Schumann Liederkreis op 39 Florian Boesch Wigmore Hall

Robert Schumann Liederkreis op 39 ((1840) with Florian Boesch and Justus Zeyen at the Wigmore Hall, London.  In Liederkreis op 39 Schumann sets the poems of Joseph von Eichendorff, so very  very different to Heinrich Heine, whose poems formed the basis of Liederkreis op 24.  Eichendorff was both idealist and pragmatist, an aristocrat who helped create the Prussian public system, the first and most comprehensive government school system, open to all, regardless of wealth or status.  One of the principles of Romanticism, derived from 18th century ideas, was the concept of the purity of Nature and of those who lived in harmony with it.

Joseph, Freiherr von Euchendorff

Though Eichendorff,  Heine and Schumann were contemporaries  - living poets being set by a living composer, "new" works" in every sense - Eichendorff's aesthetic harked back to earlier ideas of pastoral innocence. Liederkreis op 39 is beautiful because it harks back to an earlier period of innocence,  closer to the naturalism and sense of wonder captured in the folk-like wisdom of Brentano and Arnim's Des Knaben Wunderhorn.  Songs  like Waldesgresräch connect to the supernatural enchantment of Das klagende Lied, where the supernatural overlays human experience.  "Du weiss nichts, wer ich bin", sang Boesch, not imitating the voice of a maiden so much as expressing an innocent's frustration with mortals who don't understand.  The Lorelei has lived forever, but  the hunter hasn't a clue. This wonderful song hovers between two worlds.  Throughout the cycle, there's always something beyond, glimpsed yet not explicit.  In Auf einer Burg, an old knight has been waiting so long in his mountain fastness that he's  turned to stone.   Hence the minor key in ths song. Yet meanwhile, in the valley, peasants are getting married : life goes on and renews, though the knight might turn to dust.  The same theme arises in Im Walde, where the happy procession disappears   into darkness. ""und mich schauert's im Herzengrunde". Boesch's voice growled "Herzengrunde" , suggesting unspeakable horror. Though  Eichendorrff's world evokes the past it doesn't cling to it.  The cycle ends with Frühlingsnacht .The moon, the stars and the woods tell the poet that change is coming and, with it, new hope.  Whatever the poet may dream of, "Sie ist Deine, sie ist Dein". 

Like all good Romantics, Eichendorff relished the unknown. Songs of wandering were songs of alienation, a concept earlier periods had few means of articulating. But songs of wandering also remind us that there are worlds we don't know, which might be beyond our comprehension.   Nothing insular about Eichendorff, whose frontiers were of the mind.  Boesch was at his best in songs like In der Fremde ("Aus der Heimat hinter den Blitzen rot") and In der Fremde ("Ich hör' die Bächlein rauschen") with its haunting refrain "Ich weiss nicht, wo ich bin", bringing out the internal musical connections in this cycle, offten missed when it's done like a series of songs,  The refrain "Ich weiss nicht wer ich bin", for example, connects to the Lorelei's cry "Du weisst nichts, wer ich bin".  Though Eichendorff and his peers didn't use the vocabulary of modern psychology and alienation, they understood the concepts.  It was wonderful hearing Boesch singing Liederkreis op,39, but get the recording, just out on Linn Records. Please read more here. Though I wrote more about the Mahler songs, that's only because  Boesch has done lots of Schumann, and relatively little Mahler.

Before Schumann';s Liederkreis op 39 Boesch and Zeyen presented four Schubert songs on themes of wandering, In Walde D708, Auf der Brücke D853, Der Pilgrim D794 and Der Schiffer D536. They also did five Hugo Wolf songs to poems by Eduard Mörike, Begenung, Auf ei altes Bild, Denk'es o Seele!, Schaflendes Jesuskind and Gebet.  One erotic, one supernatural, three ostensibly though not quite religious and one so disturbing that it’s in no category.  Justus Zeyen has played with Boesch before, but his style is loud, more suited to Quasthoff than to the subleties of Boesch. Nonetheless, he showed how the piano part in Liederkreis op39 is more spare than in Liederkreis op24, in keeping with the restrained sensibility of the poems.

Benjamin Appl Eichendorff Lieder Wigmore Hall

Eager anticipation for Benjamin Appl's recital with Graham Johnson at the Wigmore Hall , since Appl is one of the most promising young singers around. Being a BBC New Generation Artist automatically rockets any performer to star status, though some have appealed more for their looks, youth and marketability than for their talent. Appl, though, is one of the genuine discoveries. He has real potetial.

For his Wigmore Hall recital, Appl sang an interesting programme of settings of poems by Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (1788-1853). Taken out of context, some of Eichendorff's poetry might seem simplistic, as the BBC continuity suggests, but Eichendorff was a highly influential thinker whose ideas shaped the spirit of the Romantic era. Nature, for the Romantics, wasn't an escape into Disneyesque fantasy. but an affirmation of elemental forces beyond the control of conventional ordered civilization.  Eichendorff's respect for pure, unspoiled Nature also reflected his spiritual beliefs.  Eichendorff was a devout Catholic, a member of a minority in the Prussian state.  As a social reformer,  Eichendorff was a progressive who revamped the Prussian education system, making it more open to all. Most definitely not a small "r" romantic daydreamer ! Throughout his writings run  deep themes like spirituality, tolerance and respect for humble yet genuinely noble values. How I wish this programme had included Verschweigene Liebe, one of Eichendorff's most magical poems, with its refrain that clarion call of the Romantic age, "Gedanken sind Frei!"

Much better, I think, a recital that deals with a single poet in relative depth than the usual sampler programmes that demonstrate a young singer's vocal range rather than his or her understanding of the underlying principles of the repertoire. Appl began with three Schumann Eichendorff settings Frühlingsfahrt (Op 45/2)  Der Einsiedler (Op 77/1) and  Der frohe Wandersmann Op 83/3).  
In  Eichendorff's Fruhlingsfahrt, two sturdy youths set forth, both striving for lofty things. One finds happiness in simple things. The other is seduced by the sirens of the deep and ends up a shattered wreck. Both Fruhlingsfahrt and Der frohe Wandersman show that  Eichendorff was fascinated by wilder shores even while he praises domesticity. His homilies to God are talismanic, for he intuits that creativity can be dangerous. An artist is driven by something greater than his own free will.  Happy Wanderer? No way.

Graham Johnson's accompaniment was steady rather than spectacular, giving Appl decent support.  Appl's voice is naturally interesting. . I've heard very vivid singing from him before, full of character and intelligence, so I hoped he'd take more risks with less-familiar repertoire.  The Mendelssohn Eichendorff settings are delicately refined and need expressiveness to bring out the innate strength beneath the surface elegance. Appl's Pagenlied moved thoughfully from noon-day meadow to evening serenade, and his Nachtlied responded to the liveliness in the paino part, and the text. Truly  "Will keiner mit mir munter sein?".  Wanderlied  burst with vigorous spirit.

It was good, too, to hear Brahms's settings of In der Fremde and Mondnacht for a change isntead of Schumann, for they illustrate the differences between the two composers. Schumann's settings are effervescent,but Appla and Graham Johnson showed how Brahms's more down to earth approach gives them solidity.  More characteristically "Brahmsian" were Parole and Anklänge, which reminded me of Brahms's Liebeslieder Walzer. Perhaps the more "folksy" element in the poems appealed to the composer, who wasn't as acutely attuned to literature as Schumann was.

Similarly, I suspect that Hans Pfitzner's appreciation of Eichendorff shaped his settings of the poems.  Fortunately, Appl and Johnson did not start their Pfitzner set with Der Gartner, written before 1896, and published in 1899.  Alas, it's leaden,  its heaviness bearing little relation to the subtle ideas in the poem. Pfitzner is far better suited to poems like In Danzig (from1907)  in which Eichendorff describes the city under moonlight.

"Dunkel Giebel, hohe Fenster,
Türme wie aus Nebel sehn.
Bleiche Statuen wie Gespenster
Lautlos an den Türen stehn."

Pfitzner's murky tone-painting colours the scene as if it were a painting from Caspar David Friedrich so effectively that it captures the discreetly hidden punchline embedded within the text :"Nur des Meeres fernes Rauschen.Wunderbare Einsamkeit!"  Typically of Eichendorff this portrait of the city is psychological rather than purely physical.  The poem dates from 1842.  Eichendorff almost certainly knew Heinrich Heine's mysterious Die Stadt, and Pfitzner must have known the masterpiece setting thereof.  Similazrly, Pfitzner's setting of Zum Abschied meiner Tochter describes a physical situation, the autumnal images in the poem nicely translated into sound, Yet again, though, Pfitzner underestimates the horror in the final strophe, disguised by mechanical images: 
 
"Die Gassen schauen nochnächtlich,
Es rasselt der Wagen bedächtig –
Nun plötzlich rascher der Trott
Durchs Tor in die Stille der Felder,
Da grüßen so mutig die Wälder,
Lieb Töchterlein, fahre mit Gott!

Probably no other composer set Eichendorff as brilliantly as Hugo Wolf (though I wouldn't, couldn't be without Schumann).  Wolf was so intent on expressing poems through music that he called his songs "poems", and wrote in bursts of frenzied inspiration.  Appl and Johnson could have devoted a whole recital to Wolf's Eichendorff songs, but they chose just five - Nachruf; Das Ständchen; Der Musikant; Der Scholar; and Der Freund. Perhaps they knew we'd heard these so many times that we'd be more interested in Mendelssohn, Brahms and Pfitzner for a change, and put their best efforts into creating their best performances there.  Appl does have the voice, and the intelligence, to do great things. I'd like to hear him be more daring, connecting to the intensity inherent in this poetry. I think he's got what it takes, but he needs to take risks.  The Romantic Revolution broke boundaries: we should heed its audacity.

Artur Schnabel, Eichendorff and Football

What connects Josef Freiherr von Eichendorff, the Prussian poet and administrator, with Artur Schnabel, the pianist, and Manchester City Football Club? Bert Trautmann, the football player who broke his neck during the 1956 FA Cup Final and continued to play on. Trautmann escaped death because one of the vertebrae in his neck wedged at an angle so that his spine and throat weren't severed. All his life, Trautmann seems to have defied the odds. Joining the Luftwaffe aged 17, he served in a parachute regiment in Russia, where only 90 of his 1,000-man divison survived. He's still alive, aged 90, having lived in England, Wales, Germany, Spain and Burma. A kind reader lent me the book Trautmann's Journey (Catrine Clay 2010).

So how does Artur Schnabel fit in?  One of Trautmann's comrades was Heinz Schnabel, nephew of the pianist. Heinz Schnabel was called "Der Alte" because he was in his late 30's while most of the unit were teenagers. Schnabel  was a dapper gent but tough as nails, having parachuted into Crete before serving on the Eastern Front. Trautmann and Schnabel were posted to defend the bridges at Arnhem in 1945. In the tension, Schnabel began to recite a poem. It was Eichendorff's Sensucht. Trautmann hadn't experienced anything but the Nazis. Schnabel, however, was old enough to remember another more cultivated world, where what his uncle stood for was respected.  So Trautmann, who'd been a Hitler Youth because he didn't know anything else, was huddled with Artur Schnabel's nephew, part Jewish war hero.

To Trautmann the poem was lovely and reminded him of childhood. Schnabel chose well, for the poem refers to "zwei junge Gesellen" far from home, in a rugged landscape, singing as they head forth.

Es schienen so golden die Sterne,  Am Fenster ich einsam stand
Und hörte aus weiter Ferne Ein Posthorn im stillen Land.
Das Herz mir im Leib entbrennte, Da hab' ich mir heimlich gedacht:
Ach wer da mitreisen könnte In der prächtigen Sommernacht!

Zwei junge Gesellen gingen Vorüber am Bergeshang,
Ich hörte im Wandern sie singen Die stille Gegend entlang:
Von schwindelnden Felsenschlüften, Wo die Wälder rauschen so sacht,
Von Quellen, die von den Klüften Sich stürzen in die Waldesnacht.

Sie sangen von Marmorbildern, Von Gärten, die über'm Gestein
In dämmernden Lauben verwildern, Palästen im Mondenschein,
Wo die Mädchen am Fenster lauschen, Wann der Lauten Klang erwacht,
Und die Brunnen verschlafen rauschen In der prächtigen Sommernacht.

photo : Old El Paso

Holzmair Schumann Wigmore Hall

The Dream Team of Wolfgang Holzmair and Imogen Cooper gave the keynote recital in the Wigmore Hall's Schumann year celebration of German song. Having been to nearly all their recitals since 1998 I gave this a miss but  maybe I should have gone after all. Richard Fairtman at the FT reviewed  it. The Kerner Lieder aren't unloved, except by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who had problems with the extremely high tessitura in sections like the young nun in Stirb, Lieb' und Freud', so he only recorded it I think twice, making DFD fans think it's less valued.  It's unfair, as this is one of Schumann's most tightly constructed cycles, as full of interrelationships as a miniature symphony.  Tenors sing it beautifully (Gilchrist at the Wigmore Hall in September) but it's also a favourite with baritones such as Matthias Goerne who can bring out the layers of spookiness as well as the innate musical logic.

In fact, Holzmair is one of the great Kerner-Lieder exponents. His recording - also with Imogen Cooper - is one of the essentials in the discography. Holzmair's voice is naturally light and sweet-toned, so he makes the cycle flow beautifully, so you realize it's almost a whole piece rather than a group of songs.  Get it and hear why Schumann's Kerner-Lieder are so significant.

What also makes this recording significant is that Holzmair and Cooper include songs by Clara Schumann on the disc, on equal terms with the more famous Robert Schumann songs. They'd been championing Clara for years before this 2002 recording, so the songs are about as sympathetically done as you could expect. Clara was a pianist, so devoted to her work that to some extent she resented being pregnant and feeding because it took her away from her music. Robert and Clara were so close that they kept a joint diary (with code for intimacy), so her songs were an extension of this closeness. I've often wondered, though, why she didn't write more pieces for solo piano, since that was her instrument par excellence. Robert did, of course, and she played him all round Europe. But she was one of the great virtuoso megastars of her time,  with a glittering international career, and contemporary with some very big names like Franz Liszt. So one dreams.

Also on the Wigmore Hall programme was Aribert Reimann’s Nachtstück which Holzmair has made an icon. It's on his 2003 CD (also with Imogen Cooper). This too is a classic, because Holzmair worked the programme around Freiherr von Eichendorff  the Prussian Catholic poet and civil servant. The disc includes relatively little known Eichendorff settings such as those by Robert Franz, Zemlinsky, Korngold, Pfitzner and Othmar Schoeck.  The different settings enhance the poems yet also show how each composer functions. Alas, I really don't like Reimann's Nachtstück (one of the reasons I steered clear of the WH recital) Reimann was closely associated with Fischer-Dieskau and I want to like his work, but sometimes things don't click. OTOH I adore Hans Werner Henze's Nachtstück und Arien (Michaela Kaune sings) but that's a whole other story.

Schumann Wigmore Hall Gilchrist Maltman

Schumann is a perennial at the Wigmore Hall.  This recital, with James Gilchrist, Christopher Maltman and Julius Drake, was well attended. Many friends in the audience new and old, By sheer coincidence two people, from different parts of the world met up, who'd both been in choirs where Maltman sang. The Wigmore Hall "family" spans the globe.

Whoever reorganized the order of the first songs deserves praise. Placing Trost im Gesang with Der frohe Waldersmann shows wit. Kerner and Eichendorff were very different men. Eichendorff was a devout Catholic, who shaped the idealistic Prussian education system. Kerner was a medical doctor who believed in what we'd now call pseudo-science – mesmerism, spirit messages etc. Yet which was really the more unconventional?

Kerner's traveller sets forth, confident that song will guide him on his path.  Eichendorff's traveller thinks about two quite different paths but hopes that God will arrange things right. The pious mood is underscored by something more troubling. Double-edged piety, like Mörike's Gebet. ("send me what you will, God, but not too much either way)"

In  Eichendorff's Fruhlingsfahrt, two sturdy youths set forth, both striving for lofty things. One finds happiness in simple things. The other is seduced by the sirens of the deep and ends up a shattered wreck. Both Fruhlingsfahrt and Der frohe Wandersman show that  Eichendorff's fascinated by wilder shores even while he praises domesticity. His homilies to God are talismanic, for he intuits that creativity can be dangerous. An artist is driven by something greater than his own free will.  Happy Wanderer? No way.

Perhaps Schumann, already aware of his own emotional extremes, intuited that Eichendorff understood the connection between art and madness. Eichendorff's poetry was "new" at the time, the poet outliving the composer. Hence the fearfully tricky phrasing in the song, and in Sängers Trost, which seem deliberately designed to knock a singer outside his comfort zone. Much credit to James Gilchrist for negotiating the difficulties so well. He's so engaged with meaning that he brings out the true spirit of these songs, which superficial performances don't reach.

Gilchrist is an ideal character tenor. Like Philip Langridge, he has the knack of getting inside a part, developing it through thoughtful observation and empathy. Gilchrist's spent most of his career in oratorio and song, but it is in opera where his skills in characterization are really needed.  As an actor, he's a natural because he's empathic, able to build personality into any part he sings. In opera, a singer with Gilchrist's emotional intelligence would do wonders.

I've never forgotten Christopher Maltman's Tarquinius in the Rape of Lucretia, where his body builder's physique gave the role a powerful, malevolent edge.  That's character singing, albeit in a different way.  While I was bothered by many things in Maltman's Liederkreis Op 39, my friends enjoyed it a lot.  Lieder is communication, so in that sense, it worked well.  There are just so many Liederkreises op 39 and 24, that we're spoiled. 

Withe the Four Lieder op 40 to settings of Hans Christaian Andersen, Maltman could focus on each song as a vignette, for each tells a story.  Der Spielmann lets him created the fiddler wildly playing at a wedding. Then the punchline, Bin selber ein armer Musikant. The fiddler's more involved in the wedding than we realize. He's pulling back, emotionally, much as Eichendorff switches to God.

Schumann's 12 Kerner Lieder op 35 were the highlight of the evening.  This is a very tightly structured cycle, sometimes compared to Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte, or even to a miniature symphony, even though the texts are a mixeed batch. This indicates that perhaps Schumann heard greater possibilities in them than a straightforward textual study might indicate.

Lust der Sturmnacht is strange.The poet wants the stormy night to continue because he can be with his lover. But can't they have fun without the wildness outside? Suddenly lust (in both senses) gives way to unearthly calm and purity. In Stirb, Lieb' und Freud', a young girl is praying, transfixed in rapture. The poet stunned to silence, knowing he can't compete with the Virgin Mary.

Gilchrist seems to intuit that this sudden switch between turbulence and ecstasy might just be what drew Schumann to put these random poems together in this order. Schumann was obsessed by cryptic puzzles and hidden clues. In this cycle the "tavern songs" are popular but drinking songs they aren't. Drink lowers defences, releasing ghosts, memories and suppressed emotion. The two key songs are moments of quiet contemplation: Stille Liebe and Stille Tränen.  Because Gilchrist captures the extreme mood swings so well, he captures the schizoid character of these songs. On the surface they don't fit together but if the highly literate Schumann heard connections, so should we. Wonderful, vivid singing, animated and expressive.

Afterwards, I told him that it was so good that it didn't matter if one single word wasn't ideal, in an otherwise outstanding performance.  "But it matters to me!", he saIt's that emotional honesty that makes Gilchrist an ideal character tenor.

Last week, when Julius Drake played Hugo Wolf, he hammered away so forcefully that someone commented that the piano might be faulty. At the Wigmore Hall, pianos are objects of sacred veneration. If a piano was out of tune, someone would be lynched.  Fortunately, this time Drake gave much more respect to tempi, dynamics and singers.  Much better!
COMING UP tomorrow: Makropulos Case,  Jurowski Mahler 3 and more.