poor balance between voice and piano.

I love this cycle and enjoyed Joyce singing it.  It won't pull me away from Jonas Kaufmann's version.

Tanya Végváry Plescia pianist

Berceuse by Tanya Vegvary (2015)
Lullaby for Elijah by Tanya Vegvary (2010)
Sonata in Bb Major, Molto moderato by Franz Schubert (1828)
-Interval-
Chopin, Etudes Opus 25 No, 1, 2, 3
Chopin, Fantasy Impromptu Opus 66
Waiting for a Call by Tanya Vegvary (2018)
Geary Street by Tanya Vegvary (2005)  [The one in San Francisco]

I attended the Saturday Club performance of Tanya Végváry Plescia last night.  She has a school called the Sacramento Piano Conservatory where she performed for us.  She explained that this way she gets to play her own piano which is voiced heavy in the bass, as she prefers.

Her existence and the existence of her school was new to me.  The test of a pianist is Chopin, of course, and she passed.  She showed plenty of rubato and played as loud as necessary.  She said he's her favorite, and her own music seemed to descend from this style. 

I'll have to keep my eye out for her.

Schubert from Wigmore

Mary Bevan soprano
Tara Erraught mezzo-soprano
Allan Clayton tenor
Henk Neven baritone
James Baillieu piano

I apologize for leaving out the pianist and string quartet.  You can go on to medici.tv and view them for yourself.  The Wigmore Hall series seems to be free.

I sang a bit of Schubert and don't think I was so sedate as these singers.  Let's just say I overdid everything.  Schubert is the most likely to make me miss the life of music.

I don't think I've heard "Die junge Nonne" since I sang it at 19.  Tara does a lovely job.  It helps if you understand the words.

Concerts in the Sacramento Area

Andrés Cárdenes

The first Sacramento Philharmonic concert of the year featured the man pictured above.  All season each concert will be led by a different conductor.  With Maestro Cárdenes we got two for the price of one when he both conducted and played the violin solo for the Mozart Violin Concerto No. 3.  I especially liked Mendelssohn's The Hebrides which has very unusual orchestration for its period.  It was an enjoyable concert.

Philippe Sly at Mondavi

Philippe Sly, bass-baritone, and John Charles Britton, guitar, treated us to an all-Schubert program on the side stage at Mondavi Center.  I have been in this space before when I saw Monteverdi in 2013, but since that time it has been arranged as a cabaret with small tables.  We were allowed to bring in food and drink (I highly recommend the macaroons).  I have already seen Philippe in The Secret Garden, Cosi fan Tutte, and Partenope at the San Francisco Opera, where I will soon see him as Figaro in Figaro.  He is currently an Adler Fellow and is being given some big assignments.  I selected him for sexiest in Partenope.

There were a few odd things about this performance:  there were no programs, so I will have to rely on memory, and they were miked.  They commented after the performance that the mikes were a surprise.  The miking was discrete, although it changes the timbre of the guitar more than the singer.  There were 2 screens:  English words were projected on one side and paintings by Caspar David Friedrich, a contemporary of Schubert, on the other.

The guitar arrangements were by the guitarist.  In one spot Philippe reached over and keyed one of the guitar strings because John couldn't reach it.  Cute.  The use of guitar accompaniment was a big influence on the selection of repertoire.  We agreed that melodramatic Schubert wouldn't really work with guitar.

Du bist die Ruh
Du liebst mich nicht
An die Musik
Auf dem Wasser zu singen
Der Lindenbaum
Der Leiermann

That's it.  I can't remember anything else.  There were 2 songs from Scheone Muellerin and 2 more from Winterreise.


The intimacy of the space and the gentleness of the guitar/bass-baritone combination created a sweetness that was very pleasing.

There was an encore by Ravel.  M. Sly is French Canadian.  I predict big things for Philippe.

Winterreise

👍🏻
For me opera came last. There was Bach first. And then came Lieder. "Die Blumen sind verstorben." I am perhaps too depressed for this. It is so intense. Afterward one should go out into the cold and cry. "Wo find ich gruenes Grass?"  We have finally had some days of rain so at least the grass is green here.  In California it's green in winter and brown in summer.

We have come to the one I know. "Am Brunnen vor dem Tore da steht ein Lindenbaum."  I see the gate and the tree.

The idea of an art song came from Schubert. The idea is that the piano and the singer are one, that the song exists exactly as it is, that you, pianist and singer, must make it yours without altering even the smallest thing. 

Before that there was tune and figured bass. Modern song making is much like that. Take this broad outline, these words and outline of chords and make of them your own song. It rises and falls with you and your imagination. But with Schubert you have only your heart to make it music.

And Winterreise is the peak.  We see the gray landscape he has painted and feel the emptiness of loss.

This is how German is supposed to sound.  Think how easy it is to understand. The Lieder music is perhaps the closest to my own soul, touches my musical heart in its deepest place.  It's as though to actually know Jonas Kaufmann would make it too personal.  It is already too personal.

He is the singing artist of today and is at his peak now.  We believe when he sings them the most bizarre things.  Puccini even.  But here he is at home in his own land, his own language, his own music. 

He is singing about a crow that is following him.  It's very creepy.  I haven't seen very much written about this, so I will have to make up my own mind.  I often reject Lieder recitals because it is not as I would have sung them.  I only wish I could have made anything this perfect.

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Things you can buy in Germany

This is an advanced sale.

But not here.

The ones I want are Winterreise and Don Carlo.

Things to watch

Here is the complete Schubert's Winterreise with Jonas Kaufmann and Helmut Deutsch.



The recording will be better, but this is pretty amazing.

Thomas Hampson and the Jupiter String Quartet

Baritone Thomas Hampson appeared as vocal soloist with the Jupiter String Quartet at Mondavi Center in Davis Wednesday evening in a pleasing combination of familiar and unfamiliar music. 

I have chosen to show this picture of the quartet with their bows raised because this was a feature of the performance.  They began the concert with an early quartet by Schubert, String Quartet in Eb, D. 87.  The four movements--sonata allegro, scherzo, slow movement, another sonata allegro--were not listed in the program.  This and the elaborate gestures shown above led to a lot of clapping between the movements.  Or perhaps the tradition of waiting quietly for the piece to finish is disappearing.  I remember in Paris Simon Keenlyside had to ask the audience to please not clap between the songs in Dichterliebe.  If they don't remember in Paris, why should they in Davis?

There was a kind of late Romantic quality to the remainder of the program.  There was a very early and therefore late Romantic piece by Anton Webern called Langsamer Satz, which just means slow movement.  I enjoyed this music quite a lot.  The Jupiter String Quartet is a somewhat sedate ensemble who may try to compensate with big gestures.

They also played something called Italian Serenade by Hugo Wolf, in the same basic late Romantic spirit.

Hampson's presence on the program brought us Aristotle, a new piece by Mark Adamo.  I find it impossible to describe this poem, but you can read it here.  My favorite part was "piles of ripe avocados" which came in the middle.  The poem has three sections:  Beginning, Middle, End.  So the avocados come in the middle of the poem in the section called Middle for no discernible reason.  Perhaps it's a literary reference.  (I see there is a blog named Piles of Ripe Avocados.)  We may deduce what is meant by "It is Sylvia Plath in the kitchen" in the End section.  She must have committed suicide in the kitchen.  Adamo is suitably post romantic for this very post romantic concert.  He was there to receive applause.

The program ended with the for me familiar parts:  a group of songs by Hugo Wolf accompanied by the string quartet.  The program does not say who arranged them for string quartet, but the arrangements are very pleasing.  I have heard Schubert Lieder arranged for instrumental ensemble and not liked them.  Schubert's piano is very percussive and idiomatic, and for my ears the songs were destroyed by these arrangements.  Wolf survived the transformation quite nicely.   For Wolf it's all harmony and phrase rather than text painting.

Fussreise
Auf einer Wanderung
Im Frühling
Auf ein altes Bild
Verborgenheit
Anakreon's Grab  (one of my favorite Lieder.)

And for an encore...
Der Rattenfänger

Very nice.  Come again any time.

Risë Stevens (1913-2013)

She was gorgeous enough to be a movie star.  She sings Schubert's "Ave Maria" with Bing Crosby in Going My Way.  Clearly it's her key.

She was one of the all time great Carmens.

She wrote that when filming for the movies, she would sing on set an octave down.

What the heck.  Here's another from the period just before she retired.

It is good to remember she was very sexy both in and out of drag.

Meine Ruh ist hin

Gretchen's song from Goethe's Faust sung by Brigitte Fassbaender.

Night and Dreams

I’m glad I decided to buy Night and Dreams instead of the more typical Wesendonck album. 

Measha Brueggergosman is an artist who has self-consciously eschewed opera in favor of the concert stage.  I have wondered what would become of this singer, seemingly so obviously destined for Strauss operas, or perhaps even Wagner.

There are, of course, lots of people who only want to hear lyric sopranos in virtually all repertoire, and some of them even read this blog.  Measha is a spinto with a lovely full tone who can color her voice light or heavy, dark or bright.  She can also find the line with these colors.  Without the line there is nothing. 

There are language coaches listed for French, German, Brazilian and Spanish.  French repertoire is represented by Fauré, Chausson, Poulenc, Liszt, Debussy, Duparc and Hahn.  For German we have Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, Wolf and Strauss.  Spanish is Montsalvatge and Falla.  That must mean that the song by Francis Hime is in Brazilian.  Is that enough?  No?  Then there is Sleep by Peter Warlock in English.

I prefer the late romantics of any language in her voice.  Every song selected for this album does not successfully go spinto, but enough do.  More passionate renditions you will not hear.

Justus Zeyen is the piano accompanist, transparent and gorgeous in every style.

Learn to love big.  You won’t regret it.
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Die Schöne Müllerin

I decided Jonas Kaufmann's recording of Die Schöne Müllerin deserved a hearing where he was not alternating with Goerne. I must say it makes a much better impression this way. Jonas's diction is impeccable. If I don't understand a word, it's probably because I don't know it.

One wants youth, poetry, enthusiasm from the miller. He loves the stream he walks along and talks to it. The poems by Wilhelm Müller project a kind of innocence that would never have attracted the attention of history if Franz Schubert had not set them to music.

In Jonas's voice each song has a personal character. There is joy, love, sorrow and still the primitive innocence of the poetry. What more could we ask?
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Liking / not Liking

Can I prefer one without disliking the other? Jonas is telling me the story. He tells of green's Shadenfreud. I'd go out into the world if only everything weren't so green. I don't mind Goerne. I just don't feel it so heavy. I want the naivite. It probably helps that I understand the words.

We're still doing Schubert. Der Mai ist gekommen. Der Winter ist aus.

Dueling Müllerinen

I mentioned that both Jonas Kaufmann and Matthias Goerne had recently produced recordings of Schubert's Die Schöne Müllerin. Sarah piped right up and said that Goerne's was better. So what could I do? I bought both of them and put them on my iPod.

The result is certainly curious. If I select one of these albums, I get all the tracks from both, alternating Kaufmann and Goerne. This is certainly a good way of deciding whether or not Kaufmann is a baritone. After he does a track, you hear an actual baritone doing the same thing. I suspect Sarah prefers Goerne because he is a baritone.

Goerne has developed a style for Lieder that is quite attractive. He emphasizes his gorgeous legato and expresses the text primarily through darkening his tone to a deep, cave-like sound. I feel his style is more suitable for Schumann.

Kaufmann is lighter and piu leggiero. For me this is more suitable for this the most gemütlich of Schubert's song cycles.

I see Wunderlich has also recorded this with a far more tenor-like sound, but I refuse to buy it.
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Bernarda Fink Schubert Lieder

For my ears Bernarda Fink is obviously not German, though her diction is excellent. This is hard to explain. The phrasing is beautiful but not exactly German. I'm told she is from Argentina.

I love Schubert, and find these easy to listen to. Two criticisms of the album:

• If I turn the sound down to the point where it doesn't hurt my ears, I can hardly hear the piano. This is an engineering issue.
• Engineer also must insert a bit of dead space at the end of each song so you can tell when one stops and the next one begins. This problem is worse because of the first item.
  

Her voice is very sweet, but the tone does not vary much. There are songs here I haven't heard in years: "Ganymed," "Die junge Nonne," "An Silvia." She never gets really carried away.

I apologize for not buying something more current, but I really love Schubert.
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Second on Lotte Lehmann's list

This is the trailer for Jonas Kaufmann's new recording of Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin. In the book Eighteen Song Cycles it is second. Sooner or later this recording will be available here.

László Polgár in Recital

László Polgár, bass, is a man with an aura. If he is there, you know something tragic is going to happen. One of his roles is Bartók`s Bluebeard. With him singing the part you would know the ending was not happy. All ambiguity would be gone.

He was a replacement at the Zurich Opera House for someone else which probably explains the fact that he used a score in the first half, and that the program seemed to change from what was advertised. In order of presentation things seemed to improve as we went along.

Schumann`s Liederkreis was done rather matter-of-factly. Admitedly all song cycles have the same subject--poet has lost his one true love--and this makes them seem a bit alike.

Then came sections from Schubert`s Schwanengesang. The ones that worked well are the ones that best fit his aura of gloom: Der Atlas and Still ist die Nacht.

As we go from section to section the level of gloom deepens and the quality of the performance increases. What Lieder are glomier than Hugo Wolf`s Drei Gesänge nach Sonatten von Michelangelo?

Herr Polgár is Hungarian and therefore not an obvious choice for a Liederabend. He ended his program with something more suitable: Mussorgsky`s Songs and Dances of Death, sung in Russian. In this cycle the singer represents death himself, and who better than gaunt Lazlo in his black silk pajamas and snow white hair? Perhaps when death appears he will look like this. In these songs he was magnificent. He relaxed into the expression, leaned back on the piano and was quite beautiful.

Fierrabras

The Zurich Opera, my home away from home, has produced a genuine curiosity: Franz Schubert's Fierrabras. The tiny folder that comes with the DVD tells why we have never heard it, or indeed unless you are memorizing lists of things for your doctoral orals, heard of it. The Viennese company that commissioned the work changed management just before it was to be produced, and the new managers dropped it. It had its first Viennese performance in 1988.

We seem to have wandered into a staging rehearsal where Schubert himself is the director. All are costumed in clothing from Schubert's era, and Schubert, who occasionally speaks, moves them around the stage. I imagine the Schubert character is a Regie insertion into the fairy tale plot, that his lines are borrowed from the other characters. He hands out lines and scores to the characters who appear to read from this copy.

There is a cute bit of business at the end where Schubert is handing out scores to the characters and Jonas Kaufmann who plays Fierrabras follows him around the stage insisting on his score. He is quite irate. He opens the skimpy book he is finally handed, sees that there are only a couple of pages for him, that he doesn't even get the girl, and he stalks off in a huff. Schubert shrugs.

Jonas is relatively cheerful about the insignificant nature of his music. Indeed only the two women, Juliane Banse as Emma and Twyla Robinson as Florinda, seem to have anything like an aria. László Polgár as Charlemagne has a fairly significant part. He has grown a beard which improves his looks.

Most of the music is ensembles, and all has a lovely stately quality. The two love affairs end as they should. Would you want to buy this? Only for the historical curiosity aspect of the thing. Compare with Fidelio.

Fidelio....................Fierrabras
1814..........................1823
spoken dialog..............spoken dialog
melodrama..................melodrama
fabulous arias.............ariettas at best and none to write home about
great plot.................plot too complicated
great part for Jonas.......lousy part for Jonas, though he looked cute
great soprano role.........two halfway decent soprano roles
off stage trumpets.........off stage trumpets
great music................good but rather bland music
lots of arias.............endless tedious ensembles
happy ending..............happy ending

The absence of significant arias is key. It never rises above nice. All of my advice to opera composers would seem to apply to Schubert as well.
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Goerne

I went last night to see the Philadelphia Orchestra at Davies Hall in San Francisco, the same concert I tried to see a week ago in Davis. This time Matthias Goerne was there. The conductor was Christoph Eschenbach, or as I always think of him, Christoph von Eschenbach. As my concert neighbor said, the von is silent.

Goerne sang orchestrated Lieder by Schubert. The orchestrations were done by different people--Brahms, Reger and Webern--with varying amounts of success. I think I was least impressed by Webern's efforts. Too choppy and still idiomatically piano.

Goerne is a Lieder specialist and has brought a unique perspective to the genre. He has a growly, not particularly pretty baritone and a mysterious cello-like legato. He expresses with this legato, swooping and arching over the music. I had a completely different reaction to Goerne singing orchestrated Lieder than I had to Quastoff and von Otter. Here it seemed the right accompaniment for him, a more legato accompaniment to such a completely legato performance. He remains a miniaturist, not quite grasping the melodramatic requirements of an orchestra concert, blunting the climax of "Erlkoenig" when he most needed it. He's not doing drama. He's doing phrase. No one does it better. He did "Staendchen" as an encore. For me the tempo was too fast.

The Philadelphia played Brahms' Symphony #1 in the second half. It seemed a concerto for timpani to me for no reason I could explain. It starts with that fabulous timpani theme. I was fascinated watching the timpanist selecting and replacing his sticks as he stood high over the others. It was brilliantly played with especially beautiful shimmering strings.