The Covent Garden Night-Mare

The Royal Opera House Season Launch for 2019-2020 : nice and safe, revivals and new works at the Linbury.  There are a few good choices, but, like the BBC Proms, "things ain't what they used to be" On the plus side, it's a chance to save money ! So come up and see this etching - The Covent Garden Night-Mare  by Thomas Rowlandson in a colorized version of the original published 1784 . In 1782, Henry Fuseli the Swiss mystic based in Britain exhibited a painting titled The Night Mare  which caused a sensation : a woman in her undies lies stretched on a bed, possibly drugged, a demon astride her, a black stallion (symbol of dark desires) looking on.   Pretty explicit, but typical of Fuseli, who was a mystic, possibly deranged, and an icon of the Romantic (big R) sensibility with its taste for the macabre and subconscious.  Rowlandson is making a point.  Fuseli's semi naked woman is replaced by the politician Charles James Fox, naked, possibly drunk, a demon on his back, a more quizzical horse looking on.  Fox was a Whig, usually at odds with the mainstream, but the satire here isn't on his politics so much as his reputation as a roué, who hung out at Covent Garden, then the haunt of prostitutes, thieves and degenerates. The (first) Royal Opera House had been built nearly 50 years before, but Fox and his friends probably weren't that much into music.

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

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.

Thoughts are Free ! Mahler Lied des Verfolgten im Turm

"Die Gedanken sind frei!", the rallying cry of the Romantic revolution !   The text was first written dowen in the 12th century by the troubador poet Walter von Wogelweide (whose artistic descendant is Walter von Stolzing). There are other variants from around the same period, suggesting that the song was already part of oral tradition, spread presumably by students, travellers, and journeying Gesellen.  Notations were made and published later, from the 18th and early 19th century.  A true "folk" song, which fitted well with the spirit of Romanticism and its values of identity, individualism and love of Nature.  Please read my several pieces on the Lützower Freikorps and the poets and composers inspired by them HERE HEREand HERE   Effectively just about everyone, from Goethe to Beethoven, to Schubert, Weber and Mendelssohn and beyond.  And in very different ways, their heirs Wagner, Brahms and Mahler.  

Mahler's song Lied des Verfolgten im Turm quotes Die Gedanken sind Frei word for word, and also uses the same tune. Whether there's any documentary evidence, he almost certainly would have known the soing. The connections inescapable :

"Die Gedanken sind frei, wer kann sie erraten,
sie fliegen vorbei wie nächtliche Schatten.
Kein Mensch kann sie wissen, kein Jäger erschießen
mit Pulver und Blei: Die Gedanken sind frei! "
"Und sperrt man mich ein im finsteren Kerker 
das alles sind rein vergebliche Werke.
Denn meine Gedanken zerreißen die Schranken
und Mauern entzwei: Die Gedanken sind frei!"
 
Mahler used a variant text as published in the volume Des Knaben Wunderhorn, published by Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim in 1806, which tidies up the folksy background, as was so often the case in the 19th century.  In 1806, you could still end up as Florestan.  In the original version, the mood is subjective, the protagonist imagining himself in prison.  In Brentano and Arnim, the mood is direct : the protagonist is safely incarcerated, identified as "The Prisoner". In the original, there is a verse in which the singer refers to one form of escapism : girlfriends and alcohol.

"Ich liebe den Wein, mein Mädchen vor allen,
sie tut mir allein am besten gefallen.
Ich sitz nicht alleine bei meinem Glas Weine,
mein Mädchen dabei: Die Gedanken sind frei!"

Brentano and von Arnim modify this earthy humour by dividing the text into two parts, one for the Prisoner, the other for the Maiden. The girl thus becomes a protagonist in her own right. But  now her function is diversion, not support. Basically "let's just party!" Mahler's setting underlines the difference, setting the lines with flirtatious lyricism.

"Im Sommer ist gut lustig sein,
Auf hohen wilden Bergen;
Man ist da ewig ganz allein,
Man hört da gar kein Kindergeschrei,
Die Luft mag einem da werden."

The Prisoner isn't fooled, however, and neither is Mahler. His song ends on the resolute. The old anthem returns, bold and free. 

"Und weil du so klagst, Der Lieb ich entsage, 
Und ist es gewagt So kann mich nicht plagen!

Stets lachen, bald scherzen; 
>Es bleibet dabei,
Die Gedanken sind frei !"

I've used the picture above because it perfectly captures the humour in the song. The Gedanken are depicted as folksy cherubs, rather cheeky, somewhat grotesque. The angel represents the Spirit of Liberty which inspires thoughts of freedom.  She's not a girlfriend and she's not trying to divert the Prisoner from his dreams. 

Lieder on a battlefield - Schubert Körner Schlegel Wigmore Hall

Liederabend on the battlefield! Not Schubert at the piano, but Theodor Körner, poet and freedom fighter.  On the night of 26th August 1813, Körner played the piano and sang for his comrades into the early hours. The next day, astride his horse, and dressed in black Lützower Freikorps uniform, he was shot, and died, aged only 21.  The Lützower volunteers fought a heroic resistance against the forces of Napoleon. Many of them were intellectuals, but as soldiers they lived rough, often camped in dense forests, living amid nature, sometimes aided by peasants. All the elements of the Romantic spirit ! Romanticism and the very idea of German identity was thus forged through steel.  Literally Schwertlied, (the song of the sword) the patriotic poem Körner wrote for that final Liederabend depicted above. "Hurra, du Eisenbraut! Hurra!"   Körner's mystique was that, even in battle, he was an artist, and had a death wish, another Romantic meme.  One can imagine the impression Körner made on Schubert, a geeky kid from a poor background.

Thus the background to this recital in the Wigmore Hall's Complete Schubert Songs series. Here Schubert's settings of Körner were presented with settings of Friedrich von Matthisson, Friedrich von Schlegel and his brother August.  The Körner songs chosen, however, were more light hearted than heroic.  Sängers Morgenlied I  D163 and II D165 follow the same text, the first setting somewhat tentative, the second more developed.  These were written within the same few months in 1815, when Schubert also wrote Liebesrausch I D164, and II D179, the first a fragment, the second with palpitating figures in the piano part, suggesting the fervent heart in the text.  Also from this period but more individual were Liebeständelei D 206 and Das gestörte Glück D309, two songs of coy flirtation.  When Markus Schäfer, the singer at this Wigmore Hall concert, recorded these songs with Ulrich Eisenlohr some years ago, his voice was light and agile. It's still charming, though he has to push the lines a little more.

Schubert's settings of Friedrich von Mathisson are more varied.  Entzükung D413 (1816) and Stimme der Liebe D418 (1816) are somewhat impersonal declarations of love, one lit by bright sunlight, the other by sunset. The rhyming couplets in Liebenslied D508 (1816) don't inspire Schubert to great  heights. Interestingly, Mahler, drawing his text from folklore, wrote a rather livelier Scheiden und meiden.  Skolie D507 (1816), however, is a drinking song. For a moment we were back to the youthful vigour of Körner and Burschenschaft societies. Vollendung D579a and Die Erde D579b were discovered in the 1960's. D number apart they bear no resemblance to the well-known Der Knabe in der Weige D579.

Friedrich Schlegel as a young man

Just as Schubert was inspired by  the ideaism of Theodor Körner, he was inspired by the idealism of Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel (1772-1829), another, though older, contemporary.  Schlegel's cycle of poems, Abendröte.  "Alles scheuint dem Dichter redend, denn er hat den Sinn gefunden, und das Allein einzig Chor manches Lied aus einem Munde".  The Gods of classical antiquity fade and Nature itself takes precedence.  The poems are vignettes : mountains, rivers, bushes, stars, a small boy and a butterfly, described in naturalistic terms.  Schubert wrote the songs in random order, from 1819 to 1823, the most prominent,  Die Abendröte.D690, last of all, though it forms the first part of the group on Schubert's manuscript. Its undulating piano lines suggesting the downward movement of the sun and the awakening of sensuality. "Berge, himmelan geschwungen" in every sense.  

Whatever Schubert's intentions may have been, the group of 7 of the 11 settings when performed together in this order has a certain logic. In Die Berge D614 (1819), the vocal line rises upwards, "Sieht uns der Blick gehoben", the middle section of the last word suddenly rising to a peak.  The piano part is confident, almost swaggering and upbeat.  In the middle strophe the pace quickens, strong single chords for emphasis.  With Der Knabe D692 (1820), we're down to earth once more, the high tessitura suggesting youth and fragility.  Der Fluß D693 (1820), is one of Schubert's most famous songs, its sensuous curving line flowing like a river. The vocal part soars and dips : there are parallels between this song and Schubert's last great masterpiece Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (D965) (read more here).  Perhaps the protagonist is a young shepherd looking down from a mountain to the river below. creating a nice connection with the other songs in this group.  With Der Schmetterling D633 (1819) we return to brisk, sunlight physicality, the piano part suggesting flapping wings. Die Sterne D684 (1820) recaps the mood of nocturnal repose in  Der Fluß  while the text of Die Gebüsche D646 (1819) reiterates the mood of the first song, Abendröte.: "Durch alle Töne tönet im bunten Erdentraume.ein leiser Ton gezogen Für den, der heimlich lauschet". 

August von Schlegel

Augmenting the settings of Friedrich von Schlegel, four settings of poems by his brother August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767-1845) less successful in a material sense, but also influential, and cosmopolitan.  Lob der Tränen D711 1818, Die gefangenen Sänger D712 (1821), Wiedersehn D855 (1825) and Abdendlied für die Entferne D856 (1825) plus one of Schlegel's translations of Shakespeare, Ständchen D889 (1826) "Horch, horch, die Lerch!"   Ace programme planning!  Markus Schäfer with pianist Piers Lane gave an earnest performance, but the choice of songs was so erudite that it was well worth enduring the horrendous traffic jams in central London before and after the show.  Hyde Park was mayhem, roads blocked for 50,000 fans and Justin Bieber.  Meanwhile, at the Wigmore Hall, our minds were focussed on philosophic ideals.


This review also appears in Opera Today 

Benjamin Appl Heimat - ideas and identity

Benjamin Appl and James Baillieu Heimat new from Sony.  In the booklet notes, Appl reflects on arriving in London in 2010 to study at the Guildhall School of Music. "I felt", he writes, "not only a sense of freedom but also a sense of uncertainty."  He could have remained in Germany,  the"home"of Lieder, but chose to adapt to a new environment in which he had to find his bearings afresh.   On graduation, Appl became part of the BBC Young Generation Artists Programme, whose extensive coverage has launched many careers.  The eclectic mix of Lieder and English Song on this disc reflects Appl's background, but there's a lot more to this programme, which is very well thought through and deeply satisfying.

The songs are arranged in eight sections - Wurzeln (Roots), Räume (Locations), Menschen (People), Unterwegs (On the road), Sensucht (Yearning) and Grenzenlos (Without borders), framed by a Prologue (Schubert's Seligkeit D433  and an Epilogue (Grieg's An das Vaterland op58/2 and Ein Träum 0p 48/6.  This gives cohesive structure, and brings out the logic in the programme.  An individual Winterreise, a journey of self discovery.  Much more rewarding than a random selection!  Appl and Baillieu set out "alone" but traverse different, diverse threads of European art song.

Thus the section Wurzeln starts with Max Reger Das Kindes Gebet op 76/22, where the piano tinkles, as might a child's toy piano, and ends with Brahms' Wegenlied op 49/4., the world's most loved lullaby, which millions of children know even before they learn formal language. Appl mentions the death of two of his grandparents while he was away from home,which gives these familiar songs personal import, with which we can all identify.  Franz Schreker's  Waldeinsamkeit might not be quite so well known, but Appl might have included it because the text, a German translation of a Danish poem by Jens Peter Jacobsen, predicates on the phrase "Wir müssen, Geliebteste, leise hinschreiten, ich und du". On a beautiful moonlit night in the woods, the lovers cannot tarry but must move on. Schreker was 19 when he wrote this song, which may perhaps be significant.

And thus, we move on. Romanticism was  forward-thinking, always concerned with wanderers, seeking  new horizons : the journey as important as the destination.  Appl and Baillieu chose two of Shubert's many "wanderer" songs, Drang in die Ferne D 770 and Der Wanderer an den Mond D870, but pointedly matched them with Adolf Strauss  Ich weiß bestimmt, ich werd' dich wiedersehen.   Fate has torn the lovers apart, but the underlying mood is overlaid with deceptive optimism   "I am certain that I will see you again, and hold you in my arms". The song is laconic, a Weimar-infused  pop song. But this Strauss wasn't Richard or Johann but Adolf Strauss (1902-1944), imprisoned at Theresienstadt, killed in Auschwitz. Think on that. This is what happens when national pride turns to bigotry.  At least Germans  deal with such things in a way many Brits cannot.  This colours the Sensucht in Schubert's Das Heimweh D456 and DerWanderer D489 with poignant depth.  "Ich wandle still, bin wenig froh, und ier fragt der Seufzer wo  Im Gesiterhauch tönt's mir zurück; "Dort, wo du nicht bist, dort is ds Glück".

Perhaps the very concept of unchanging Heimat is illusion.  Appl and Baillieu made the point still further with Hyde Park, by Francis Poulenc, never François, setting a poem by Guillaume Apollinaire which isn't  about London at all, followed by Benjamin Britten's mock Tudor version of Greensleeves. Another brilliant pairing: Ralph Vaughan Williams Silent Noon with Henry Bishop Home sweet Home, the former a masterpiece, the latter sentimental tosh, but Appl and Baillieu perform them with finesse.  I love hearing them done with a slight German accent, a reminder that the world is not all Anglo and that music is universal. 

This proved an excellent introduction to Peter Warlock's My own country (1927) about an imaginary homeland, which once reached, is a place to lie down and dream "forever and all". John Ireland's If there were dreams to sell continued the dream meme.pointedly, though, dreams can't be "bought" like physical commodities.  Appl and Baillieu completed the set with two songs by Edvard Grieg, whose music shaped national identity and led to Norwegian independence.  Is Heimat a state of mind? In the last Grieg song (to a poem by a German) "Dort ward die Wirklichkeit zumTraum, Dort ward der Traum zur Wirklichkeit !".

Appl and Baillieu's Heimat follows on from their  Stunde, Tage, Ewigkeiten, settings of Heine, from Champs Hill Records (reviewed here) which could become a sought after collector's item.  Appl's voice is a joy to listen to, but I hope he'll develop and take more risks. He's very good, and I think he can do it.  At times, he sounds too much like Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, with whom he studied briefly.  But no man can be a master until he finds himself first, and his own inner "Heimat". Especially in a genre like Lieder which celebrates freedom and individuality. 

Fingal, fantasy and creativity - Schubert and Ossian

Ossian on the banks of the Lora - Francois Gérard 1801

Despite inspiring some of the most sublime music ever written (Mendelssohn) and founding the Scottish tourist industry, Fingal was a fantasy.  Schubert set several texts attributed to Ossian, supposedly a 3rd century Celtic bard.

I've been listening to Loda's Gespenst D150 (1815). Der bleiche, kalte Mond erhob sich im Osten.  Fingal's soldiers sleep, their blue helmets glittering in the moonlight. But Fingal doesn't sleep. He looks toward Sarno's tower (see it in the pic?) . Suddenly ein Windstoß rips down from the mountains. It's the phantom Loda, umringt von seinen Schrecken.  Defiant, Fingal raises his sword. Schwach ist dein Schild, Kraftlos dein Luftbild und dein Schwert. You're a windbag, Loda! The text is heroic declamation - no ornamentation in the piano part, little lyricism in the vocal line.

Fingal defies Loda - Asmus Jacub Carsters 1754-98

Then Loda speaks. Ich dreh' die Schlacht im Felde der Tapfern.....Mein Odem verbreitet den Tod.  Fingal isn't fazed. His phrases are hurled like thunderbolts, Faß die Winde und fleuch! the piano pounds affirmation. Loda advances but Fingal spears him. Der blitzende Pfad des Stahls durchdrang den düstern Geist, and Loda disintegrates in a puff of smoke, and Fingal goes back to his men.  Considering the histrionic potential of this text, Schubert's setting is fairly straightforward. The lines aren't difficult to sing but the song runs around 12 minutes and needs a singer who can do drama without taking the mickey, because the poems were taken very seriously indeed, and were, in many ways, the germ from which grew the whole Romantic revolution .

In an age before widespread media coverage, Scotland and Ireland were wild, unknown regions, beyond civilization.  The Ossian poems captured the imagination because central Europeans could project their own concepts onto an exotic template.  Fingal and Ossian served a function like the gods of Classical Antiquity, as depicted in the 18th century blended with the concept of idealized Primitive Innocents, as in Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  Even if Mendelssohn realized that the poems weren't authentic, by travelling to Fingal's Cave, he was making a pilgrimage of sorts  to the source of an imaginary world where things could happen beyond the bounds of convention.  Names like "Carric-Thura" and "Sora" and "Comhal" thrilled, precisely because central Europeans didn't know what they meant, because they sounded wildly exotic.

This song is unusual because it's not strictly speaking by James Macpherson but by  Edmund, Baron  von Harold, born in Ireland, but resident in Düsseldorf from a very early age. When the craze for Ossian swept Europe, von Harold might have spotted an opportunity to "translate" yet more manuscripts that weren't lost so much as non-existent.  Indeed, it seems that von Harold didn't actually speak Gaelic, so his sudden discovery of Dark Age documents is improbable.  Fingal and Ossian represent the creative spirit, precursors of the 19th century fascination with strange lands and myths. So Loda was an apparition? Loda, Fingal and Ossian served a purpose even if they were fantasy. 

Weber Der Freischütz - what it really means

Mark Elder and The Orchestra of  the Age of Enlightenment marked its 30th anniversary with Carl Maria von Weber Der Freischütz. A good choice, since Der Freischütz is a milestone in music history, and represents a turning point, too, in wider European cultural history. Der Freischütz is the embodiment of Romantic ideals. In effect it marks the beginning of the modern era. So what if English-language listeners don't know the work as well as they should? Without Weber, music, not just opera, might not be as we know it today. No Der Freischütz, no Wagner, no Berlioz, no Schumann, no Mahler.  Parochialism is no excuse for not knowing music or even basic world history.  

Der Freischütz was first performed in 1821, just seven years after Napoleon's defeat.  Many in the audiences in early performances would have had direct personal experience of  the wars and their impact on German-speaking lands.   Romanticism has nothing to do with being "romantic" in the modern sense of the word    Its ideals galvanized European thought, especially in Germany which hitherto had been a diverse conglomeration of 300 states.  This period saw the growth of solidarity between German-language speakers, whatever their region. Nationalism then was a progressive, unifying force.  This interest in the past  wasn't about the past but a way of using the past to validate new ideas like national identity and the role of the individual. Thus the interest in German folklore, in Brentano and von Arnim's Des Knaben Wunderhorn, in the poetry of Gottfried Herder and even the concept "Gedanken sind Frei" (Read more here)  the individual as opposed to mass authority. From the Romantik sprang the revolutions of 1848, all over Europe, not just Germany. Understanding this context is fundamental to appreciating Der Freischütz. 

Der Freischütz portrays an idealized vision of the German past, where hunters provide sustenance  and live (more or less) in harmony with Nature.  But remember that forests can be dangerous places. Not for nothing are they a symbol of the unknown, and of the unconscious., Read Simon Schama: Landscape and Memory (2004), Jeffrey Wilson The German Forest (2012).  And, for that matter Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment.  Disney sanitized our appreciation of fairy tales as folk psychology, and infantilized meaning.

Absolutely resist the idea that Der Freischütz should either be sentimental or kitsch.  The people in this opera inhabit a world where danger and loss is never very far away.  Max, a humble junior huntsman, wants to marry Agathe, the boss's daughter, but in this rigid, hierarchial society he has no chance of challenging the social order. To win Agathe, he has to do a deal with the Devil whom Samiel represents.  If Max escapes in the end, it's only because Caspar pays the price and Prince Ottokar intervenes as deus ex machina. It's a near thing. Agathe could have been killed and Max executed for murder.  

Weber's music is exquisitely beautiful, as if it were, like the magic bullet, deflecting truth from those who can't handle reality.  Magic Bullets are not a solution. indeed, this opera can even allude to the dangers of quick-fix nationalism. Remember Hermann Göring if you think productions should be twee and folksy. Who was Göring in league with?   Hunting parties have long been a part of European culture, so they aren't in themselves any big deal. Read my piece here why the French Der Freischütz matters. It translates perfectly well to a non-German context. When we listen to Weber's hunting horns and rousing choruses, we should think about what's being hunted, and why.  The music is ravishingly beautiful because it emphasizes the beauty of life.  But killing is a bloody business, it's not pretty and it's not sentimental  Stick to Disney if you can't cope.  Weber's audiences would have known all about the Lützower Freikorps and other volunteer units who took to the forests and fought Napoleon's armies in guerilla action.  Most of these men were urban intellectuals, some aristocrats, some artists.  Some of Schubert's friends and poets were among their number.  But all believed in liberty and the ideals of the Romantic movement.  For me the most rewarding recording is Carlos Kleiber because it's savage and Max (Peter Schreier) is wonderfullly manic. 

Die Gedanken sind Frei

Die Gedanken sind Frei - a song at the soul of the German Romantic movement.The gentlemen above are intellectuals, aristocrats and artists, the gentlemen of the Lützowsches Freikorps who did their own thing, despite the repression around them.  Weber's  Der Freischütz can also be read as an extension of these ideas.  The song, first published in 1820, was almost certainly much older, the words quoted in medieval poetry.  The ideas were so well known that they worked their way into folk culture. In Clemens and von Brentano's  1805 collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the words appear in Lied des Verfolgten im Turm, which was set nearly a century later by Mahler.  A man is a prisoner in a dungeon from which he cannot escape. But "Gedanken sind Frei" and can never be suppressed.  If anything, the message is even more potent today, when forces of oppression have new channels in modern mass technology with which to spread wilful ignorance and domination. We live in a surveillance society : we aren't free. .  Lützow fought Napolean  The illustrations in the clip below show the uprisings of 1848, another watershed in German history. Now we have ISIS and other forms of terrorism to deal with. But as long as there are a few quiet voices who understand this simple song maybe there is hope. Pete Seeger sings a wonderful English translation, see below :

"Die Gedanken sind Frei, my thoughts freely flower
Die Gedanken sind Frei, my thoughts give me power,
No scholar can map them, no hunter can trap them,  
No man can deny, Die Gedanken sind Frei
I think as I please and this gives me pleasure, 
My conscience decrees, this right I must treasure
My thoughts will not cater, to Duke or Dictator,
No man can deny : Die Gedanken sind Frei"