Lise -- Vocal Arts DC 👍🏻

 

March 19, 2021?  This picture is of the people performing, Lise Davidsen and James Baillieu, but the venue shown is wrong.  This recital is in London on a different date.  I am discussing the Lieder recital streamed from London to Washington, DC.

I feel a certain musical kinship to Lise, not for her glorious Wagner and Strauss operatic triumphs, but more for her Bach, Brahms, Schumann and Strauss Lieder.  When I started at IU, I told the professors that I had performed the alto solos for all the major works of Bach.  They responded, "No you haven't."  So I said,  "Matthew Passion, B minor mass, Magnificat, St John Passion, Christmas Oratorio.  What does that leave?"  I love it that Lise has sung some of the same music.   I once did a whole recital of Lieder by Brahms so it is nice to see a couple of them here.

"Auf dem Kirchhofe" Op.105 No. 4    Johannes Brahms
"Da unten im Tale"  WoO. 33 No. 6
"Mädchenlied"  Op. 107 No. 5
"Liebestreu" Op. 3 No.1
"Von ewiger Liebe" Op. 43 No. 1

Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart     Robert Schumann

Abschied von Frankreich
Nach der Geburt ihres Sohnes
An die Königin Elisabeth
Abschied von der Welt
Gebet

Luonnotar  Op. 70                             Jan Sibelius  She tells us this is a tone poem.

Five Songs  Op. 37                          Jan Sibelius

Three Songs from Six Songs  Op. 48                   Edvard Grieg

From Acht Gedichte aus "Letzte Blaetter"  Op. 10        Richard Strauss

Zueignung

Allerseelen

Die Georgine  "ob spät, ob früh, es ist deselbe"  [Early or late it is the same.]  She has come to me late in my life,  It is a wonderful gift.

 

"Wiegenlied"      Richard Strauss  I have grown to love this in Lise's version.

"Malven"      Richard Strauss

 

"Befreit"      Richard Strauss

 

"Caecilie"      Richard Strauss     This makes a great ending.

This is an entirely different style of singing than the Wagner and Strauss operas she is rapidly becoming famous for.  It is true Lieder singing.  I'm pretty sure the only two languages are German and Finnish.  The film includes the original text with an English translation below it.

Between each group she talks to us, generally about the songs and about how much she is missing the audience.  She would like to say hello to each of us.  I can only hope that this will happen.  I wish her a wonderful career and a life of happiness.  I've never been famous, but I've had fun.

If you want a disinterested review of Lise Davidsen, you will have to look elsewhere.  I find that I love it because she does.  In the not too distant future there should be a Grieg song album.

Garrick Ohlsson in Sacramento

Last night at Sacramento State University we had a treat when the pianist Garrick Ohlsson performed an all Brahms program for us.  This is my interpretation.  Please remember I am far from being deeply informed on the subjects of piano repertoire and technique.

Three things.

Brahms was interested in maintaining and developing the forms of the classical masters.  In this category we find the piano Sonata in F-sharp Minor Op.2 (1853).  This is the standard four-movement form developed by Mozart and Beethoven.

Another classical form that Brahms continued was the theme and variations, here represented by Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24 (1861).

The Romantics Chopin and Schumann were both born in 1810 and were perhaps his strongest influences.  Brahms was born in 1833, a generation later.  The rest of our program was filled primarily with character pieces, primarily Intermezzi (1893, 1892).  The character piece, a one movement piece with no strict form, was developed by the romantics.

Are we sufficiently educated?  There were no program notes, so I am trying to fill in a bit.

The biggest hit of the evening was the variations and fugue at the end.  Brahms seemed to like alternating hands with a few overlapping notes to create a characteristic texture.  After a rousing standing ovation, Garrick played an encore by Chopin which seemed to show this same texture.  I'm glad I stayed all the way to the end.

Sacramento Choral Society does Brahms

This is an interesting week for me.  Last night the Sacramento Choral Society and Orchestra presented the Brahms Requiem, a piece I dearly love, at the Community Center Theater.  Monday night is the Saint Matthew Passion by Bach, my other favorite choral work. a/>

Donald Kendrick is the music director.  Here is the program with comments.

Serenade for Strings by Edward Elgar (1892).

This is a lovely piece in three movements for strings only.  They played it well.  The chorus sat behind but did not participate.

Five Mystical Songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1911).

Trevor Scheunemann, baritone, was the excellent soloist.  This piece includes parts for chorus and winds.  I regret that I was less impressed with the work by the wind sections.  I have long been a fan of Ralph Vaughan Williams whose greatest contribution to western civilization is the Anglican/Episcopalian hymnal.  These pieces were new for me and were in Williams' usual English post-romantic style.  I liked them very much. 

Ein Deutsches Requiem by Johannes Brahms (1868)

Again Trevor Scheunemann was the baritone soloist, and Carrie Hennessey sang the soprano solo.

1. Selig sind, die da Leid tragen
2. Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras
3. Herr, lehre doch mich (baritone)
4. Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen
5. Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit (soprano)
6. Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt (baritone)
7. Selig sind die Toten

Brahms' Requiem is not related to any mass liturgy, either Catholic or Lutheran, but is instead a set of biblical texts about death from Luther's translation.  The title comes from Brahms himself.

This lives deep in my memory and was performed here with devotion.  The orchestra was less than ideal.

Sacramento State Faculty, Alumni, and Friends Gala

This concert is part of the New Millennium Concert Series.  All the publicity photos have been of flutist Laurel Zucker.  However, the Faculty Gala concert at Sacramento State began with a group by Percussionist Daniel Kennedy.

The stage was littered with instruments and stands much as shown in the picture above.  He is said to be dedicated to the performance of contemporary percussion repertoire.  I only know about the traditional kind.  He played:

• Five by five, an improvisation on an instrument called a solo riq.  It looked a bit like a tambourine.

• To the Earth, by Frederic Rzewsky, played on ceramic pots such as you might plant flowers in.  There was also talking, but his voice was unamplified and not loud enough for me to understand.  He struck a gong to announce the end of the piece.

• Poly Patterns, an improvisation played on caxisis, small objects held in each hand.

• Shradanjali, by John Bergamo.  Daniel played the tabla and was assisted by Nariman Assadi on the tombak.

This was a new experience for me.

Next Laurel Zucker and John Cozza performed Sonata for Flute and Piano by Francis Poulenc in three movements.  Poulenc has long been a personal favorite.

The final group featured The Peregrine Trio (George Hayes, violin, Burke Schuchmann, cello, Miles Graber, piano) playing Piano Trio No. 2 in C Major, Opus 87 by Johannes Brahms.  Like all of Brahms this is a very traditional piece.  They sounded well together.  I especially liked the beautiful playing of the cellist.  I love Brahms.  This program was designed for me.

Jamie singing Brahms

Don't forget if all the world fails you, there is Jamie Barton singing the Brahms Alto Rhapsody.


   

Sac Phil does Prokofiev and Brahms

Saturday evening the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera performed at the Sacramento Community Center Theater.

Andrew Grams, conductor
Rachel Barton Pine, violin

Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 1 (1923)

1. Andantino
2. Scherzo: Vivacissimo
3. Moderato – Allegro moderato

This might possibly be considered part of Prokofiev's neo-classical period.  Ask someone else.  Rachel Barton Pine plays a Guarneri with a lovely fat tone.  This piece is unusual but not particularly atonal.  She was impressive in this difficult piece.

She played her own theme and variations arrangement of the New Zealand national anthem as an encore.  One was reminded of Paganini.

Brahms Symphony No. 1 (1876)

1. Un poco sostenuto — Allegro – Meno allegro (C minor, ending in C major)
2. Andante sostenuto (E major)
3. Un poco allegretto e grazioso (A♭ major)
4. Adagio — Più andante — Allegro non troppo, ma con brio – Più allegro (C minor – C major)

It took him 20 years to write this.  Was it worth it?  The last movement works well.

The hall is being acoustically redesigned with panels that angle down over the orchestra.  I felt the orchestra sounded much more like an ensemble than in the past, so perhaps the redesign is working.

Pinchas Zukerman

Pinchas Zukerman played at our local college.  We were lucky to get him.  I asked "What's he going to play?"  The answer was, of course, violin sonatas.

Mozart
Beethoven
Brahms

This included a piece by Brahms called "Sonatensatz," which means movement from a sonata, a postumous composition.  I explained to the people sitting with me that Satz is German for sentence and is what they call a movement.  So why do we call it a movement?  I will communicate your sympathy.

I enjoyed the Brahms most.  I generally do. 

As an encore, he played a short romantic piece by a female composer named Maria Teresa....  I should have written it down.

Bach and Beethoven at the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera.

The latest concert with the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera featured guest conductor Andrew Grams with Peter Serkin and Tomoki Park on the two Steinway grand pianos.

The concert opened with the Brahms Academic Festival Overture.  When they reached "Gaudeamus Igitur," my friend and I began to sing along.  I even remember the words from when I played a student in The Student Prince. 

The second piece was for 2 pianos and orchestra by Toru Takemitsu and was composed in part for Peter Serkin. I found this piece pleasant and enjoyable, but was shocked to find that I did not like at all the Bach Double Keyboard Concerto which was switched to BWV 1061 at the last minute from 1062.  Bach's keyboards would have been harpsichords, but we are all well accustomed to pianos on these pieces.

The concert closed with a lovely rendition of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.  Beethoven always comes through.  I liked Andrew Grams enthusiasm.

Jamie Barton at the Proms

Today I listened to the Proms from Royal Albert Hall in London. On an audio stream Jamie Barton sang the Brahms Alto Rhapsody, a personal favorite.  Marin Alsop conducted the Orchestra for the Age of Enlightenment.  Jamie explained the plot.  The text is by Goethe and apparently concerns itself with lonely, disappointed young men such as Brahms himself.  It was perfectly gorgeous.

For My Brahms Soul

 

This is a wonderful performance.  Bernstein's accompaniment is especially surprising. If you look closely, you will see Andre Previn pop in to turn the page.  "Vergiss nicht mein."  I kneel.

Brahms Horn Trio

I heard this piece today at a concert.  The horn player tells us that Brahms wrote this for his mother. Please recall that I am a Brahmsie.


The scherzo is especially cool.






This is for my son the horn player.

This was played on a concert with the Capitol Chamber Players by  I-Hui Chem, piano, Pete Nowlen, French horn, and Robert Bloch, violin.

Luca Pisaroni Recital

Luca Pisaroni sang last night in Nourse Theater in San Francisco.  This was my first time in this theater since it became a performance space and not a rehearsal venue for the San Francisco Opera.  I kept imagining the director's table in the middle.  The theater began its life as part of a high school which was later deemed too expensive to earthquake proof.  It's sort of pseudo Ali Baba or Scheherazade. 

I am a fan of Luca, loved him in Cosi in Salzburg, The Enchanted Island, Maometto II in Santa Fe and as Leporello in Don Giovanni. 

I love you, Luca, but you didn't seem happy at all.  You came to life a little after the intermission when you sang Liszt, but you didn't feel comfortable with what you were doing.

I'm going to let you in on a secret:  nowadays singers are performing what they love, as long as it's within the vast catalog that is classical music.  At long last.  So don't let someone else pick what you are going to sing.

My favorite part of the program was the encore: "O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst" which sounded familiar.  And it was.  It's Liszt's Liebestraum, better known as a piece for piano.  Love as long as you can.  I took this personally.  

After hearing him in Mozart, Cavalli and Rossini, I guess I was unprepared for a program by German composers (Beethoven, Brahms, Reichart) plus the Hungarian in his most German mode.  There wasn't exactly anything wrong with it, the pianist Wolfram Rieger was wonderful, but Luca didn't quite come to life.

Brahms Cello Sonata

Someone played this movement from the Brahms first cello sonata today at a meeting I attended.  This would be the main problem with obsessing over opera--Brahms did not write any opera.  I think today was the first time I heard this wonderful piece, here played by Jacqueline Du Pré and Daniel Barenboim.

Requiem

Briefly. I just watched Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem with Patrick Marco on medici.tv from somewhere in France. They performed with 2 pianos and timpani for "Den alles Fleisch" which would sound quite odd without drums. It sounds quite odd anyway, but is more transparent this way. 

Everything that Cecilia Bartoli is singing in for Pfingsten is already sold out. Including this piece. Sigh. Norma will be repeated in August, but not the Brahms. Maybe they will stream. I feel a mixture of profound curiosity and fear about hearing this. I know people sneer, but it is my favorite piece. Enough.

P.S. I posted this in a comment, but I think it might go better here.

I have always heard sincerity in Brahms. Everything about the deutsches Requiem is his own creation--the choice of text, the structure, the music, the orchestration. It is all his personal musical and religious expression.

I was good with the two piano format because it is known that this is the format in which Brahms often composed. Perhaps it's even authentic. Wagner jettisoned the whole idea of structure and invented his own structure by free association.

I always admire Brahms for his life long attempt to create in the traditional structures. I always hear humility in Brahms, a character trait entirely missing in Herr Wagner. The Wagnerites hate Brahms for just this quality.

Christa Ludwig

I have long been a fan of Christa Ludwig, and these are three pieces I love. You simply cannot know how much it means that I would show her singing Brahms. Everything she sings comes from a deeper place.

My heart leaps. Doch. Die Liebe wirt's erreichen. Most rubato in Beethoven I've ever heard.

PS. You know you actually speak German when you think of a saying "doch."

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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Lehmann's Books

Lotte Lehmann (1888 – 1976) wrote a number of books on the subject of Lieder interpretation, an art in which she was for many the undisputed master. I remember several books sitting on my school library's shelves. In my collection is only Eighteen Song Cycles, a volume the covers all the important German cycles, or at least those she might have been expected to sing. Mahler's Kindertotenlieder does not appear.

She moves on to cover a few French cycles, including Berlioz' Les nuits d'été and Ravel's Shéhérazade. She includes both piano cycles and orchestra cycles.

Her books fell out of favor, were considered far too specific in their directions. She talks about where your eyes should be directed, e.g.

I took classes in Lieder interpretation at IU and felt that the more specific the discussion the more helpful it was to the singer. Lehmann's best words may lie at the beginning:

"First and foremost I want to say that this book will fail in its purpose, if the young singers, for whom I am writing it, should consider my conceptions as something final and try to imitate them instead of developing their own interpretations which should spring with originality and vitality from within themselves.

"What I want to try to explain here is not any final interpretation, but an approach which may be an aid towards the development of your individual conceptions. I want to point a way which might lead from the lack of understanding of those singers, who seem to consider only voice quality and smooth technique, to the boundless world of expression. And it will be seen that there is not just one, but an infinitely varied pattern of ways, which lead to this goal. Only he who seeks it with his whole heart will find his own approach to interpretation."

I couldn't agree more. Perhaps her books still sit on a library shelf somewhere. See if you can find them.

This is a funny comment I know, but here goes--I think perhaps the stricture against imitation does not really apply to Italian opera. Your heart must still be fully engaged, but the proper style can only be achieved through imitation.

This is the only film of Lehmann singing during her active career. She was 60.

Meditation on A German Requiem

Perhaps you feel there probably is no God, and we just die and that's the end, but how can one resist the vision of God? It is mankind's most beautiful creation.

And what embodies the vision of God better than A German Requiem? We know that Brahms must have been evangelisch and not katholisch because he chooses his texts from Martin Luther's translation of the Bible, and because in his vision there is no hell. There is only the withering of the flesh and the vision of God's heaven with our everlasting comfort.

In the store I listened to Simon Rattle's new version, but I don't really care for that narrow concept of a chorus. I like a big tone for Brahms. Dorothea Röschmann's "Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit" is very beautiful, but I long to hear Kathleen Battle's version again. She sang in the performances I was in with the San Francisco Symphony years ago. I also don't seem to be able to ignore Quastoff's wobble.

So I chose this version from 1983 with James Levine, the Chicago Symphony and chorus, Kathleen Battle, Haken Hagegard, and chorus training by the legendary Margaret Hillis.

A German Requiem celebrates the end of life and the passage of our souls into heaven. What could exceed the ecstatic entry of the ransomed of the Lord into heaven with rejoicing and eternal joy. The entire work moves from one joyful ecstasy to another. It may well be my favorite piece of music, one I have sung several times and know virtually by heart.

You, too, will long for the house of the Lord. In my heart "Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit" will always be in Kathleen Battle's voice.

These words are the central message of Christianity set in its most attractive and soul inspiring music. I can see the vision of heaven in my heart.
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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.

On the radio

I was driving around on a Saturday and heard Angela Gheorghiu and Thomas Hampson on the radio in Simon Boccanegra. I like him better in his heavier, more middle-aged voice. Simon may suit his personality, with his basic sweetness. Angela I have to say I like more and more.

I also heard the Violin Concerto by Johannes Brahms, played by Gideon Kremer and the Vienna Philharmonic, with Leonard Bernstein conducting in a recently rereleased recording. It was marvelous. I have been accustomed to the version with Haifitz and found this a revelation. Brahms' soul was in German folk style, something that is not easy for sophisticated modern musicians to grasp, but Bernstein and Kremer exactly caught it. It was very emotional and quite beautiful.