An alternative Im Wunderschönen Monat Mai

Everyone knows Schumann's ImWunderschönen Mai from Dichterliebe but what about Franz Lachner's setting of Heine's poem ? Lachner's setting pre-dates Schumann's and is a masterpiece in its own right.  Lachner (1803-1890) gets short shrift because he wasn't Schubert or Schumann, but why should he have to be ?  As Peter Schreier said: “You appreciate the peaks when you know the landscape". He wasn't an imitator, and their "influence" as such was generic rather than direct, though he knew both Schubert and Schumann personally.  Setting the same poems means not a thing ! Heine's so interesting that composers are still setting him today.  Lachner was part of the Schubertiade circle, though he was very young - six years younger than Schubert yet still significant enough to be depicted in the 1826 drawing by Moritz von Schwind, which shows Schubert at the piano with Josef von Spaun to Schubert's right and Johann Michael Vogl to Schubert's left. Lachner is the figure with his head bent, behind von Spaun. Lachner is also seen with Schubert in von Schwind's pen drawings in the vineyards at Grinzing.
Lachner's Im Mai comes from his best known song cycle Sängerfahrt op 33 (1831-2) and is an early setting of Heine's Lyrisches Intermezzo.  Lachner, who was still living in Vienna, wrote the cycle as gift to his fiancée Julia Royko. Sängerfahrt (Singer's journey) and Dichterliebe (Poet's love) ! Ten years later Schumann would write Dichterliebe as a wedding gift for Clara Wieck.  The choice of  Heine is interesting, too, since the poems are too ironic to be romantic. Unless your loved one gets wooed on tales of loss and tragedy.   In Lachner's Im Mai, rippling triplets in the piano part suggest  gentle movement - perhaps warm breezes ? The vocal line rises, as the sap does in Spring. "Da ist in meinem Herzen, Die Liebe aufgegangen".  The  sprouting buds and branches of blossom in the text awaken in Lachner a wonderful circular melody in the piano part. It is so beautiful - reminiscent of the melodies Beethoven and Mendelssohn used in order to evoke the countryside The piano seems transformed, as if it were an ancient folk instrument. There's nothing quite like this in the genre, not even the faint echo of hurdy-gurdy in Der Leiermann (though there's no connection between the songs or cycles). Or perhaps it suggests the lyre of some antique shepherd in an Arcadian landscape.  For Lachner and his contemporaries this would have evoked the image of Orpheus, this time successfully leading his bride back into Spring and life. The circular figures may also suggest the rhythm of Nature, and changing of seasons.  Lachner respects the simplicity of Heine's poem, with its understated strophic verses : too much artifice would spoil the purity.  After the second verse the piano part returns, drifting off gently, into silence.

In 1836, Lachner (a Prussian), landed a powerful job as conductor of the Hofoper in Munich. He had direct access to the King, and influence on everything musical in Bavaria. Lachner was to Munich what Mendelssohn was to Leipzig and Berlin. Nonetheless, today Lachner's relatively unknown, primarily because he wasn't Richard Wagner.When Wagner came on the scene, Lachner was pointedly retired. Nonetheless, he's fascinating as a kind of missing link, between the very early Lieder of Beethoven  and the songs of Brahms. His chamber music is fairly well known,  and there's now more interest in his songs. There are several recordings of Lachner songs, mainly from Sängerfahrt op 33 but many others await discovery. Christoph Prégardien and Andreas Staier pioneered Lachner in a 1998 recording, presenting Lachner with Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte and the songs of Nikolaus von Krufft (which I love) . The use of fortepiano is perfect, adding a period refinemt to songs that do need elegance and a light touch.  There is only one full recording of Sängerfahrt op 33 by Rufus Miller, which was a courageous thing to do at the time, but unfortunately the performance isn't very good. Prégardien has contuinued to sing Lachner over the years, often different songs , and  Mark Padmore's recorded a few for Hyperion.  Angelika Kirchschlager also has them in her repertoire and has done them at the Wigmore Hall. 

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.

Padmore Lachner and Kynoch Brahms

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Monday's lunchtime concert at the Wigmore Hall features Mark Padmore and Kristian Bezuidenhout. He's singing Schumann songs and Liederkreis op 24, but the big treat will be Franz Lachner Lieder. Lachner may not be major league like Schumann, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Loewe, all his contemporaries, but he's interesting nonetheless. Peter Schreier recorded an entire disc of the songs of Conradin Kreutzer. It's not bad, but Kreutzer who? As Schreier said at the time, "You appreciate the peaks better when you know the valleys".

Everyone's heard of Lachner, who was displaced at Munich by Richard Wagner. Lachner was prolific, and his choral and chamber music have enjoyed a vogue for some time. The classic recording of Lachner's songs was made by Christoph Prégardien and Andreas Staier many years ago, so it's good to hear new versions. Angelika Kirschschlager  sang some recently, also at the Wigmore Hall.  Please see my earlier piece on Lachner and his Sängerfahrt op 33 cycle from which these songs come.

Padmore has chosen five Lachner songs. Die einsame Träne derives from Schubert: explicit musical special effects. Not a deep song but a good introduction to the composer because it shows his relationship to the master. Padmore follows this with songs that show more of Lachner's individuality. Listen out for Im Mai set by Schumann seven years later at the start of Dichterliebe. Lachner's lyrical circular patterns expand. Singing them must make your  heart soar. The fullness and promise of Spring. I love the piano part, which evokes a lyre - some shepherd playing in an Arcadian landscape? Great song.

Das Fischermädchen uses the same Heine text as Schubert used in Schwanengesang. What might Heine have further inspired in Schubert had Schubert not died too soon after discovering the poet? Schubert's Das Fischermädchen has powerfully erotic undercurrents. Lachner's is relatively prim, but pleasant. Padmore sang it at the Holywell Music Room in Oxford not long ago, bringing out its virtues.

Die Meerfrau is altogether fiercer stuff. Pounding ostinato, creating tension. Sirens are lovely but they lure men to their deaths. What's interesting about Lachner's approach is that he seems to  sympathize with the siren, as if he intuits that she can't help what she does. Sexuality runs through Lachner's Sängerfahrt, written as an engagement gift to his fiancée. It shows how unprudish Germans were even though they were chaste. Anxiety, fear of the unknown, but fundamentally healthy and positive. If Lachner lived today, he's probably be happily naked on the beach. Even more psychologically explicit is Ein Traumbild, which starts as a romantic wet dream, but as the incubus pulls the dreamer to her breast, he recoils in horror. Just in time, the cock crows, he's saved. Fabulously dramatic.

Get to the Wigmore Hall if you can at 1pm. If not, it's being broadcast on BBC Radio 3 live and will be online and on demand, with a repeat on Saturday (and another 7 days' listening after that. Padmore is planning a recording, which will be much welcome.  Hoho ! Listening to the nbroadcast I note the BBC p[rewsenters quoting me on Lachner. More important, though, there will be a broadcast of Angelike Kirschschlager's concert mentioned above, Monday performance on Three available online and on demand for 7 days. Read about it on the link in para 2

If in London, also get to the Purcell Room at 7.45 for Brahms Complete Violin and Piano Sonatas. Sholto Kynoch is one of the most gifted young song pianists around, but he's also established a strong reputation in chamber music. His Messiaen disc is very good indeed. He'll be playing at the Purcell Room with Alda Dizdari. The other night I was having a quick dinner at Le pain Q when I looked up at a South Bank publicity screen. There she was, fantastically glamorous  I've heard Kynoch and Kaoru Yamada many times, but not Dizdari. Since Kynoch works with partners for their musical abilities, not their looks, he and Dizdari should be interesting.
photo credit : Marco Borggreve

Kirchschlager Wigmore Hall Mendelssohn Lachner

Angelika Kirchschlager and Malcolm Martineau at the Wigmore Hall showed what real Lieder singing should be : intelligent interpretation, intense focus on meaning. Of course Lieder can be enjoyed on a superficial level as pretty sound, but there's infinitely more to the genre. There are celebrities of whom it's said that opera fans think they're Lieder singers, and Lieder fans think they're opera singers. Not so Kirchschlager, who is superlative in both genres.

This was an unusual programme, far more difficult to carry off than might seem in theory.  Instead of going for surefire hit material, Kirchschlager and Martineau chose material that showed how fertile German song writing was in the decade 1830-40. These are most certainly not "Victorian parlour songs" since they were written for sophisticated, intellectual audiences who often knew the composers and poets well. Fanny Mendelssohn gave regular recitals at home, which often were attended by the liveliest minds in Berlin, and were so popular that the house was extended to cope with their guests. Salons like these were the normal way artistic people converged. The Schubertiades were not unique.

Felix Mendelssohn's songs about Spring are gloriously ecstatic, Frühlingstrunknen Blumen, spring-intoxicated flowers, not merely decorative but a metaphor for vibrant new life after a hard winter. Kirchschlager's voice rises lithely, then dips sensuously round words like Nun muss sich alles, alles wenden. All things must change and winter will return, but Mendelssohn embraces the moment of energy. Kirchschlager's perception brought out the link between the Spring songs and the second set of Mendelssohn songs. Auf Flügeln des Gesanges, for example, is sensual. Then a real stroke of good programme planning. In Neue Liebe, the queen of the elves appears and smiles enigmatically. Is it new love, or death?

This reinforces the meaning of Franz Paul Lachner's Die badende Elfe. Most people have heard of Lachner in connection with Richard Wagner, who ousted him  from Munich. His song cycle Sängerfahrt op 33 dates from 1831-2 when he still lived in Vienna. While Lachner was influenced by Schubert, whom he knew personally, Lachner's songs evoke earlier traditions,
for example, the songs of Carl Zelter who introduced to Goethe the young Felix Mendelssohn. Since there'll be more Lachner at the Wigmore Hall next month, please see what I've written about Lachner's Sängerfahrt HERE 

There are some wonderful songs in Lachner's Sängerfahrt, though Kirchschlager sang only four, probably wisely as some don't suit female voice, but how beautifully she created them ! Die badende Elfe came vividly to life, Martineau playing arpeggiations that sparkled like water and light. Kirchschlager's timbre is clear, bright, almost trembling with excitement. A man spies a water nymph bathing in the moonlight. Since the poem is by Heine, expect deeper meanings. Kirchschlager shapes the phrase "Arm und Nacken, weiss und lieblich" sensually. What's turning the poet on is implicit, especially since Lachner wrote the songs for his bride-to-be. Pure, chaste but erotic.

As Kirchschlager said, it's hard to forget Schumann's Dichterliebe settings of Im Mai and Eine Liebe, but she did Lachner more than justice. I've heard three versions of these songs and thought I knew them well, but Kirchschlager's a revelation.  Her lucidity eclipses all else. Martineau's playing, too, convinced me that modern piano isn't necessarily a bar to freeing the energy in these songs. Explicitly Schubertian elements in Die einsame Träne might sound derivative, but Kirchschlager sings it with conviction. The "falling tears" in the piano part work well because Martineau is light of hand and pedal.

Three of the Fanny Mendelssohn songs heard here come from her Op 1. They're not early works, but the first published, which was  a daring act for a woman of her status. She was a pianist rather than a singer, so her songs give Martineau a chance to bring out their best qualities. In Schwanenlied, for example, slow, graceful movement, and the ending dissolves mysteriously. The poet's Heine, whom Fanny met and disliked,  but the song captures the foreboding behind the shining surface. On the other hand, in Warum sind denn, die Rosen so blass, she replaces Heine's Leichenduft (stink of a rotting corpse) with the word Blümenduft (scent of flowers).

Kirchschlager and Martineau also chose Carl Loewe's setting of the Chamisso poems Schumann made immortal in Frauenliebe und Leben. Here, Kirchschlager filled lines like die Quelle der Freudigkeit with such warmth that even the most fervent feminist could not doubt its sincerity.  Martineau made much of the almost Brahmsian richness in the piano part, particularly lovely in An meinen Herzen. Since Brahms was at the time only three years old, it's an indication of how significant Loewe was, and why the music of this decade, 1830-40 is underestimated.

Loewe's songs are vivid and imaginative. Two songs from Vier Fabbelieder op 64 (1837) gave Kirchschlager a chance to show what a vivid character singer she can be, combining her opera experience with true Lieder singing. Der Kuckkuck uses the same Wunderhorn text that Mahler would set fifty years later. Thanks to Kirchschlager, Loewe's cuckoo is funnier, even if the donkey cry, Ija ! Ija! isn't quite so obvious. More of a challenge was the long strophic ballad, Der verliebte Maikäfer  (Glow worm in Love). A  foppish glow worm courts a fly but is too vain to see she can't stand him. Nice growly sounds to create the lumpen bug, light sharp sounds for the fly. The punchline comes at the end, when the story changes - two (human) lovers about to fool around at night. The story's complicated, but Kirchschlager's diction is so clear that meaning comes through even if you don't know German. This is where her experience shows. She acts through her voice, expressively, never losing the sharp wit beneath  the charm.

This concert was being recorded for future broadcast and hopefully for Wigmore Hall's own label release. A must for anyone seriously interested in Lieder. 

HERE is the full version in OPERA TODAY.

.Photo: Nikolaus Karlinsky

Franz Paul Lachner Sängerfahrt

Franz Paul Lachner (1803-1890) was six years younger than Schubert, and knew him personally. He's in the famous drawings of Schubert at the piano with tall, handsome Johann Vogel in pride of place. Prussian by birth, Lachner worked in the Lutheran Church in Vienna, hence his interest in liturgical music and big pieces for organ and choir, which the raffish Schubert crowd eschewed.

In 1836, Lachner landed a powerful job as conductor of the Hofoper in Munich. He had direct access to the King, and influence on everything musical in Bavaria. Lachner was to Munich what Mendelssohn was to Leipzig and Berlin. Nonetheless, today Lachner's relatively unknown, primarily because his music isn't nearly in the league of his major contemporaries. His problem, too, was that he wasn't Richard Wagner. When Wagner came on the scene, Lachner pointedly retired.

Nonetheless, Lachner is fascinating as a kind of missing link, suggesting what 19th century music might have been without great geniuses. His chamber music is fairly well known,  and there's now more interest in his songs. Angelika Kirchschlager is singing four songs from Lachner's Sängerfahrt op 33 on Friday 5th at the Wigmore Hall, where Mark Padmore is singing on December 6th (recording planned).

Highly recommended is the recording by Christoph Prégardien and Andreas Staier. Prégardien's brilliant because he understands how Lieder is a unique genre on its own terms, not lesser opera but a highly sophisticated blending of meaning and music. Superficial is not enough! On this recording Prégardien is youthful,  his voice pure and clear. Exquisite, because Staier's playing fortepiano, the sounds much lighter, closer to authentic period sound. This liberates the songs, bringing out their lyricism and elegance. Good performance makes a difference when music isn't absolute top quality  Avoid the disc on Oehms Classics (2004) , it's dire. Prégardien and Staier chose ten of the 16 songs in the set : get the score to appreciate how they fit the larger cycle.

Prégardien and Staier ware wise, too, to place Lachner in the context of early art song, deliberately avoiding comparison with Schubert and Schumann who set these same texts but in an altogether more inspired way. Instead, we hear Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte, (1816), the first true Lieder cycle, and songs by Nikolas von Krufft (1779-1818), a Beethoven contemporary. Where Lachner's coming from, despite his love for Schubert, is an earlier, simpler tradition (not that Beethoven can be simple).

Lachner's Sängerfahrt dates from 1831-2, when Lachner was still in Vienna. Hence its delicate Romantic charms. A lovely fairy is bathing in a brook in Die badende Elfe. Bright appregiatos, and the intimacy of the word setting schimmerm in dem Mondenschien, rising upwards, enahnced by repetition rather than over emphasis.

Die Bergstimme is altogether more innovative . This could be proto-Schumann, in its dramatic intensity. It's remarkable how much virility Staier brings to this song : the Horseman and his horse are strong, looking forward to vigorous life. But the voice of the mountain spirit persistently whispers death and the man is lost. Der Stimm erwidert hohl, Im Grab wohl!

Another surprise. Im Mai uses the same text that Schumann would begin Dichterliebe with seven years later. The sprouting buds and branches of bloossom awaken in Lachner a wonderful circular melody. So beautiful - reminiscent to me of the melodies Beethoven and Mendelssohn used in order to evoke the countryside. Staier's fortepiano sounds like the lyre of some antique shepherd in an Arcadian landscape.

Almost violent ostinato leads into Die Meerfrau : notes of alarm? For the lady of the waters is a siren who seduces in order to kill. Tension rises as he lunges wildly at her victim. Lachner interprets the poem from the siren's point of view, as, I think, does Heine. Another siren in Der Traumbild. Prégardien's voice darkens sensually as he describes the vision who comes in his dreams, and the "arcadian" melody surfaces. But ostinati again indicate menace. The voice drops quietly, then leaps upward in horror as the vision presses him tightly to her breast. Then, suddenly Da kraeht die Hahn (the cock crows) und stumm entwich die marmorblasse (short silence) then a strangulated cry, Maid! In this song Prégardien negotites the transition of timbre and mood deftly - very impressive.

Since the cycle was written when Lachner's was courting his future bride, one wonders what these images of nudity and female entrapment meant. Possibly no more than slightly risqué flirtation. Missing from the Prégardien and Staier Lachner Sängerfahrt recording are some fairly straightforward songs, but some others are worth reviving, like Wonne und Schmerz (oddly lyrical) and Ihre Gestalt (contemplative).