Carl Loewe Lieder - Wigmore Hall RAM Song Circle

The Royal Academy of Music Song Circle presents the Lieder of Carl Loewe at the Wigmore Hall on Tuesday 2nd April (after the weekend).  BOOK HERE ! The singers are Frances Gregory, Olivia Warburton, Kieran Carrel, Paul Grant, and Thomas Bennett, with pianists Richard Gowers, Gus Tredwell and Leo Nicholson. Carl Loewe (1796-1869) was a contemporary of Schubert, Mendelssohn, Weber, Wagner, Robert Schumann - definitely someone we need to know to fully appreciate the richness of the genre.  Loewe's songs are up there with the greats.  Edward (1818) is one of the gems of the repertoire though it was his op 1 no 1, not bad for an early effort by a young composer.  It's interesting because it sits on the cusp of art song as we know it now, and ballads such as Beethoven's settings of English, Irish and Scottish folksongs. Early Romantics were fascinated by wild, "primitive" cultures that offered an alternative to urban "civilized" society. Think Lucia di Lammermoor !  The poem is Gottfried Herder, who wrote many adaptations of northern folk legend.  Edward walks in on his mother.

He's saturated with blood. "It's my hawk".  No, says Mum.  "It's my steed", blurts Edward.  But the truth comes out. He's slaughtered his father.  No explanation, whatsoever. Edward is the quintessential rebel without a cause, a desperado whom society cannot tame.  The concept continues to fascinate. The same tale resurrects in the Country and Western hit Knoxville Girl, where the psychosexual aspects are emphasized - Edward kills a girl, equally without reason. (Please read more HERE, with clips)

Another spooky apparition in  in Odin's Meeresritt op 118. 1851.

At midnight, a horseman in black armour summons a humble blacksmith to shoe his steed. "I have to get to Norway by  morning." Since they're in Denmark, that's a tall order. Then the horseman rides off into the skies, followed by twelve black eagles. The stranger is Odin, king of the Norse Gods,a prototype Wotan. Think Gurrelieder, where the King and his knights fly across the sky, terrifying peasants and Fools. The Romantic obsession with legend and mystery connects to sources in the subconscious.  Also in the RAM Song Circle programme are Loewe's Erlkönig, op1/3, very different to Schubert’s setting, but also very good. Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh (Wandrers Nachtlied), Ach neige, du Schmerzensreiche, Zum Sehen geboren, Meine Ruh ist hin and Die Lotosblume come from Loewe's op 9.  Loewe’s also had a whimsical side. His setting of Goethe's poem, Die wandelnde Glocke Op. 20 No. 3, is droll and wicked, at the same time !

During his long career, Loewe wrote over 400 songs, so no recital could ever be comprehensive. There are many recordings to choose from : Fischer-Dieskau, Hermann Prey, Thomas Quasthoff, and Florian Boesch, whose more agile timbre brings out the magic in many songs where lightness of touch makes a difference. Years ago CPO did a complete Loewe series of nearly 30 CDs which vary from excellent (Prégardien etc) to less so, and the songs pop up regularly live. Please read about concerts in recent years, following the label Loewe below)  Even Jonas Kaufmann sings Loewe - he's on the recording of Loewe's opera Die drei Wünsche op 42, from 2000.  At that time, I got it for Hawlata ! It's a very enjoyable comic opera, closer to Singspeil and the operas of  Schubert and Weber than to "modern" opera like Wagner.   Loewe's chamber and piano music is also undergoing a revival, so this Wigmore Hall recital with the RAM Song Circle comes at an opportune time.

Balladen im Wandel der Zeit - traditional song and Lieder

From specialist Austrian label Gramola, founded in 1924, Balladen im Wandel der Zeit (Ballads in changing times) (Please click here to access) linking Lieder and traditional ballads.    Some Lieder are ballads, but not all ballads are Lieder.  The differences aren't clear-cut, but it's fascinating to ponder the connections. Lieder as through-composed art song developed not directly from folk song but from literary sources, generally the preserve of the educated upper and middle classes. These composers, poets and listeners were well aware of pre-urban tradition ; witness the success of Gottfried Herder, the Brothers Grimm and Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the compilation of oral sources.   Like the taste for classical antiquity, this interest in folk tradition was idealized into new forms, such as Singspiele and operas like Der Freischütz.  The Lieder of Beethoven and Schubert represented progress, romanticizing the past, but looking forward.  Poets as great as Schiller and Goethe wrote ballads, as did many others. Not all were initially intended for musical setting.  Goethe's Der König von Thule, for example, was incorporated in Faust to demonstrate Gretchen's purity and faithful nature.  On this disc, Robert Holzer and Thomas Kerbl perform the setting by Schubert and also a version by Heinrich Marchner, whose operas like Der Vampyr and Hans Heiling, still popular today, draw on folk sources.  Schubert's Der König von Thule is so well known it doesn't need describing, but Holzer is worth hearing. His bass is firm, yet flexible, with a nicely noble ring.    Prometheus and Kreuzug are well served.  In Grenzen der Menschheit , Kerbl's pace is deliberate, allowing the line "Wenn der uralte, Heilige Vater, mit gelassener Hand aus rollenden Wolken....." to flow with magnificent sweep.  Marschner's version is more prosaic, the strophes repeated with relatively little development, but it's useful to know.  Holzer and Krebl also perform settings by Carl Loewe, Prinz Eugen, Odins Meerstritt and Die Uhr, and Robert Schumann's Die Beiden Grenadiere,  Brahms Verrat and Hugo Wolf's Der Feuerreiter, all of which tell stories as ballads so often do. 

More unusually, Die Ballade vom Bettelvogt by Wilhelm Weismann (1900-1980).  The text was collected by Brentano and von Arnim . It refers to gangs of wandering beggars roaming the countryside in the wake of wars.  The language is archaic. "Ihr Brüder seyd nun lustig, der Bettlevogt ist todt, erhängt schön im Geigen  ganz schwer und voller Noth" Weismann's setting captures the folksy feel yet also marks the changes in the tale with distinctively sophisticated changes. 

 

This disc begins, however, with with the drone of a hurdy-gurdy, played by Erberhard  Ktummer. Throughout Middle Europe, hurdy-gurdys and bagpipes were associated with folk tradition. References to them in "classical" music, from Winterreise to Schwanda der Dudelsackpfeifer have extra musical associations for various reasons.  Das Schloss in Österreich is a traditional air, each strophe repeating with occasional variation, the hurdy-gurdy providing plaintive commentary with bursts of rhythmic energy.  In an Austrian castle, filled with silver gold and marble, a "junger Knab" lies imprisoned, but his father can't raise the ransom to free him, so he dies.  But the father sings his ballad, reaching the world beyond.   The last ballad is Todenamt, also with hurdy-gurdy. It's an Austrian Burengesang from the 14th century. The tale is told through alternating verses. "Wachter trut geselle, trit her, ein wort zu mir. Ich hon min lieb verlornen das lied das klag ich dir!"  To no avail. "Mit ir schneewiessen hande macht sie im ein tiefes grab, mit iren heissen trächen si ihm den segen gab"  Fascinating music, unveiling a genre and a sensibility that would be rewarding to explore in greater depth

Christoph Prégardien Wigmore Hall

Christoph Prégardien at the Wigmore Hall, welcomed return of the perennial favourite of Wigmore Hall audiences. Prégardien and Julius Drake began with Carl Loewe’s Der Nöck (op 129/2, 1857) one of the most lyrical Lied by any composer, in a genre rich with beauty,  to a poem by August Kopisch.  Beside a tumbling waterfall, a water sprite plays his harp, enchanting the torrent so it hangs suspended in mid air, the vapours forming a rainbow halo. Circular figures in the piano part suggest tumbling waters. Prégardien breathed into the long vowel sounds in the refrain so they rolled. The flowing refrain evokes both the song of a nightingale and of the harp, symbols of song.  But suddenly the magic is broken when humans draw near. The waves roar, the trees stand tall, and the nightingale flees, until it’s safe for the Nöck to reveal himself again.  Prégardien and Drake paired this Der Nöck with another setting of the same poem which is driving me crazy because I can’t identify it, though I can’t place without having to look it up.

So omnipresent is Schubert’s Erlkönig that Carl Loewe’s Erlkönig (Op 1/23 1818) might seem to pale in comparison.  But it really isn’t bad on its own terms.  Loewe emphasizes the word “Knaben”, which Prégardien sings sensually : perhaps Loewe understood the subtext better than Schubert did, even if the song isn’t a masterpiece. Loewe’s “true” Erlkönig in any case is Herr Oluf, or even Edward, both songs of disguised sexual anxiety.  Loewe also wrote another song, Der spaete Gast Op. 7 Nr. 2 to a poem by Willibald Alexis (Georg Wilhelm Heinrich Häring 1798-1871), an “alternative” Erlkönig. Read more about that here  

More spooky events in Robert Schumann’s Belsatzar op 57 (1846). This time the scene is a grand party in a palace, but an unseen hand writes a curse on the wall.  Prégardien’s singing was restrained, creating the drama is growing tension, holding back rather than bursting out. The last line was all the more chilling because it was delivered with understated calm. “Belsazar ward aber in selbiger Nacht von seinen Knechten umgebracht”.  A quick return to water spirits with Franz Liszt’s Die Loreley, S273 (1843).  Though Liszt is now established in the Lieder canon, his songs reflect his greater interest in pianistic expression.  Where Liszt write a lovely part describing the tumbling waves, the setting of the vocal line is rather more laboured.  Fortunately, Prégardien’s artistry injects convincing elegance.

Schumann’s genius as a composer to poets is demonstrated by his Liederkreis op 39 (1840) to poems by Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, written the same year as his Liederkreis op 24 to poems by Heinrich Heine.   Two very different poets, two very different ways of settingb text.  Although Schumann, Heine and Eichendorff were more or less contemporaries, Eichendorff mined a vein more attuned to early Romantic values, where folk wisdom, albeit idealized, still  had much to offer.   Songs liie Waldesgresräch and Im Walde deal with mysteries of the forest, the forest being code word for what we’d now call the subconscious. Like all good Romantics, Eichendorff was an explorer. Songs like Fruhlingsfahrt and Der frohe Wandersman show that  Eichendorff was fascinated by wilder shores even while he praises domesticity. Though genuinely devout, his homilies 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.  Prégardien’s timbre is darker these days, but artistry grows with experience. 

Magic and mayhem : Christoph Prégardien Wigmore Hall

Christoph Prégardien has always been a master of creative, exciting ways with Lieder. He and Michael Gees gave a recital at the Wigmore Hall, London, which showed how vigorous the Lieder tradition continues to be.

Prégardien and Gees created a programme that illuminated the liveliness of the Romantic imagination. Nature spirits abound, and fairy tales and ghostly figures of legend. Lulled into fantasy, one might miss the hints of danger that lurk behind these charming dreamscapes. The Romantics were intrigued by the subconcious long before the language of psychology was coined.

The recital began with one of the most lyrical songs in the whole Lieder repertoire, Carl Loewe's Der Nöck (Op129/2 1857)  to a poem by August Kopisch. A Nix, a male water sprite who plays his harp by a wild waterfall. Its waves hang suspended in mid air, the vapours forming a rainbow halo around the Nix. Circular figures in the piano part suggest tumbling waters. Prégardien breathed into the long vowel sounds so they rolled beautifully We could hear what the text means when it refers to a nightingale, silenced in awe. Suddenly the magic is broken when humans draw near. The waves roar, the trees stand tall, and the nightingale flees, until it's safe for the Nöck to reveal himself again. Prégardien and Gees paired Loewe's song with Franz Schubert.s Der Zwerg (D771, 1822) to a poem by Matthäus von Collin. A queen and a dwarf are alone on a boat on a lake. Love, murder and possible suicide haunt the idyll. The Id is released, violently, in a blissful setting.

Franz Liszt's Es war ein König in Thule (S278/2 1856) sets a poem from Goethe's Faust.  Schubert's setting is more folkloric, reflecting the innocence of Gretchen sings in  the novel. Liszt's setting is more elaborate. Lovely, falling diminuendos describe the way the King drinks one last time from his chalice, before throwing it "hinunter in die Flut". Perhaps the queen who gave him the chalice was herself a nature spirit  who lived beneath the lake?  Prégardien intoned the line "Trank nie einen Tropfen mehr" solemnly : the King has died.

Prégardien has championed the songs of Franz Lachner (1803-1890), who knew Schubert, Loewe, Schumann and Wagner, and worked in court circles in Munich, where he learned only too well what the Romantic imagination could do to real kings like Ludwig II. Lachner's Die Meerfrau  was written in Vienna,  comes from early in his career and sets a poem by Heinrich Heine. A  water spirit appears and drags a mortal to a watery grave. The song comes from Lachner's magnum opus,  Sängerfahrt op 33 (1831) where there are numerous songs on  similar themes of supernatural seduction and death. Ironically, Lachner wrote the collection on the eve of his own marriage, dedicating it to his bride. One wonders what modern psychoanalysts might make of that. Prégardien and Gees also performed Lachner's Ein Traumbild from the same collection. Tjhe final strophe is particularly luscious: The cock crows at dawn, and the vampire seductress flees. 

Prégardien and Gees also performed Liszt's Die Loreley (S273/2 1854-9), whose long prelude contains the Tristan motif in germ, before it was developed by Wagner. As Richard Stokes writes in his programme notes, it "begins with a leap of a diminished seventh : the voice however begins with a fourth ...and then soars a sixth - identical in harmonic terms with the piano's diminished sevenths".  In the context of  these feverish succubi,  Hugo Wolf's Ritter Kurts Brautfahrt (1888) made an interesting contrast.  On the way to his wedding, the Knight meets many temptations that almost throw him off course, including a mystery nursemaid who claims that her charge is his child. Yet it's quite a cheery song with cryptic in-jokes that refer to the music of Wolf's friend, the composer Karl Goldmark, who lent Wolf money, knowing he wouldn't be repaid.

Prégardien's unique timbre and ability to float legato has inspired several composers, most notably Wilhelm Killmayer (b 1927). Killmayer's  Hölderlin Lieder were written for Peter Schreier and are, I think, the most exquisite songs of the last half of the last century. Prégardien has recorded them too.  Killmayer wrote his Heine Lieder for Prégardien, setting 35 songs by Heine. Killmayer's songs don't imitate Schumann's. They engage with the meaning of Heine's texts in a highly original style, with pauses, and piano resonances that float in the air. The effect resembles speech, yet also inner contemplation. Killmayer revisits the poets of the past, and writes music for them in  a new, refreshing way.

 In this Wigmore Hall recital, Prégardien and Gees performed Killmayer's Schön-Rohtraut (2004).  The poem is Eduard Mörike, from 1838. Rohtraut is King Ringang's daughter. She doesn't spin or sew, but hunts annd fishes like a man. Mörike was inspired by the strange sound of the names, which he found in an ancient book, but the princess could be a reincarnation of the wild and elusive "Peregrina" who might have led Mörike astray. The lines are simple and repetitive, which suits Killmayer's abstract, almost zen-like purity. As Rohtraut leads the boy into the woods, his excitement mounts. Killmayer's delicate, fluttering note sequences suggest a heart beating with nervous anticipation. We feel we are at one with the boy, as enthralled as he. 

Michael Gees is himself a composer, and Prégardien has performed and recorded his songs several times. This time, we heard Gees's Der Zauberlehrling (2005) where he sets Goethe's poem about the sorcerer's apprentice who uses magic to wash the floor and conjures up a flood. Gees setting is delightful. Rolling, rumbling figures to suggest the rising waters, and a stiff march to suggest the legions of broomsticks.  Syncopated rhythms and zany downbeats, used with great flair. The audience burst into spontaneous applause. Gees and Prégardien were taken by surprise. Gees was thrilled, and beamed with happiness. It's heart warming to see a composer get respect like that.

The recital ended with old favourites like Loewe's Edward (Op1/11818) Tom der Reimer (Op 135a 1860), Schumann's Belsazar (Op57 1840) ans Wolf's Der Feuerreiter (1888).  Schubert's Erlkönig made a rousing encore, Since Prégardien and Gees had done Loewe's Erlkönig (Op 1/23 1818)  earlier in the evening, it was good to reflect on the differences between the two settings. Loewe's real answer to Schubert's Erlkönig is his Herr Oluf, which is another song of prenuptial anxiety, murder and mayhem, . Prégardien and Gees could be doing recitals like this over and over and not exhaust the  Lieder repertoire. 

A more formal version of this review appears in Opera Today.

Alternative Erlkönig? Loewe Der spaete Gast

An alternative Erlkönig? A woman and her son live alone in the wilderness.One night, there's a knock at the door. It's a goblin. "Little mother, take me into your little house, it's cold and wet out on the moor." "No, I lost my daughter out there in the heath, underr the moon". Then the dog starts to wail, recognizing the voice. Mother thinks her son has opened the door and let in a draught. But his body lies in his bed, in his little room, blaß wie der Mondenschein. Carl Loewe (1796-1869)  Der spaete Gast Op. 7 Nr. 2 to a poem by Willibald Alexis (Georg Wilhelm Heinrich Häring 1798-1871)
 
 Was klopft ans Tor? Über die rote Heide geht nur mein Sohn und ich, wir beide. Wir beide wohnen in der Wildnis allein, mein Sohn schläft dort im Kämmerlein. Keinen Kobold laß ich zur Tür herein. "Mutterlein! nimm mich ins kleine Haus, draußen weht es so kalt, draußen weht es so graus. Oft schon kreuzt' ich die rote Heide, oft schon sahen wir uns beide, kein Kobold ich, tu nichts zu Liede."

Denn bist du ein Irrwisch und locktest ins Moor meine Tochter, als ich das Kind verlor. Im Schilf, das dort am Felsen gränzt, da tanzt mein Kind, wenn der Mond drauf glänzt, du magst bei ihm schlafen, du hässlich Gespenst. "Ich kann nicht schlafen auf welkem Gras, von Tau und Regen ist's kalt, von Tau und Regen ist's naß. Ich bin kein Irrwisch, ich bin dir verwandt, deine Tochter hab' ich Schwester genannt und hab' sie gewarnt vor des Sumpfes Rand."

Verwandt ist mir niemand, niemand wert, ich steh' allein hier an meinem Herd. Den Fremden empfinge des Hundes Gebell, dem Blutsfreund, spräng'er entgegen schnell, nun starrt er zitternd auf eine Stell. "Mutter, der alte Hund kannte bald die Stimme, die draußen im Dunkel schallt. Er hatte schon sieben Jahr mich gekannt, seit ich ihn drüben am Kreuzweg fand. Mutter, ich bin dir so nah, so nah verwandt."

Was hast du mich spät in der Nacht geweckt? Was hast du im Schlummer die Mutter geschreckt? Was schläfst du nicht ruhig im Kämmerlein? Was spukest du draußen im Mondesschein? Mein Sohn kanns ja nur draußen sein. "Mutter, dein Sohn steht draußen nicht, aber mich brachte dein Schoß ans Licht. Noch schläft dein Sohn im Kämmerlein, aber ich schwebe im Mondesschein und will so gern zu dir hinein."

 Mein Sohn, du stehst so nahe bei mir, warum öffnest du selber dir nicht die Tür? Leicht Flechtwerk ist sie von Elsenwald, und draußen weht der Wind so kalt, o komm ins warme Kämmerlein bald!

"Mutter, ich stehe sehr weit von dir, öffnen kann ich nicht mehr die Tür! Selbst wie der Wind bin ich leicht und schwacht, komm nie mehr unter dein warmes Dach, drum gib mir draußen ein kalt Gemach!" Ich öffne geschwind, mein liebes Kind. Wo bist du? Es saust vorbei der Wind. "Der Wind weht fort mich, Mütterlein!" O weh! da liegt im Kämmerlein mein Sohn, blaß wie der Mondenschein.

Florian Boesch Loewe Wigmore Hall

Florian Boesch and Roger Vignoles gave a very good lunchtime concert at the Wigmore Hall on Monday. Boesch's voice is magisterial, but also refined. He''s a natural Lieder singer whose interpretations come from within. Last March I heard him in one of Richard Stokes's semi-private Liederabend recitals. Schumann and Schubert standards which we've heard a thousand times, but Boesch infused them with intelligence.

This Wigmore Hall recital featured songs about strange horsemen. Goethe's Erlkönig has been set many times, immortally by Schubert, but Loewe's version comes a close second. It's not as wildly Romantic or dramatic as Schubert, but the gentle, seductive opening chords emphasize the Erl King's seductive charms. Boesch's voice strains somewhat as he sings the boy's terror, but that's in character - the boy is so scared his throat constricts. Then, Loewe's Tom der Reimer, the "Rhymer" (troubador/poet) who meets a vision in the woods. She's astride a white mare, her hair and her horse's mane festooned with tiny silver bells. . She's the Queen of the Elves who enslaves Tom for seven years. He's lost in a swoon of ecstasy, the piano part So klangen hell die Glöckelein. Boesch's voice drops to a low growl for the last word, as if he knows the fairy bells are sinister.

Another ghostly apparition in Odin's Meeresritt. In the middle of the night a terrifying horseman in black armour summons a humble blacksmith to shoe his steed. "I have get to Norway by  morning." Since they're in Denmark, that's a tall order. Then the horseman rides off into the skies, followed by twelve black eagles. The stranger is Odin, king of the Norse Gods. The piano part's gorgeous. Odin's a prototype Wotan, so "hear" the connection.

We don't know why the lovely shepherdess in Süsses Begräbnis Op 62/4 has died, but Loewe creates a flowing sense of movement which might imply she's being borne aloft even as she's being laid into the ground - a subtle variation on Rückert's relatively straightforward text. Much more robust is Reiterlied with its sturdy galloping refrain mein Rößlein komm, wir reiten. Oddly this is more reminiscent of Schubert (think Abschied) than most Loewe. The gravitas in Boesch's voice works well with Der Pilgrim von St Just, who is no less than a King turned monk. Then, the wickedly lively Die wandelnde Glocke. It's Goethe - who else would dream up a poem about a naughty boy who won't go to church . He's pursued by the church bell, which flies over the fields. Superhuman architecture! And to end, Loewe's Edward, which everyone loves. Better still, Hinkende Jamben  "Look how Loewe sets Rückert"  says Boesch, "such ear for little detail", as he recites the tongue twister rapidly

Ein Liebchen hatt ich, das auf einem Aug'schielte;
Weil sie mir schön schien, schien ihr Schielen auch Schönheit.

Photo: Stefan von der Deken

Carl Loewe's creepy Edward

Carl Loewe (1796-1869) was an exact contemporary of Schubert, and a friend of Felix Mendelssohn, whose music he conducted. He lived long enough to know Schumann and Brahms. He's definitely an important part of the jigsaw that is 19th century Lieder. Loewe was an independent individualist who found his own distinctive voice. A few years ago, Cpo the budget label recorded Loewe's complete songs - over 400, on about 20 discs. The series is uneven but the good ones are extremely good - Edith Mathis, Christoph Prégardien, and Kurt Moll for example. There are also excellent collections with Hermann Prey and Thomas Quasthoff.  Loewe's operas are also great fun. A very young Jonas Kaufmann (1998, Munich) appears in Loewe's Die Drei Wünsche, to which he's ideally suited. 

Here's Loewe's Edward, Edward. Wilhelm Strienz with Michael Raucheisen, from German radio in the 1930'/40's .Being Loewe's op1 no 1, it's not as sophisticated as some of his greater pieces like Herr Oluf (Loewe's answer to Schubert's Erlkoenig)  but it's highly dramatic - a great encore piece. For the full text go to Emily Ezust's Lieder.net HERE.

The poem is Gottfried Herder. It's based on Scottish legend. Early Romantics were fascinated by wild, "primitive" cultures that offered an alternative to urban "civilized" society. Edward walks in on his mother. He's saturated with blood. "It's my hawk".  No, says Mum.  "It's my steed", blurts Edward. But the truth comes out. He's slaughtered his father. No explanation, but he's going on the run and will never return, leaving behind castle, wife and kids.

Edward is one of the first desperados in 19th century literature and song. The concept continues to fascinate. Below, a variation on the Edward theme. It's a traditional ballad here given C&W  treatment in 1952. Listen to the words - seriously psychotic. Even more surreal is the bland  nonchalance with which the band dedicates the song to the people of Knoxville, Tennessee, as if they think it's cute to be associated with sicko killers. At least Edward had an inkling of what he'd done, as Loewe's impassioned coda reminds us.