2013 - looking back

Not so much the highs and lows of 2013 but a guess at what the year might have meant. Anniversary years bring composers mass publicity but that's not necessarily a good thing. Mahler's anniversary turned him into Mahlerkugeln. Wagner, Verdi and Britten fared rather better, though. 

This year's BBC Proms will be remembered for Daniel Barenboim's concert performances of the Ring. This summer I did a Wagner Marathon - London, Salzburg, Bayreuth. Read more here for links to individual reviews, including Herheim's wonderful Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. True, there's been plenty of commercialized Wagner but he's a composer who resists too much dumbing down. Contrary to those who thought Verdi was ignored,the BBC has been doing Verdi all year. There's a lot of Verdi around (and some of it sounds the same - ha!). In any case The Royal Opera House and Salzburg did exceptional Les vêpres siciliennes and Don Carlo. And it was good to hear non-opera Verdi at the Proms and elsewhere. 

And then there's Britten. Russian and American audiences may think they've discovered him but there's a long, long way to go. Even in Britain, where Britten is performed and studied more than anywhere else, the composer is still an unorthodox, contradictory figure who defies simplistic stereotype. This year we've heard every single thing Britten wrote, including the juvenilia and discarded works. It's been an extraordinarily rewarding year. There is more on Britten on this site than anywhere else that's not Britten-only, so please explore. I reviewed four of the six or more War Requiems this year, and the wonderful Aldeburgh centenary performance, which was oddly ignored in the media. Knussen knows Britten musically better than most.

Opera-wise things have been stimulating, revealing a lot more about audiences than the productions themselves. Audiences scream because they want "historic" but when they get genuinely historically informed productions like Les vêpres sicilennes, Robert Le Diable and  La donna del lago, they can't recognize it. Some were outraged because the ROH  Nabucco favoured the ascetic, invisble God of Israel instead of graven images. Evidently, history got it wrong.

Excellent baroque this year, too, also demolishing myths against period-informed performance.  The baroque era was flamboyant, adventuresome and daring - should its music be the opposite Thankfully in Britain we're close enough to France and Germany where baroque practice is robust.  "If it's good enough for Bill Christie", said a friend of Glyndebourne's audacious Rameau Hippolyte et Aricie "It's good enough for me". 

Many good concerts this year but one I'll remember was Wolfgang Holzmair with Imogen Cooper, at the Oxford Lieder festival, doing Schubert's Mayrhofer songs (repeated at the Wigmore Hall). I was mesmerized by every note and every word, far too overwhelmed to write it up. Do not miss Oxford Lieder's Schubert Festival in 2014. Two extremely good recordings this year : Matthias Goerne's Eisler Lieder with Thomas Larcher, almost better than his game changing version with Eric Schneider, and Goerne's Erlkönig with Andreas Haefliger, seventh volume inn the DG Schubert series.  Read about their Wolf and Liszt concert at the Wigmore Hall to see why they are so exceptional.  I only review about half or a third of what I listen to, leaving out the very best, the very worst and stuff about which there's nothing specially worth saying. The joys of being independent !

Holzmair Krenek tonight at Wigmore Hall

Tonight at the Wigmore Hall, Wolfgang Holzmair sings a programme he devised nearly 20 years ago. Holzmair is an exceptionally erudite singer, who not only knows parts of the song repertoire others don't, but also knows why they are important, and why they can change the way we listen. In this unique programme he mixes songs from Ernst Krenek's Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen with songs by Franz Schubert. This won't be any simple mixed recital: Holzmair's choices are carefully woven  together so the whole flows almost seamlessly.

 It's a very deliberate Ruckblick on Schubert through the perspective of a composer living in modern Austria, only a few years after the end of the Hapsburg Empire. Suddenly, the Austria Schubert knew was a rump, divested of the nations that made Vienna a world city, and the certainties Schubert knew were transformed. Krenek in the 1920's was the enfant terrible of his time, scandalizing audiences with his opera Jonny spielt auf, which featured a black saxophonist playing jazz.  Perhaps its success shook Krenek himself, for he took time out to immerse himself in Austrian tradition.  He spent many months in the Austrian Alps, living with the peasants, and experiencing their hardships. Like Schubert before him, he walked, closely engaged with nature and the rhythms of the human body. For years, I've been writing about the role of mountains in music, and how they've shaped the aesthetic of Mahler, Schubert, Hugo Wolf, Richard Strauss and so on. Krenek is making a similar pilgrimage, getting to terms with landscape and its place in the Romantic Imagination.

The Schubert connection is just as significant, for Krenek was writing 100 years after Schubert's death. Schubert wasn't nearly as omnipresent as he is now. His works had only recently been catalogued, thanks to funds generated by interest in the centenary.  Krenek and many others at the time were on a learning curve as far as Schubert was concerned. So  Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen is a new work, but also inspired by Krenek's response to Schubert as relatively "new" music.

The cycle also deals with Austrian identity and German domination, still sore points today. Krenek even writes about Nazis in Bavaria, barely 3 years after Hitler had been released from prison after the Beer Hall putsch. Some might have been lulled into thinking the party was neutralized. Not Krenek. Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen is not, as has been suggested, a "humorous" cycle though there's wit in it.

Perhaps Krenek's figuring out who he is, as a composer living in modern times, troubled by constant, threatening change. Back home, he comes across a strange, sleepy village in the suburbs. There's a motto written above a doorway. "Ich lebe, und weiss nicht wie lang. Ich sterbe, und weiss nicht, wann. Ich geh', und weiss nicht, wohin., mich wundert's dass ich noch Frolich bin." Suddenly, Krenek (who wrote the text as well as the music) find what might be the key: accepting that you'll never know the answers. Accepting that life's uncertain, yet making the most of it. Krenek's Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen really is a parable for modern times. .

Here is a link to something I wrote about Krenek's Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen  a few years ago. Surprisingly almost no-one has written about it, so remember you saw it here first. Holzmair and Russell Ryan, who is also playing tonight, toured Europe and the US with this programme 15 years ago, when the Austrian government was sponsoring the "Year of the Mountains", featuring films, music, and literature associated with mountains.

Wolfgang Holzmair's probably done more than most to bring this song cycle into the mainstream.  He's passionate about Austria, and lesser-known Austrian composers, as diverse as Franz Mittler and Robert Stolz.  He deserves much credit. This is his 1998 recording, a beautiful mini album, lovingly illustrated with period photos. Track it down, because even if there are new versions, this one is the classic. All 20 songs plus an extra bonus the Fiedelleider op 64.  If you can't get a recording, get the score from Universal Edition. I heard him sing the programme at an intimate recital  in 1999, organised by the Austrian Cultural Forum, held in the Leighton House Museum before it was renovated. Holzmair has in fact recorded the "special" programme, but it's not commercially available anymore. I bought my copy from him personally after another semi-private recital organized by Richard Stokes, whose insights into this repertoire are exceptional. 

Franz Schreker Songs Holzmair Haselböck

Franz Schreker was "a master of interior states" writes Christopher Hailey, Schreker's biographer.  "The protagonists of his operas are driven by emotional psychology rather than by external events, ideas or philosophical concepts". Not Wagner or Mahler then. Nor quite the world of Ewartung or Wozzeck.  Schreker's songs are interesting, approached on their own terms, like snapshots of experience, contained within the limits of piano song.

Only 33 of Schreker's 49 songs were published in his lifetime, the remainder only in 2005. This CD Songs of Franz Schreker (Bridge 9259) is the most extensive recording,. Wolfgang Holzmair, Hermine Haselböck and Russel Ryan are excellent. One could hardly hope for better performances. Holzmair specializes in less well known Austrian repertoire, so his interpretation evolves from long familiarity with the period. His voice is clear, clean and assertive, yet with a soft Austrian burr that adds a warm glow. Haselböck has an equally elegant style, which suits these songs well. One, Im Garten unter der Linde dates from 1896, when Schreker was only 17.

Much more attractive is Das hungernde Kind, from 1898. It's the same text from Des Knaben Wunderhorn that Mahler used in Das iridische Leben five years previously. Schreker's setting is briskly foursquare. No angst here, no psychological insight whatsoever. The tempo quickens slightly as the child gets more frantic, while the mother's music smiles, enigmatically. One shouldn't sympathise with child abuse, but the song's so charming, Yet what can it mean?

From this period also come two Mutterlieder songs to poems by Mai Holm, which Schreker revised extensively and published as his op 5. They're here in context with other, unconnected songs about the death of children  Like post mortem photographs, songs about the death of children were popular in the 19th century when child mortality was high. Although Schreker's sister had died some years before, it's probably not a good idea to read anything too personal into these songs of lyrical, stylized grief. If anything, the imagery fits best with the songs of flowers, a symbol of beauty that fades too fast. Rosengruss is attrractively ornamented, but for me the most touching is Rosentod to a poem by Dora Leen (Dora Pollack) who was for a while engaged to Schreker and who died in a concentration camp in the 1940's. There are three other songs to her poems, Spuk, Traum and Sommerrfaden, all set with a delicate touch so the naive simplicity of the poems isn't compromised. 

More sophisticated, and more musically satisfying are the later songs, such as four of the five settings of poems by Edith  Ronsperger (1880-1921), written in 1909, included to give a broader perspective. One of the best known is  Der Dunkleheit sinkt schwer wei Blie (Darkness falls as heavy as lead). Hailey draws the parallels with Schoenberg, in particularly Ewartung, though it's a much less complex piece and lasts only 3 minutes. But Schreker blends oppressive dark chords with menacing intervals.  It's highly dramatic, even though it doesn't develop into something more. This is Schreker, opera composer, showing what he can do with song.

It's also the spirit of Expressionism. The Cabinet of Dr Caligari  (click link for full download)! The current fashion for downgrading modernism would have it that Schreker was retrogressive and backward-looking.  Just as the Nazis suppressed composers like Schreker, "fans" these days suppress what makes them modern and worthwhile. Schreker knew Schoenberg, for example, and was well aware of society changing around him.  He had no illusions about conservatism or tradition for its own sake.  Think Irrelohe with its premonitions of the collapse of the old order.  So it's good that this worthy recording includes the song Das feurige Männlein from 1915. A troll astride a demonic stallion. It's First World War Feuerreiter, unleashing Armageddon in his trail. Weh! schreien die Menschen, die Bäum' und die Stein' - und das feuerige Männlein lauscht graig hinein.
Please see my other posts on Schreker, more here than other sites.

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.

Oxford Lieder Festival report

Oxford Lieder is much more than a series of recitals, it's the tip of an all-year programme. First, two logistically challenging enterprises. A mass schools exercise, where kids from many different schools in the area joined together in a choir. You can imagine the organizing that goes into this, it didn't happen overnight. They sang in the new atrium at the Ashmolean Museum. This is architecturally spectacular, glass and light - enjoy the photos on the link, they're gorgeous.

Friday afternoon rush hour open air concert on Broad Street - not usual busker fare but Brahms and Schumann part songs. Since this part of Broad Street is now pedestrian, it attracted a big crowd, over 100. Getting Schumann and Brahms to the people!

In the evening gala concert, Wolfgang Holzmair and Julius Drake in the Holywell Music Room. All Schumann, some more uncommon fare, like Abends am Strand and Belsatzar. The first tied together themes throughout the programme - old sailors remembering past adventures on the Ganges and in Lapland. Lotusblooms, throughout this recital, and partnerships, too, such as Die beiden Grenadier and the Kerner-Lieder drinking songs. Crammed into the Holywell Music Room were regulars who come every year plus several Famous Names perfectly happy to sit with us on the benches. Holzmair's programmes are always very well constructed, as his knowledge of repertoire is extensive. (Read about his blending of Schubert and Krenek's Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen by clicking on the blue link.

Belsatzar is a mini music drama: Holzmair acts with his voice, not overdone, but communicative. Schumann's ventures into opera aren't appreciated because he's experimenting with a new kind of music theatre, and we're more conditioned to conventional form. But one way into his operas is through extended ballads like this. Read about Schumann's Genoveva here.

Three different concerts and two talks on Day 2. Katarina Karnéus sang Grieg's Haugtassa, and Scandinavian songs. Haugtassa ranks for me among the best song cycles ever, it's so beautiful and so magical. I missed Richard Wigmore's pre-concert talk, which was a pity, because it would have been good. Butb there's always Daniel Grimley's book, Grieg:  music, landscape and Norwegian Identity which has a big segment on Haugtassa.

Karnéus is a specialist in Scandinavian song, and has made numerous recordings, including Haugtassa. Check out the BIS site for more - they have the complete Sibelius songs, for example. Anne Sofie von Otter's recording is the classic, but Karnéus's voice is attractively rounded and charming.. It says much about Oxford Lieder that they can attract artists of Karnéus's calibre. She'd fill a much bigger house than the Hoywell, but it was a privilege to hear her in this intimate setting. The songs are about a simple country girl, who encounters love and other mysteries. It definitely benefits from the Holywell atmosphere(apart from drunken students howling outside at the end).

The late-night concert was in the medieval New College Ante-Chapel. Schubert Songs for guitar played by Christoph Denoth, a specialist in baroque guitar, Schubert was a keen guitarist and made some transcriptions himself. There's an excellent recording of Die schöne Müllerin by Peter Schreier with Konrad Ragossing, which gives a whole new perspective on the cycle.

And earlier Angela Bic, winner of the 2009 Kathleen Ferrier Song Prize. She's actually appeared at OLF before, in 2008, proving OLF's reputation for spotting talent at an early stage. Next week, I'm going to hear Tilman Lichdi, completely new to me but he's appeared in the US.

Oxford Lieder runs on a shoestring budget, but the emphasis is on helping others. So, though funds are tight, there's a Scholarship. It's generous, big enough to seriously make a difference when you're at the start of your career. This year's award went to Stuart Jackson, still at RAM but a very distinctive voice with good range. I heard him in a Friends recital two weeks ago - definitely someone to listen out for.

Sholto Kynoch gave an excellent talk on Lieder resources on the web. I learned so much, including  a tip I ought to know but didn't "Control F" helps find things quick on a big database. Emily Ezust's Lieder and Song Texts (Lieder,net) collection features nearly 100,000 songs, cross references to poets, composers, first lines etc. It's such an important asset that when the site went down for a day last year, it was a news item in Lieder circles. Also, Bachtrack, excellent for checking what's on. Bookmark these or use the links on the right of this page. They're there because I use them all the time. Sholto also showed us how to navigate IMSLP. This is a collection of public domain scores uploaded by international library services. Full of rarities, useful references. Always so much to learn!

Much more to come on Oxford Lieder - here's the website, complete brochure embedded.
photo credit : Benjamin Harte

Oxford Lieder Festival 2010

The Oxford Lieder Festival is small, but is extremely important.  It's quite an achievement, extremely well organized and comprehensive, a model for intelligently-presented festivals of any kind.  Ten years ago, Lieder was relatively niche in the UK, now it's firmly part of the landscape. Thanks, in part, to Oxford Lieder,with its recitals, workshops, schools projects, masterclasses etc. Singers, pianists and dare I say it the media, are more aware how a solid foundation in art song makes a huge impact on vocal performance.(FOR DETAILS OF OXFORD LIEDER 2011 please see HERE.)  As usual I'll be at most concerts.

This year's Oxford Lieder Festival starts Oct 15th but make bookings now as many things sell out fast. Many concerts take place in the Holywell Music Room (pictured), the oldest dedicated recital room in Europe where Mozart, Handel and Haydn played live. Perfect acoustic, if marred by occasional street noise, but that's part of the atmosphere. It's intimate, which is perfect for Lieder and chamber music, where art matters more than glitz.

Wolfgang Holzmair sings the opening recital on Friday 15th, with Julius Drake. Schumann, but not the usual cycles we hear all the time, often not to best advantage. instead, Kerner-Lieder which Holzmair recorded beautifully and rarer Heine settings. Definitely a concert for those who really care about Schumann.  Indeed, all through the festival there will be Schumann recitals and events, including "Lunch with Schumann" - refreshment for the soul!

The Prince Consort will be singing Schumann Spanisches Liederspiel and Liebeslieder on 21st with a premiere by Ned Rorem (Prince Concert speciality) with Stephen Hough's Herbstlieder and part songs by Quilter and Barber. Review HERE. Not something you hear everyday.Also look out for "An introduction to Polish Song" (30/10) with Maciek O'Shea and Sholto Kynoch, which will include Chopin and Liszt songs but also lesser-known treasures. Maciek is I think a native speaker and very well informed.

Oxford Lieder does "different" extremely well.  On 16th Katarina Karnéus sings Sibelius and Ture Rangström which should be unmissable too, as she's one of his leading exponents.  Later that night at 10pm Schubert songs with guitar, an instrument Schubert loved and played, so they need to be known to appreciate how he thought. There are lots of Schubert guitar songs, includiung a transcription of Die schöne Müllerin. Christoph Denoth plays, possibly period guitar. Read about him HERE. Seriously interesting concert, and in New College Chapel, itself an experience at night.

I'm also booking for the pair of Hugo Wolf recitals, 21st and 22nd, when James Gilchrist, Stephan Loges, Anna Grevelius and Sophie Daneman sing the complete Wolf Mörike songbook. Since Wolf is one of the greatest Lieder composers of all, he's long been an Oxford Lieder trademark, so this will be good. 

Sir Willard White sings this year's Gala concert - Schumann, Vaughan Williams, Britten, Ives and Copland. Eugene Asti pianist. Imagine White singing Schumann's Husaren-Lieder! This will be fun. If you pay an extra £30 you get to sit in special reserved seats and enjoy a post-concert reception with White and Asti,. It's worth doing as this helps support Oxford Lieder which is entirely privately funded.

Closing concert is Jonathan Lemalu, in a well-chosen  programme which suits him, and includes Schumann's Andersen Lieder and Richard Rodney Bennett.  Many other recitals,  Sophie and Mary Bevan, Felicity Palmer and many up and coming young singers. Oxford Lieder has spotted many young singers long before they become really famous, so this is another reason for supporting it. Lots of classes and other activities and chamber recitals, too. Incidentally, the Oxford Chamber Music Festival now starts and ends just before the Oxford Lieder Festival, so they complement each other. 


photo credit : Ny Björn

Terezin Theresienstadt Nash Holzmair Wigmore Hall

Is this an ordinary family making music? Look closely. Dad and the little girl are wearing  yellow stars. This is a drawing from Terezin Theresienstadt, by Helga Weissova-Hoskova, who was a teenager then. She survived and was at the Wigmore Hall for the Nash Ensemble's tribute last weekend.

Lots of people had come in from Israel and the Czech Republic. But the music of Theresienstadt speaks for everyone, because it shows how people can be creative in the most adverse situations, and that art has value, against all odds. That's why its significance resonates for all humanity.

Because camp conditions were strained, no huge Wagnerian orchestral extravagance. Instead, focus on chamber musi, song, things that ordinary people can do. Ilse Weber's poems and songs are loved because they are so simple and down to earth. They weren't meant to be fancy High Art but they  are moving because of their context. Terezin-Lied came from Emmerich Kálmán's hit operetta Countess Maritza,. Everyone knew the tune, so changing the words gave it another level of meaning. Trained voices not needed, everyone could sing along together.

Wolfgang Holzmair's song grained voice suited the songs he chose for this concert, which included Carlo Sigmund Taube's Ein jüdisches Kind, Zigmund Schul's Die Nicht-gewesen and Viktor Ullmann's Drei Lieder op 37.  Taube's song is gentle, but haunting: Ullmann's songs more barbed. Holzmair's diction sharpened well for Der Schweizer, savage satire on the Swiss Guards and the Pope. The original poem  was written in the late 19th century by Conrad Ferdnand Meyer, a Swiss radical. Another pointed adaptation.

The Nash played Gideon Klein's String Trio, written in camp in 1944. Perhaps this is the piece being played in Helga Weissova-Hoskova's drawing? It doesn't matter, but the thought gives the music extra poignancy. Klein's music is so elegant that it's good to hear whatever the context, but on this occasion, the connotations did take on extra meaning, and rightly so. Holzmair sang Klein's song in the encore. including the wonderful Lullaby.
  
Hans Krása's Brundibar is famous all over the world these days, performed in many languages. At the Wigmore Hall, in the presence of people who took part in the original performances, it was unique. The Nash  played two Hans Krása works for string trio, the Passacaglia and Fuga, and Tanec, so Brundibar can be appreciated in the wider context of the composer's work.


The Nash Ensemble came out in full force for the second evening concert, which placed Terezin music in the wider context of Czech music. Here, too, adaptation and renewal. Smetana's Overture to the Bartered Bride, but in a new arrangemnt by David Matthews (who was at Aldeburgh the previous day).  You can see a a film of the opera on this site HERE, in full, It's quite unusual, because it was made in the UFA studios in Germany during the Third Reich but features Czech singers and looks like it may have been filmed in Bohemia. It's in German, which is no big deal, as opera was frequently sung in different langauges in the past, but it does make you wonder about what was going on in UFA despite the official Nazi control..
 
Then Petr Pokorny's arrangement of Krása's Brundibar for 13 instruments. Although the opera is worth hearing because it's such a good piece for children's voices, hearing the Suite highlights the composer's orchestration. As music it works well, especially when performed by top notch musicians, which isn't always the case with the opera. 

For me the high point of the evening was Erwin Schulhoff's Duo for violin and Cello. Schulhoff wasn't in Terezin. He was a Communist and non-religious, which made him an outsider both in Nazi Germany and in Czechslovakia.  The Duo dates from 1925. It's quite remarkable. Its starts with brio, hurtling incisively into the first theme: no messing about. The violin (Marianne Thorsen) flows a long melody at the upper ends of the range: exquiste. The cello (Paul Watkins) listens, pauses, then repeats the melody in  a lower timbre. The second movement is a Zingaresca, gypsy dancing, but muted, a nostalgic memeory rather than a dancer in the here and now. The Andantino's edgy, decidedly modern. Strings plucked, jerkil : folk music this is not, despite the references. The final movement, marked Moderato, sounds almost pentatonic, alien to the Austro-German tradition. Part way it breaks off in false ending, then resumes, brighter and firmer.

Ian Brown played Viktor Ullmann's Piano Sonata no 6, writtten in Terezin, and Holzmair returned to sing Krása's Three Songs and Pavel Haas's Four Songs on Chinese Poetry.  Enjoy these and more on his CD, reviewed HERE.on this site, where there's plenty more Theresienstadt and suppressed music. The second evening concert is being broadcast on  BBC Radio 3 on Monday 5 July and will be available on line on demand for a week.

Coming up in June - multiple Bizet

June is one of the busiest months in the year for live music in England.  It's also the most beautiful month, when gardens burst with peonies, poppies, delphiniums, clematis and roses!  Everything comes into bloom at once before the drought that can come in summer, musically as well as horticulturally.

In London this first week in June is Bizet Immersion - two Carmens and The Pearl Fishers at the ENO. I'm really looking forward to the latter, because it's completely different to the cliché of "pink, glitter and kitsch".

In Bizet's time, the East was an exotic amalgam of fantasy, which served a deeper purpose. People then needed "The East" to disguise their longings onto. At long as something is set in unreality, be it fake-orientalism or fairy tale, it's easier to deal with troubling things like sex and the subconcious. Composers used it as a cloak for musical experiment. Listen carefully to Bizet, how adventurous he is, playing around with ideas, made palatable because he coats them with "other".

Tonight, I will do a full preview of the ENO Pearl Fishers production. Last week, I went behind the scenes of the production, met the people, saw the sets, etc  A lot of work goes into bringing productions to life, and it's team work, moreover. The myth of director's whim doesn't exist very often in reality. Please see my interview with the director, Penny Woolcock HERE.

Today, I'm off to the dress rehearsal of Carmen at Opera Holland Park and on Saturday Carmen at the Royal Opera House. Should be interesting! It is so much a part of modern culture. Everyone's Carmened since they were about three years old, they just didn't realize it was "classical music". Here's a link to a film clip in Mandarin, brilliant take off by the ultimate Modern Girl, Grace Chang.

Combine gardens and music and head for the English Song Weekend in Ludlow,  Shropshire. It's unique, and held only every 3 years. Fantastic ambiance, perfect setting, good music, good talks and excellent company. This is the best season ever and I was seriously planning to go but so much else gets in the way. I know I shall regret.

Glyndebourne continues, it's magnificent, an incredible achievement because it was founded from one man's vision. It's Britain's Bayreuth but with a wider focus. Garsington, too, mixes opera with gardens and picnic. I'll be at Rossini Armida, but also Britten Midsummer Night's Dream, which will be wonderful in the Garsington open-air setting, as night falls outside. Stars courtesy of the Universe.

Then, there's Aldeburgh. Aldeburgh has always been "European" in outlook, because Britten identified with European composers like Shostakovich, Mahler and so on, much more so than the Cotswolds crowd.  That's part of what makes Britten unique, he's English but "not" English at the same time, in a creative way. With Pierre-Laurent Aimard as Artistic Director, this distinctiveness will grow. Read my analysis of Aldeburgh 2010.here. Pierre Boulez is coming, in person, to talk.He doesn't turn up at any old "local" festival, but he does for Aldeburgh, and for Aimard. Great countryside, beaches, food and gardens too.

Another really important mini-festival, if you can call it that, will be the Theresienstadt Terezin Weekend at the Wigmore Hall. Curated by the Nash Ensemble, it features music from composers who were in the camp, but it will also be a kind of remembrance as they'll be doing films, talks and something on Hans Krasa's children's opera Brundibar. Some of the people who performed the original, in Theresienstadt, as children, may be there. Reunions like these can be quite poignant, you almost feel you shouldn't be intruding on privacy, but Theresienstadt music means a lot and must not be forgotten.

Wolfgang Holzmair will be singing. Read about his recording of Theresienstadt music HERE and about Anne Sofie von Otter's concerts and CD. There is a lot on this kind of music on this site, because it means a lot to me.  I'll be writing more about the music at this particular weekend later, so keep coming back.  If the only thing I can do is to make this site a resource for suppressed music of all kinds, it's small recompense.

Also, the Spitalfields Music Festival in London, a gritty part of the East End now trendy: Rumplestiltskin from Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. And the City of London Festival, held in private Guildhouses, real medieval Guilds but members don't ply their trade in the same way now.

At the Barbican this first week, two important concerts - Daniel Harding and Thomas Adès, and Kabuki at Sadler's Wells. That's just week one, lots else elsewhere.

Ernst Krenek - Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen

"Ich reise aus, mein Heimat zu entdecken"  On this stirring note begins Ernst Krenek's Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen. It sounds confident and hearty but this is no Romantic hero striding into the world. Unglaube gegen uns  selbst ist zuviel in uns verwurzelt (lack of faith in ourselves is deeply rooted). This song cycle is, no less, a parable for modern times, when the idea of identity is constantly being challenged by change. Like Hanns Eisler's Hollywood Liederbuch, Krenek's Reisebuch is one of the milestones of 20th century song.
 
Not many years previously, the Hapsburg Empire had collapsed. Previously Vienna had been the capital of a culturally diverse, polyglot nation. Suddenly it was a severed rump of German speakers, who weren't German. So Krenek set off into the mountains to make sense of what might be the Austrian soul. In the second song, Verkehr, Krenek makes it clear he's dealing with modern conditions. He travels by electric train, and then a bus. Dangerously steep inclines, teetering on precipices. Will the machines survive? Then he visits a monastery, where the monks aren't Technik Sklaven, but live quietly, with their ancient library.

In the mountains, life is brutally difficult. Steep slopes, dark valleys, poor soil. The weather's treacherous. Sudden storms blow up, even in summer. It's always raining. Wetter and Regentag, relentless pounding motifs, echoing the grim reality of life for the locals.  As Krenek notes, the dead are exhumed after 10 years because the land's too precious. Their remains are put on display for gawping visitors. Suddenly you realize just how much a tourist Schubert was. He liked the scenery, but was, essentially, an outsider on holiday. Krenek constantly refers to the contrast between sojourners and locals, those who have to live with the consequences of change. and those who can run away.

Hence the "modern" images that keep recurring, and sub themes of anomie and disorientation. Musically,  Krenek uses jerky, angular forms that break up the seamlessness of the world he's describing, because it's on the verge of disintegration. 

Mountain folk need tourists because they're desperately poor. But tourists bring irremediable change.Alpenbewohner is a remarkable song, where the locals look sullenly at the wilden Nomaden who descend upon them, speaking oddly "although in German", their motorcycles tearing up the silence, vulgar because they have money.  But what do the locals want? More tourists, preferably English, for whom there must be English churches and 18 hole golf courses, because they can't take Austria for what it is. Look at the scars caused by ski slopes in this photo. Golf courses are even more disastrous to the fragile alpine environment. The rich Germans disrupt the Austrian stillness with their vulgarity and motorbikes, but the locals are so poor they have to sell out to the tourists. Krenek didn't know, in 1929, how prophetic his observations would prove..

Krenek follows this song with Politik. It explicitly refers to the First World War and the sufferings it brought to Austria, "Look to the West" he says "where a free people live on free mountains". It's Switzerland, not Bavaria, a small self-contained country that values neutrality. Yet later, Krenek thinks of Italy but knows that "a thistle transplanted in a lovely garden will not become a rose".
 
Again and again, images of gentle somnolence in the music are shattered by outbursts. The explosive Gewitter (Thunderstorm) isn't merely descriptive, but emphasizes sudden upheaval, from which there's no escape. So Krenek goes back to Vienna (on a schnelle Zug) Huge swelling crescendo on the words Liebes Vaterland. But it isn't just the mountains he's referring to, but his identity as a Viennese.

Krenek had just had a wild success with Jonny Spielt Auf, with the black jazz saxophonist. "Degenerate"!  screamed critics who wanted time turned back. So Krenek goes to the mountains, the "pure source" where people still sang folk songs and lived primeval lives. Significantly, Krenek relates to Schubert, not Mahler, Wolf or Mozart. Intriguingly, the song Krenek dedicates to Schubert is Unser Wein. It's a gay,. lilting melody, but the punchline is that Austrian wine is "valued only by those who know to seek it out". In 1929, Schubert wasn't quite as ubiquitous as he is today. Perhaps Krenek's hinting at deeper levels in Schubert, which we're familiar with now, but in those days, Schubert's  image was prettified through operettas like Blossom Time. 

Perhaps Krenek's figuring out who he is, as a composer living in modern times, troubled by constant, threatening change. Back home, he comes across a strange, sleepy village in the suburbs. There's a motto written above a doorway. "Ich lebe, und weiss nicht wie lang. Ich sterbe, und weiss nicht, wann. Ich geh', und weiss nicht, wohin., mich wundert's dass ich noch Frolich bin." Suddenly, Krenek (who wrote the text as well as the music) finds what might be the key: accepting that you'll never know the answers. Accepting that life's uncertain, yet making the most of it. Krenek's Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen really is a parable for modern times.

Wolfgang Holzmair's probably done more than most to bring this song cycle into the mainstream.  He's passionate about Austria, and lesser known Austrian composers, as diverse as Franz Mittler and Robert Stolz.  He deserves much credit. This is his 1998 recording, a beautiful mini album, lovingly illustrated with period photos. Track it down, because even if there are new versions, this one is the classic. All 20 songs plus an extra bonus the Fiedelleider op 64.  If you can't get a recording, get the score from Universal Edition.

Holzmair also devised a special programme combining songs by Schubert with songs from this Krenek cycle. It was beautifully well chosen, highlight inner themes both composers wrote about. I heard him sing the programme at an intimate recital  in 1999, organised by the Austrian Cultural Forum, held in the Leighton House Museum before it was renovated. He is singing this special programme at the Wigmore Hall, where Florian Boesch sang excerpts fro the Krenek songbook two years ago.  .Holzmair has in fact recorded the "special" programme, but it's not commercially available anymore. I bought my copy from him personally after another semi-private recital. Must dig it up. Please  also see  my latest on this cycle HERE and a review, coming up soon !

Vienna to Weimar - Song recital

The real star of this recital at Kings Place on 27th January, part of the Vienna to Weimar week, was Erik Levi, who compiled the excellent programme. It was erudite and intelligent, an excellent introduction to that era in song. You can replicate the recital with recordings. It's almost impossible to describe the programme fully here, but maybe this will give some background.

Starting with Franz Schreker's Die feurige Männlein put the whole theme of Vienna to Weimar in context. It's a violent, dissonant song about a horseman cloaked in flames who brings havoc and death to the world. Written in 1915, it's fairly obvious what Schreker's getting at. In this Apocalypse the horseman's a miserable troll. Perhaps it was a mercy that Schreker died before the Holocaust. This song relates to Die Gezeichneten, of which I've written HERE.

Hans Gál escaped early to Scotland and livd to be 97. His Five Songs (1917-21) are beautiful. Listen to audio samples HERE. Der Weissenbach is a lovely miniature. I also love Gál's Das Vöglein Schwermut, more lyrical than Zemlinsky's setting. These were Christian Immler's finest moments in the recital. It's him on the sound clip, with Erik Levi on the piano! Very evocative postludes and preludes, in the recital well played by Helmut Deutsch. And Drei Prinzessinnen (Bethge), with a delicate, refined mood of melancholy. Yet the line expands zu den Ufern, wo die Freiheit wohnt. Immler sings the world Freiheit with fullness and feeling, for it's the goal the princesses will never reach.

Hearing these Berthold Goldschmidt songs, Ein Rosenweig and Nebelweben, made me feel Sensucht too, because I used to have a recording of them with Goldschmidt playing. Even if I replace the one I gave away, it won't be quite the same. The CD I had belonged to Goldschmidt himself. It's a long story which I'll save for another time. Goldschmidt led the Matthews brothers in their performing version of Mahler's 10th, but was a fairly self-effacing man, whose music didn't get into the repertoire until fairly late in his life. Incidentally he himself was taught by Franz Schreker, among others.

Hanns Eisler gets a bad press because he's mostly known in the US for being kicked out of Hollywood by the Committee on Un-American Activities in 1947. His political music is extremely important. In many ways it was he who gave Brecht more backbone than Weill did. his political songs tie in with the Brecht belief in direct communication, which is why they're simple and can be sung by untrained voices. and performed in non-concert-hall situations. That's how to reach the masses. But there's a lot more to Eisler.

Here we heard some of Eisler's Galgenlieder, much closer to the sophisticated, exquisitely crafted art songs and chamber pieces that Eisler's reputation really should be based upon. They're literate, whimsical songs. Die beiden Trichter, for example, needs to be read from the page because the visual shape of the poem, as written, is crucial to its meaning. Two funnels pour into a single source til the last drop fades away. The poem's shaped like a triangle, wider at the top, ending with just a "w". As does Eisler's music, ending with a single note.  HERE is a link to Eisler's song Cripple Brigade. LOTs of Eisler on this site.

Eisler also wrote quirky little pieces based on snippets from the newspapers, ideas condensed to haiku-like extremes. Not at all populist in the usual sense, but if you like cryptic crosswords, you might like this other aspect of Hanns Eisler.

One of the myths about Erich Korngold popular on the internet is that he was only "forced" into writing for the movies by the Nazis. In fact, he was smart enough to realize long before the Anschluss that film had a future, the "opera" of the New World. Surprisingly, there aren't all that many settings of Shakespeare, so Korngold's Songs of the Clown have a place in the repertoire. It's interesting to think about Korngold adapting to Anglo culture, writing music for Robin Hood, Elizabeth and Essex and of course adapting Mendelssohn's Midsummer's Nights Dream.

It's also interesting to think of Hanns Eisler writing hits in Hollywood, though he began with uncompromising Kuhle Wampe (watch full download HERE) and continued to write art music for documentaries like Resnais's Night and Fog, one of the best films about the Holocaust.

Prof Levi's programme thus turned to America. Zemlinsky didn't write for film, though he might have done great things given his feel for lushness. But he was interested in American music, meaning jazz. Quite a liberating thing for him, I think, a pity he died relarively young. Like many intellectuals of the time, he was interested in the Harlem Renaissance and the poetry of Langston Hughes. Grollen die Tomtoms, rollen die Tomtoms, grollen, rollen wecken das Blut. This is Hollywood Africa, exotic and louche, but it's fun music anyway. Which is perhaps why there are so many different recordings of Afrikanischer Tanz, and it's sometimes used as an encore. Listen to Michael Volle with James Conlon, definitely quirky and "lowdown".

More "Black America" seen through German eyes/ears in Eisler's Ballad of Nigger Jim. This is closer to the bone because Nigger Jim bucks Jim Crow and gets lynched. Eisler's ending parodies popular song but the message isn't funny. Similarly, Ballade von der Krüppelgarde,(op 18 1929/31) is a march, but the marchers are cripples. led by a Field Marshal who is a crawling torso. They've been maimed in war but no-one cares. So the rhythms are off centre, like the movements of men who can't march in line. It's horrific stuff despite the pretend insouciance. There's a truly biting recording by Ernst Busch (of course). Wir sind die Krüppelgarde, das strärkste Batallion, die alleresrtes Reihe in der Weltrevolution. So what if the sentiments are left wing? It's a very good song. And in any case, things have not changed in this world.

An aside - strange how Weimar people were fascinated by things English/American. Brecht goes on and on about exotic places which really live in his mind. Nigger Jims abound in various forms.

Which leads to Ernst Krenek. After his smash hit Jonny Spielt Auf, with the iconic black musician, Krenek took a sabbatical in the Salzkammergut insteade of capitalizing on his success in Vienna. Krenek travelled light because he wanted to probe deeper into what shaped the Austrian psyche (as opposed to the Viennese).

The Reisebuch aus den Oesterreicheschen Alpen is a panorama of unforgiving mountain landscapes and the harsh lives of peasants before modern utilities. In 1927, they were just finishing the D numbers, and Schubert wasn't quite so ubiquitous as he is now. So Krenek's pilgrimage was also a means of engaging with what made a city boy like Schubert respond to the countryside as he did. Krenek's cycle (to his own poems) isn't High Romantic although it's beautiful. There are songs about rich Bavarians burning down the roads in leathers on motorbikes, and a mention of Hitler, not long after Hitler got out of prison. But then, Schubert set contemporary poetry, too.

Krenek's Reisebuch aus den Oesterreicheschen Alpen is such an important work that it really deserves to be written about in more detail than this, so I'll do something more on it later. Shockingly, there's only one recording, by Wolfgang Holzmair, made in 1998. It's beautiful, the CD cover designed to look like a 1920's photo album. Holzmair passionately champions the cycle and toured with it for several years. He also devised a concert programme where he mixed Krenek's songs with Schubert's. That too, he recorded, but on a small label, almost impossible to find. Since wrfiting this I've found Julius Patzak's even earlier recording, which is wonderful, too.

Please see my other posts on the Kings Place Vienna to Weimar event – lots of links. Also to full movie downloads. There's a lot on this site about the music of this period, one of my special interests.

Luckiest man ever?

Tonight, Tristan und Isolde at the Royal Opera House! But first something cheering. A few years ago I was walking in Dahlem in Berlin, and saw a monument to a composer I'd barely heard of: Robert Stolz 1880-1975. How that man was blessed under a lucky star! Born in Vienna, he moved in the right circles. As a boy he played the piano in a concert with Brahms in attendance. He met Strauss, Humperdinck and many others. He started a prosperous career in music theatre but lost all in the First World War. Off he moves to Berlin and starts another prosperous career in Weimar Berlin (hence the monument in Dahlem).

He made and lost several fortunes and went through four traumatic divorces. Then the Nazis came and he lost everything again. He started up once more in Vienna, but they came there, too. When he fled to Paris, his latest wife took his money and papers and left him high and dry. So there he is, bald, broke, stateless and 60. But what should happen? Weeks before his internment by the French as an enemy alien, he'd met a beautiful 19-year-old heiress. She fell in love with him, sprang him from prison and married him. They went to Hollywood where he started yet another successful career writing for movies.

Being echt Viennese he returned to Austria in 1946 where he became the embodiment of Viennese light music and operetta, a living symbol of a former age. His wife still lives in Vienna, aged 90, continuing to devote her life to promoting his work. There's lots of Stolz's music around and it's still regularly performed. Last night at the Wigmore Hall, at Imogen Cooper's 60th birthday celebration (she looked radiant!), Wolfgang Holzmair, passionate promoter of things Austrian, sang one of Stolz's 2,000 or so songs, about dancing and happiness, from one of his hit operettas in the 1920's. I'll do more on Stolz later, but what a lucky man!

Music from Theresienstadt - Holzmair Ullmann

Even in Theresienstadt (Terezin) , music thrived, against all odds. "Our will to create culture was as strong as our will to live" wrote Viktor Ullmann, the theosophist and composer. In the concentration camp, Ullmann wrote extensively, even producing an opera, the Emperor of Atlantis. Others, like Ilse Weber, wrote poems. "Ich wandle durch Theresienstadt", she writes. She stands on a bridge looking out on the valley. "Wann sind wir wieder frei"? Others articulated their thoughts only in abstraction. Karel Berman's Auschwitz - Corpse Factory describes in jagged piano what is too horrible to put in words.

Wolfgang Holzmair and Russell Ryan have just released a new recording, Spiritual Resistance : Music from Theresienstadt. (Click on link for more). There are many recordings of music from the camps. This new CD matches sincerity with artistic merit, so it is a must. Holzmair has long pioneered entartete Musik : his version of Hanns Eisler's Hollywood Liederbook was the finest version before Goerne came along. Holzmair's older now, but it gives his voice greater credence. Much as I've liked so many previous recordings, Holzmair's Der Müde Soldat is so good that it shows why this song means so much in the repertoire of music about war.

The poem on which Der Müde Soldat is based was written a thousand years ago in China but the sentiments still pack a punch. A soldier passes a girl, head shorn bare, who reminds him of the many others he's seen Reih' und Rieh', und Haupt und Haupt. He's seen too many burning villages. The eyes of children haunt him. He's müde von dem vielen Tod, and want to be a soldier no more.

This is perhaps the most famous song in this set, which contains all 12 songs of Der Mensch und sein Tag op 47 . These are short, but cryptic. They set poems written by Ullmann's close friend Hans-Günter Adler who collected Ullmann's effects when Ullmann was taken to Auschwitz in 1944. It's thanks to Adler we know so much of what happened in Theresienstadt, for he survived, and preserved as many of the hand-written manuscripts as he could.

Pavel Haas is famous for his string quartets - the Pavel Haas Quartet is named in his honour. Here we hear his Four songs after words of Chinese poetry. Hans Krása's Fünf Lieder reveal his more delicate style, quite different from Brundibár, the opera he wrote for the children of the camp. Listen to the Rilke setting Mach, dass etwas uns geschiet. Holzmair doesn't overload the fragile line wir wollen uns erheben wie ein Glanz, so it rises, like light.

Gideon Klein's songs are here, too, Three Songs, and his Lullaby, where a father speaks of "going into the furrows". Although the song is in Czech, one can't help but associate the feelings this song evokes with the circumstances in which it was written. Not a soothing lullaby.

Another reason for getting this CD is that it includes large portions of Karel Berman's Reminiscences. a long series of works wrtten from 1938 to 1945. They range from straightforward images of home to the quite unsettling Typhus in the Kauffering Concentration Camp. Its flickering, febrile notes are like halting breath. Berman was a singer, so perhaps it's significant that he chooses piano to express these images - photographs in sound, to bear witness without words. Russell Ryan, the pianist, Holzmair's long-time accompanist, plays thoughtfully. At times Berman's music breaks into vaguely effusive colour, but Rachnaminoff like flourish would not be appropriate. Ryan's sober approach works well. As Ullmann said "The deepest pain cannot become music".

Oddly enough, it's the pacifist Viktor Ullmann who comes up with explicit protest.. Der Schweizer is a savage blast at the Swiss Guards, who mutiny because the Pope won't pay them enough. "We'll auction off your Apostolic Throne!" It's a swipe at piety, at hypocrisy of all kinds, not solely Christian. Quite understandable in the circumstances.
IN June 2010 the Nash Ensemble and Holzmair will be doing a weekend at the Wigmore Hall on Theresienstadt music - do not miss !