Matthias Goerne Schumann Einsamkeit

Matthias Goerne Schumann Lieder, with Markus Hinterhäuser, a new recording from Harmonia Mundi.  Singers, especially baritones, often come into their prime as they approach 50, and Goerne, who has been a star since his 20's is now formidably impressive.  The colours in his voice have matured, with even greater richness and depth than before.  If the breathiness that once made his style so immediate is gone, that's more than made up for by the authority with which he now sings. In this recording, the lustre of the voice combines with  Goerne's truly exceptional powers of interpretation: an ideal channel for a composer like Schumann, whose genius, surprisingly, is still underestimated.  Many of the songs in this collection come from the composer's later years, sometimes unappreciated because the style changes, heading toward new pathways.  Schumann was well informed, aware of new currents in cultural life. Certainly he knew Wagner, but Wagner and Schumann were probably heading in different directions.

Goerne has been interested in late Schumann for many years, and sang many of these songs in his concert at the Wigmore Hall in 2015 with Menahem Pressler, where the songs were presented in the context of late Schumann piano pieces.  Please read more about that here  because it is important to consider the songs in relation to the piano works so dear to Schumann's soul). This recording, thus, is a must for anyone genuinely interested in Schumann beyond the "greatest hits" for it shows how Schumann remained a creative force, despite encroaching illness, an illness that might possibly be better understood today, which might have extended his creative years.

Nikolaus von Lenau

Schumann's op 90, to poems by Nikolaus von Lenau, were written in August 1850.   Goerne and Hinterhäuser began with Mein Rose, the second song in the set, evoking the fragrance of love song which makes Dichterliebe an enduring masterpiece.  Goerne's voice, though formidably powerful, can also be remarkably tender.  The gentle lilt of Die Sennin suggests warm summer breezes wafting the herdgirl's songs down from alpine meadows to the valley. It's a song in which tenors excel, but Goerne captures its sunlit radiance.  Then Einsamkeit, where the mood darkens. Under the densely overgrown spruce trees, "Still hier der Geist der Liebe", deep, hopeless love. Thus we are prepared for Requiem, the seventh and last song in Schumann's op 90.  The Requiem sets a text by an anonymous poet, which is rather apt since the poem deals with the annihilation of personality that is death.  The piano part is soothing, the lines long and sedate, but Goerne's artistry brings out the undercurrent of tragedy that lies beneath the conventional piety of the text.

We remain in the pensive solitude of Der Einsledler op 83/3 (Eichendorff) , also from 1850, before looking back on the past with a few songs from Myrthen (Heine) op 24 from 1840, the glorious Liederjahre in which Schumann's genius for vocal music suddenly blossomed, inspired, perhaps by his marriage to Clara.  Die Lotousblume and Du bist wie eine blume are sensuous, Goerne's voice imparting tenderness as well as desire.  Provocatively, though, Goerne and Hinterhäuser interrupt the floral reverie with two Rückert songs, Der Himmel hat eine Träne geweint op 37/1 and Mein schöner Stern !"  op,101/4 from Minnespeil, a collection from 1849 for different combinations of voices, reminding us of Schumann's interests in larger vocal forms.  It feels as though a chill has descended upon the spring blooms. But Schumann's creative forces do not wither but change direction. The imagery in the songs on this disc switches towards wider panoramas. Nachtlied op 96/1, to the famous text by Goethe, is in Schumann's setting, much more haunted than Schubert's.  

Wifried von der Neun

Goerne and Hinterhäuser then return to 1850, with the complete set of Sechs Gesänge op 89 to poems by a strange man who used the pen name of Wilfried von der Neun,  "Wilfred of The Nine", meaning the nine muses, no less. This was the glorified pseudonym, allegedly adopted in his early youth by Friedrich Wilhelm Traugott Schöpff (1826-1916) who made a living as a pastor in rural Saxony. The poems are pretty banal, far lower than the standards Schumann would have revered in his prime. However, bad poetry is no bar, per se, to music. As Eric Sams wrote "the inward and elated moods of the previous year mingle and  blur together in the new chromatic style in the absence of diatonic contrasts and tensions a new principle is needed. Schumann accordingly invents and applies the principle of thematic change....It is as if he had acquired a new cunning and his mind had lost an old one."  The songs aren't premier cru : Schumann with his exquisite taste in poetry must have had a bad day.  Nonetheless,  Goerne and Hinterhäuser give such a fine performance that definitely justifies the prominence given to therm on this disc.  Lesser musicians beware. Though not ideal, these songs are worth knowing because they demonstrate Schumann's willingness to explore new directions. Sams is the source to go for studying these songs, for he analyses them carefully, drawing connections in particular to Am leuchetenden Sommermorgen and Hör' ich ein Liedchen klingen in Dichterliebe.  Sams said "Schumann's memory is playing him tricks".

Moreover, this set was written close to the time Schumann wrote the superb Lenau set op 90 with which Goerne and Hinterhäuser began this recording.  This shows that Schumann's powers were not failing. Like most creative people he wasn't afraid to take risks.  It may be significant, though, that Lenau had some kind of mental breakdown in 1844, aged only 42, and spent the rest of his life incarcerated in an asylum.  This recording ends with Abendlied op 107/6 from Sechs Gesänge (1851–52) to a poem by Gottfried Kinkel.  The song is dignified, an exercise in balance and  refinement. Listen to how Goerne shapes the lines, flowing smoothly from very high notes to very low. The song demonstrates his range and technical ability, but even more impressively his grasp of emotional subtlety.  As night falls, the world sinks into darkness. But the stars appear "in Majestät". The poet hears "the footsteps of angels" and the advance of a golden, celestial chariot "in gleichen, festem gleise".  No wonder the song ends, not with gloom but firm resolve."Wirf ab, Herz, was dich kränket und was dir bange macht". Definitely not "alone" in Einsamkeit.  This song is so beautifully done, it's almost worth the price of the whole CD.

The Zen of Mahler - Um Mitternacht

It is midnight, and the poet awakes and looks upwards to the heavens. But no star is shining. No comfort. No pathetic fallacy  "kein Lichtgedanken mir Trost gebracht".  The only sound he hears is his own heartbeat. "Nahm ich in Achtn Die Schläge meines Herzens; Ein einz'ger Puls war angefacht". Try this sometime, it's frightening to realize that all that keeps you from dropping dead is a piece of muscle.  We don't know what metaphysical "battle" the poet speaks of, except that he knows that it's not up to him; he hasn't the power to change things. "Kämpft' ich die Schlacht, O Menschheit, deiner Leiden; Nicht konnt' ich sie entscheiden Mit meiner Macht"  So he puts his faith in a higher being, ie God, "Hab' ich die Macht In deine Hand gegeben! Herr über Tod und Leben Du hältst die Wacht!" That's the breakthrough, being able to stop trying to control what cannot be controlled. To accept that there are things beyond our comprehension. Zen. In Rückert's case that means Christanity but it applies to all faith. Don't claw and scramble, chill. Faith gets a bad press these days because it's been hijacked by intolerant control freaks, who don't understand what it's really all about.

In the poem,  Rückert repeats the words "Um Mitternacht" at the beginning and end of each stanza, with the insistent regularity of a heartbeat. The song has been orchestrated, but the version for piano song is more private and intimate as befits the situation. Then, when the poet puts his faith in something beyond himself, the vocal line rises "HERR!" Notice how the piano line falls evenly, like an inner pulse. I much prefer hearing a baritone in the part, because most Mahler songs are written for low voice and the poet's perspctive is masculine. Christa Ludwig is good and Gerald Moore is too, but YouTube is pot luck. Ten years ago Matthias Goerne was singing this, so wonderfully that a noted Mahler devotee asked that the off air tape be played at her funeral.  Goerne makes the "Herr!" ring out with intense depth, stretching the word so it fills out, like his whole chest (and heart) reach out. . Incredibly moving.  He's still singing it, and no doubt with even more depth of experience, but he doesn't get the marketing fuss he deserves, but I haven't heard him sing it recently. 

For the full text and translation, please see Emily Ezust's Song and Lieder Texts Page here - fantastic resource.

Goerne Deutsch Schubert Wigmore Hall (1)

This was the first of two Schubert recitals by Matthias Goerne and Helmut Deutsch at the Wigmore Hall, London. Although the concerts don't duplicate the songs on their recent two CD set An Mein Herz on Harmonia Mundi, it's worth getting the recording as these are exceptionally fine performances.

I wish I could say the same of the start of the concert, because something seemed not right. Goerne and Deutsch both seemed distracted. Quite probably, few would have noticed the very small flaws - not mistakes, but very slight moments where the full force of what we've come to expect of Goerne didn't fully engage. In which case it probably helped not to know the CDs or how good he can usually be.

But Goerne and Deutsch are far too professional to let anything slip for long. Im Grünen, usually the forte of high sopranos, was dodgy. Since Goerne sings it flawlessly on the recording, he clearly doesn't have a problem with the tessitura. With the von Salis-Seewis settings, he settled : Ins stille Land was well shaped, legato seamless. But what makes Goerne the master he is, is his ability to inhabit a song and make it feel like real, lived experience, and this was a rare occasion when he was singing in "normal" mode. None of these songs are unfamiliar, so Goerne could sing them in his sleep, if he had to. Luckily, he's far too much of a perfectionist.

The Schulze settings, An mein Herz and Über Wildmann were more characteristically inward, Goerne warming to Schulze's frenzied idiom, which Schubert seemed to have understood only too well. Schulze's beloved existed in his fevered mind. These are not pretty, superficial songs.

After the interval, both Goerne and Deutsch were much more themselves. Deutsch's playing in An die Laute lilted insouciantly like a lute, contrasting with the hushed voice. Romantic as it is, this is a humorous song. The singer's trying not to wake the neighbours! After the excellent Schulze songs, I'd have liked more Mayrhofer but Goerne's sung them so often and so well, it would have been asking too much. He sang them last September so Augenlied and Liebesend had to suffice. Not Schubert's finest settings but thoughtfully performed.

An die Quelle is a test of a baritone's ability to sing lightly, skipping along at a brisk pace. Such crispness isn't a challenge for Goerne, whose voice is so flexible he switched easily from dark weight to sprightliness.

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but even Wigmore Hall audiences these days aren't quite what they were, so concerts have to include popular works like Du Bist der Ruh and An die Musik. Which is fair enough, they're works of genius. Once I heard Goerne sing An die Musik so perfectly that the audience was stunned numb. Tonight, Goerne was "merely" excellent, Du bist der Ruh particularly well nuanced. But even when he's not on top form, Goerne is miles ahead of anyone else's best.

Get the CD set An Mein Herz. Harmonia Mundi, Obviously, recorded and live performance are different, but until you've heard that, you won't know what Goerne can do when he's really fired up. The pic shows Schubert with his friends. A glamourous bunch - Vogl, von Schober, von Spaun, even Grillparzer. Socially, Schubert was way out of his league, dependent on his wealthy friends for patronage. Much as they liked him, he was accepted because he could play and write the kind of music they could sing. Which is why they weren't that keen on Winterreise. Quite possibly it was because he looked like a geek and was poor, they didn't find his status threatening. Had he put the make on their sisters, that would have been another story altogether. These weren't friendships on equal terms. Schubert got holidays and housing, but he had to produce what pleased his patrons. No matter how brilliant he was, basically, he was a glorified servant, not really so different from Haydn, and even Goethe before him.

Schubert Der Winterabend D938

Es ist so still, so heimlich am mich....wie schnell nun heran der Abend graut! Mir ist es recht, sonnst ist mir's so laut. (It's so still, enfolding me like a secret...how quickly the night draws in! That suits me better than loud noise.)

The sounds of the city dim, the blacksmiths stop hammering, and passing carts stop rattling. The poet is happy to be sitting in the darkness, completely alone. How steady and quiet the piano part is, like heavy snowfall, muffling the sounds of the city. How good to be rid of harsh sounds like "dass nicht rass'le", mechanical sounds now no more.

Quietly, gently, moonlight creeps into the room. Er kennt mich schön und laßt mich schweigen. Nimmt nur sein Arbeit, die Spindel, das Gold....und hängt dann sein schimmerndes Schelieiertuch tingsum an Geräth und Wänden aus. It knows who I am without asking, and lets me stay still. It quietly takes up its spinning wheel, weaving a veil over the furniture and walls. It's a discreet presence that doesn't demand, doesn't stir and moves of its own will.

Denke zurück ach weit, gar weit! The pace subtly speeds, almost impatient. Think back, ah, long long ago,to a beautiful but now vanished time. Denk an Sie, an das Glück des Minne. The poet is thinking about someone who once brought him happiness and love. Seufze still und sinne, und sinne! He sighs, pondering feelings that are pouring back, like moonlight. And so the last word Sinne repeats, tenderly, as if the protagonist wants to savour it longer.

So this isn't some romantic snowy landscape, it's an industrial town, and the action takes place in a domestic interior, enclosed, "heimlich", private. The poet needs solitude for it's then he can contemplate the moonbeams and think of someone who long ago lit up his own life like a golden veil. So I've picked this mysterious and relatively little known painting by Caspar David Friedrich, which shows a woman quietly moving past a window, holding a candle. Like the woman the poet's thinking about, she's not quite real, but elusive, like a memory that can't be trapped but lives on in quiet contemplation. How modern the painting is, with its odd angles and shadows !

Schubert set Der Winterabend (D938) iin 1828. I'm not sure when the poet Karl Gottfried von Leitner wrote it but both of them were relatively young men, Schubert only 3 years older than Leitner (who lived to 1890). The mood of this song is gentle, unhurried, unneurotic but deeply felt.

My all-time favourite recording is Matthias Goerne because he sings it with such graceful warmth. Rather like he's moonlight too, warming and lighting up what's clearly a dark , chilly room. Just as the furniture is transformed by the moonlight, Goerne infuses the text with tenderness and elusive feeling. This isn't a song for big bluster declamation: Goerne sings softly, but firmly, and you feel that as long as someone can care so deeply, the happiness of love will never be lost.

It's on Sensucht, the first volume of the Deutsche Grammophon Schubert Edition. Goerne's accompanied by Elisabeth Leonskaja. Read about it HERE. It's an ambitious project -- no less than a complete traverse of Schubert's songs for low male voice. Each release is arranged around a mood. Since Goerne is working with top pianists with whom he's been closely connected, each set is beautiful personal and intimate. This makes it different from some compilations, like chronological ones, or those collated from single performances or from different recordings. Each one's a kind of statement of what the art can do. DG isn't making a big marketing bonanza of this series, going instead for quality, subtlety and class. It's something that those in the know will seek out rather than have it thrust down their throats. Rather like the moonlight apparition in Der Winterabend! Lieder isn't a mass-market genre geared to quick thrills, but this series is, I think, essential for those seriously interested in Schubert and intelligent, thoughtful and genuinely felt Lieder.

Complete text HERE Both in German and English. There are thousands of song texts on Emily Ezust's site. Anyone with a CD or score of course has the famous ones but this site is THE BEST for less well known songs, and uncommon languages. Accept no imitations and support it generously as it's a project of love. It's been going 15 years or so, a wonderful contribution to the song world.

Death of the Gravedigger - Goerne Schubert Wigmore Hall

Totengräber’s Heimweh was the outstanding point in an excellent second Schubert recital by Matthias Goerne at the Wigmore Hall. A gravedigger looks at the hole he's just dug and thinks how cool it would be to lie there dead. This is echt Romanticism, death as apotheosis. Schubert sets the poem with obsessive pounding rhythms which might reflect the digging, or perhaps the gravedigger’s heart. Gradually the music shifts into a higher key, and the gravedigger gets his wish and falls down dead. Above is a painting from 1895 by Carlos Schwabe, made decades after Schubert's immortal song. It's painted with Jugendstil stylization which to this day looks eerily modern. It could start a whole new Goth cult!

Goerne sang the word “Ferne” with such fervour that it feels like the whole song (and the gravedigger) was levitating, searching for something distant. “Ich sinke, ich sinke”, he sings, but gradually, through finely gauged modulation, this becomes “Ich komme”, supported by starlight-suggesting motifs. The song is an old Lieder warhorse: Goerne made it sound utterly fresh (oops wrong choice of word) and immediate.

Most performers leave Nacht und Träume until the end of a concert: it’s a stunning showstopper. It was a brave choice as the first song and the thematic core of this recital revolving around Romantic concerns such as philosophy and death, approached through songs ostensibly about moonlit landscapes and starlight. Nacht und Träume is a hymn to the wonder of dreams (and by extension, the imagination). But dreams do not last, so we’re left in perpetual longing. Thus Goerne stretched the long, floating lines, so they seemed as wonderful as the dreams they describe.

Another song that stood out was Schubert's setting of Ernst Konrad Friedrich Schulze, Der liebliche Sterne. Schulze was an even more disturbed personaliity tha Mayrhofer, whose morbid poems inspired Schubert to write some of his finest songs (see HERE). Schulze was obssessed with two young sisters, and when one died he made a cult of her memory. Fortunately for the other sister, Schulze died young, before he could become dangerous.

What drew Schubert to poets like Mayrhofer and Schulze? Did he even sense how disturbed they were? Quite possibly. Schulze, like Schubert, was fixated on starlight. In the first Shulze setting in this recital, Tiefes Leid (great sorrow), there's a deliberate disjunction between the morbid text and the lovely secondary melody that floats almost independently. Like starlight, it flickers and fluctuates out of focus. And so in the song, where Goerne alternated hushed reverence with deliberately over-bright clarity: it's the "glow of madness" that can, like starlight, light up one obsession and throw all else off perspective.

In Der liebliche Stern, staccato quavers evoke something even more chillingly obsessive than the twinkling of stars. The words seem innocent, almost child-like in their self-belief, but the central image is a whirlpool into which the poet wants to violently throw himself. Goerne’s voice is magnificent but what makes him truly unique is his ability to convey psychological complexities, subtly by the slightest change of nuance. In real life, nutters aren't always painfully obvious. Had Alexander Schmalcz’s playing been of the same level this would have been truly unnerving.

So that's why Lieder with its morbid fixations still has the power to fascinate. it's about people, and how they respond to extreme situations. We may no longer treasure locks of hair from the dead or wander listlessly through cypress groves, sighing for lovers we didn't actually know. But we all come across human trauma.

Please see the full review in detail in Classical Source
Please also see the other posts on Schubert and Goerne on this site - more Lieder coverage on this blog than anywhere else ! Have fun exploring.

Schubert Mayrhofer and Goethe Goerne WH

When Matthias Goerne sings, it's never superficial. Lieder is a genre that needs almost as much engagement from listeners as from performers. "It's like a church in there,"someone said to me about the Wigmore Hall. "They're 'really' listening".

Schubert's settings of Mayrhofer filled the first part of the recital. Mayrhofer was an unstable personality who dramatically drowned himself. That happened years after these songs were written, but even his youth Mayrhofer had an unhealthy fascination with death, with water, stars and death, extreme even by the standards of early 19th century Romanticism. How much Schubert sensed Mayrhofer's problems we'll never know as he broke off their friendship soon after the songs were written. But in these settings there's a distinct sense of unnatural calm.

Steady, undulating rhythms evoke waves, whether on the Danube or in Venice. The effect is almost hypnotic, revealing Mayrhofer's obsessional fixations. Water images occur frequently in Schubert's music, but rarely as unnervingly as in these songs. "Die Erde ist gewaltig schön doch sicher ist sie nicht" (Wie Ulfru fisht, D 525) No wonder the poet envies the fish hidden in the depths, and the stars in the sky above.

The incessant rocking rhythms of the waters are matched by delicate triplets which evoke the twinkling of distant stars. Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren D 360 is relatively calm, for it describes a sailor already on his journey to death, guided and comforted by the stars.

In performance, sometimes the surface loveliness of these songs distracts from true meaning, but a singer like Goerne understands their inner portent. His voice is capable of great force and fire, but in these songs he tempered power with extreme restraint, true to the spirit of Mayrhofer who was desperately keeping his demons under control.

Goethe's Wilhelm Meister poems lend themselves to much greater dramatic intensity .As he enters his forties, Goerne's voice has grown with maturity. There's no one singing now who can match the gravitas of his lower register, but what's even more impressive is the fluidity with which he can phrase and colour words within lines with precise nuance.

These songs allow moments of great power. Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen aß (D 840) culminates in crescendi of anguish, which Goerne expresses with surges, not of volume alone, but of emotional depth. Eric Schneider ha s been playing with Goerne for about 15 years, but now he's playing with more articulation and maturity. In the Mayrhofer settings his "star" and "water" passages were eeerily acute. In the Harper songs, he made the piano sing like a harp, not a huge concert hall harp, but the smaller, more intimate harp a wandering minstrel like Wilhelm Meister would have played : it was uncannily vivid, very haunting.

An Mignon (D 161) refers to Mignon, whose frail innocence is tested by tragedy. In many ways, Goerne's agility in lighter, higher passages is even more impressive, for dark timbred voices don't easily lend themselves to such gentleness. Fast paced songs also test a deep baritone, so the frisky Der Fischer (D225) truly tested the agiilty of Goerne's pacing. When he sings the words of the girl in the poem he doesn't even try to mimic a female voice, instead making the transition by brightening and sharpening the tone.

Good technique makes such singing possible, what makes Goerne's musicianship so interesting is the emotional depths he can reach. "Ich denke dein" he sings in Nähe des Geliebten (D 62), warmed with heartfelt ardor. But the beloved isn't actually near but far away. So the voice swells, open-throated, matching the expansive motifs in the piano part.

Read the full review in Opera Today. This was the first of two Schubert recitals taking place at the Wigmore Hall in London.Wait for the next concert tonight, too. PLEASE SEE OTHER posts on Goerne, Goethe, Schubert, Lieder, Wigmore Hall, Schumann, Wolf  etc. my passion for 50 years.

Mahler 10 Chailly Leipzig Gewandhaus Prom 69 Mendelssohn

The performing version of Mahler's Tenth Symphony is intriguing precisely because it's unfinished. Since no-one will ever know for sure what the composer intended, an air of open-endedness hovers over it, opening possibilties in the imagination. So performances need to be created with insight into Mahler's musical processes. It means informed guesswork, so it's not a symphony for beginners. But Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra gave an astounding account at this Prom, which revealed how great the symphony's potential might have been.

Like so much of Mahler's work, the symphony involves memory, echoes of symphonies past and what they might symbolize. Two main themes circle round each other in the Adagio, one delicate, the other warmer, probing each other tentatively. Chailly doesn't dwell on nostalgia, because that can throw the rest of the piece off balance. Stand alone Adagios don't have such considerations. Sharp string figures emerge like sudden chills. The first violin persists in playing a melody, overtaken by the sudden bursts of brass, the "scream" chords. Again, Chailly stresses how they may mean more than one thing : here they came over as sudden flashes of shocking illumination. Evidently he knows the biography.

The first Scherzo mocks the delicacy of the Adagio. Swaggering grotesques, flattened horns, shrill trumpets, echoing the marches of death and disorder in earlier symphonies. The Leipzigers are far too good an orchestra to simply do crude. This orchestra's famous warm tones are put to good effect making the brutality almost hypnotically seductive. The jagged angular rhythms at last expend their energy in the crisp, unambiguous ending.

For me, the Purgatorio echoes the Wunderhorn song Das irdisches Leben : a small, plaintive cry amid larger, more dominant forces, hemmed in as it is by the two dominant Scherzi. Whatever it means, it's a bridge towards the Allegro Pesante, a stage in the passage of ideas. On the first page of this movement, Mahler pencilled the words "The Devil is dancing it with me! Madness, seize me … destroy me! Let me forget that I exist, so that I cease to be.” But a careful observer will note that Mahler then adds “dass ich ver ….” (so that I ….) and trails off without completing the idea. It’s a proposition, but this whole work is a kind of proposition.

Although this movement still feels incomplete despite years of careful adjustment by Coooke, Goldschmidt and the Matthews brothers, it's not a fault, as Chailly and the Leipzigers demonstrate. Individual instruments have their moment, without undue ornamentation. For me it felt like the spirit of the Purgatorio popping up uncowed. Playing as beautiful and as confident as this makes you appreciate how pure and clean Mahler's idiom can be, a departure from the overripe excess of so much music in his time. Chailly and his musicians make this second Scherzo feel shockingly spare and elevated.

Again, this is perceptive because at this point, Mahler was on the verge of new phases in his life. The fourth volume of Professor Henry-Louis de La Grange's monumental biography is titled "A New Life Cut Short" and is essential. Read about it HERE. What do Mahler's enigmatic markings on the score refer to? The Tenth is a guessing game, but fascinating for that very reason.

Alma described the image of the fireman's funeral in the Finale, but what did it mean to the composer on a deeper, non-literal level? Mahler didn't know the dead man personally, so there is an air of detachment, not overt emotionalism. This burial is symbolic not specific. The drumbeats are emphatic. Whatever Mahler is burying, he's moving away from it. Out of the numbness rises a new theme, led by woodwinds, rising elusively upwards. Again, the idea of fragility in the Purgatorio returns, but this time the theme grows stronger and fuller, as it's taken up by bassoons and darker brass. Even the drumstrokes become sharp rather than muffled. The new theme becomes more lyrical. Then long strident brass chords herald another new stage. Yet again, diaphanously transparent textures. The Leipzig string players are a wonder, their bowing so carefully sustained that sounds seem to glow with warmth and light.

Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra are a marriage made in heaven, so it's specially good to hear them in this symphony. Chailly's gift for Mahler didn't reach fulfilment in his years in Amsterdam, perhaps because they had the Haitink tradition firmly instilled in them. But even then Chailly impressed.

Ten years ago I heard him conduct Mahler 10 with the Royal Concertgebouw, as part of a series of Mahler performances. Earlier, Matthias Goerne had sung the Ruckert Lieder. Usually singers got home after their stint. Instead, just before the beginning of the symphony, when the lights went down, a figure slipped unobtrusively into an empty seat in a corner: Matthias Goerne in street clothes. He sat completely engrossed in the music, listening intently, his body crunched forward. Not many singers immerse themselves in a composer's non-song output, but he does, which is why his performances are so musically informed. Performing Mahler isn't a matter of learning the notes. It's a vocation.

I loved the Mendelssohn Piano Concerto too : Saleem Abboud Ashkar is wonderful, and of course no orchestra plays Mendelssohn like the Leipzig Gewandhaus. But enough from me now.
Later I'll be writing more about Chailly's Mahler and why his approach to this performance works for me. Read HERE The photo above is GM and Alma walking in the mountains above Toblach.

Zarathustra Mahler and Ligeti Prom 65 Kindertotenlieder

For review of Ligeti Le Grand Macabre at ENO please see HERE.

On one level, Prom 65 could have been Sci Fi at the movies.
Millions discovered Nietzsche through Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a Space Odyssey, via the big theme tune Also sprach Zarathustra. So Richard Strauss reincarnated as ' New Age Sage'. Similarly, Kubrick borrowed an obscure piece of new music and rocketed Ligeti's Atmosphères into world prominence. The lawsuit took years to settle, but Atmosphères is probably the best known avant garde piece of all time. Everyone has heard Ligeti, even if they don't know it. So new music isn't the bogeyman its detractors would have.

Wonderful potential then for a great Proms experience. particularly as the two Kubrick Hits were separated by Schoenberg's dramatic Five Orchestral Pieces which received a clear and animated reading from the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester. Youth Orchestra is a bit of a misnomer. Members of this orchestra are hand picked from all over Europe for their talent. The GMJO incubates some of the finest players of the future. Its members may be young but they're better than many more conventional orchestras. What they get from Claudio Abbado's loosely connected network of orchestras is unique. Read more about them HERE and HERE.

Youth orchestras get away with crude playing because they're young. It's perfectly natural to overlook bad musicianship to support a worthy cause. But the GMJO are good, and this was accomplished playing. It's just that no one plays at 18 the way they play at, say, 45. Their Schoenberg was lively, and they got the big dramatic moments in Zarathustra with wonderful effect. But more impressive was they way they handled the more subtle passages. Particularly good were the colours in Farben, each player carefully paying attention, gauging the refinements of tone. This is the stuff that shows real musicianship, not big flashy moments like The Big Blast in the beginning, which everyone knows from TV ads even if they don't know Kubrick. There's a lot more to Strauss's response to the basic ideas than meets the eye. He doesn't buy the Übermensch thing any more than Nietzsche did. Many in the orchestra hadn't played the piece before the Proms, so this wasn't an occasion for seeking much depth of interpretation.

Ligeti's Atmosphères showcased the accomplished playing to good effect. Here, meaning as such doesn't matter. Ligeti's doing a visionary soundscape. What seems like huge washes of white noise are created by extremes of detail, "microtonal polyphony". The music moves in swathes of sound, the strings giving way to a surge of brass, each part played with slight variation. It's the blend that creates the "atmosphere". Hence the otherworldy sound of percussion brushes played against the strings of the piano : it's music going boldly where no man has gone before. No wonder Kubrick heard it as "music from another planet". Jonathan Nott's soft focus sometimes underwhelms in other repertoire, but it's perfect for Atmosphères which is one of his specialities.

So where did Mahler's Kindertotenlieder fit in on this programme ? It carried on the quiet mysticism of Atmosphères which was good. The poems are shocking for they're about the deaths of children. Yet that doesn't mean that the songs should be performed with hyperfervid operatic flourish. On the contrary, the father in the poem is so numbed he can hardly think straight. Histrionics would be quite out of order. So Matthias Goerne's dignified, sensitive approach is psychologically astute. The anguish in In diesem Wetter, where the music portrays a storm, clears to tenderness so pure and loving that you can visualize the children sleeping peacefully in Heaven.

It's musically astute. Kindertotenlieder is like a symphony in miniature and, like most Mahler symphonies, the resolution involves transcendance, transparent light. "Going to another place". Miss this and you miss most of Mahler. So maybe that's why it's paired with Ligeti ? Read my commentary on Kindertotenlieder HERE.

But emotionally this song cycle is so intense that it's hard to listen to in the context of many programmes. Often I feel I need to listen to these songs completely on my own, late at night, in darkness, without distractions. Luckily, thanks to the BBC it is possible to hear the repeat broadcast online and on demand. Click HERE. It's available for a week from now.

Watching is definitely a good thing, because you get the close-ups of Goerne's face, and see how he's singing with his whole soul. It intensifies the performance because it brings much more intimacy than you'd get on stage, and intimacy is what Lieder is about. It's certainly not acting but the kind of intuitive expression that comes from complete immersion in the spirit of the music.

Goerne first became famous in the aftermath of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's retirement. Fans can sometimes be fanatics, so anyone who wasn't a clone of the master came in for flak. DFD had a fairly stiff stage manner but anyone who actually goes to a lot of song recitals knows that singers move. All people move unconsciously when they communicate, it's a normal extension of expressing things you care about. Nowadays, we also have films to prove that singers of the past moved, as did DFD himself. It's time to bury the myth. But it sticks because it's easier to look from outside than to engage and really connect to the music.

Read a shorter, snappier and punchier version of this on Opera Today HERE
As always with reviews check who knows the repertoire !

Goerne Eschenbach Die Schöne Müllerin Schubert

What is Schubert's Die Schöne Müllerin? Is it a pretty tale of a boy falling in love amid flowers? What is the babbling brook babbling? Listen carefully to the words, and to the piano part.

In Winterreise, the distraught man walks off into the wilderness when he's rejected. We come across the miller's lad when he's already on a journey, we don't know his past. All we know is that the lad in DsM is already a wanderer, or, as we'd say today, a drifter. And whatever may happen to the man in Winterreise, he doesn't unequivocally end up dead.

Every year there's a new crop of Die Schöne Müllerins because it's such a fascinating cycle. This new recording, by Matthias Goerne and Christoph Eschenbach on Hatmonia Mundi, is outstanding. Although there are hundreds of recordings to choose from, this one will be one of the classics. Goerne has been developing the cycle for years. Ten years ago his recording, with Eric Schneider on Decca, shocked the Lieder world. As Goerne said at the time, "What's pretty about teenage suicide?"

Even by the standards of Romantic taste, the miller's lad is neurotic. The piano rhythms are unrelenting, like the way a mill wheel turns, operating the mechanism that crushes wheat into flour. Right from the start the poet makes it clear that this isn't an ordinary journeyman, travelling from place to place seeking work. "Das Wandern ist der Müller's Lust, das Wandern!" (his exclamation point, not mine.This fellow likes the business because it's unstable. He's not really interested in settling. It's the brook he's following. "Vom Wasser haben wir's gelernt, vom Wasser!". Mills just happen to be situated on flowing streams. So the pounding rhythms in the piano part are there for a purpose, and aren't merely decorative.

The brook is a presence, with its own motives and personality. It's the second protagonist, much more vivid than the girl. It speaks through the piano part, so, even more than usual, an intuitive pianist is essential. Christoph Eschenbach's playing is exceptional, each note carefully placed and shaded, its charm and elegance developing into outright menace near the end. The final Wegenlied is no lullaby. The brook doesn't mother but jealously smothers. Not even blaue Blümelien are allowed to look in. This is where those relentless rhythms were leading, and why they don't let go. Eschenbach shows how they mimic footfalls, but they're far more powerful.

Eschenbach was a pianist long before he started conducting. His wartime childhood was so traumatic that he was unable to speak until he was about 12, when his adoptive parents got him a piano. So this is a man who understands instinctively how a piano can express things that can't be put into words. Dozens of great pianists have loved this cycle - Richter, Brendel, Cooper, but Eschenbach brings something extra, making this disc a must for anyone wanting to appreciate the piano part and how it works with the voice.

But Goerne! Here he is in perfect voice. He's still only 41, young by singer standards, but has been singing since he was a child. Experience, and emotional depth, does matter in a cycle like DsM, which operates on several different levels. It's not enough to sing on the surface. Fritz Wunderlich's performances are so preternaturally beautiful, all other considerations are suspended: rather like listening to someone so delusional that you're drawn into the glow of their unreality. Not that Wunderlich probably realized, he was just in love with himself. Like Narcissus who loved his reflection in the water, fell in and drowned. Maybe that's why Wunderlich's recording works despite its being shallow. It's closer to DsM than we realize ?

Listen to how Goerne breathes nuance into the words with obvious effort flowing into the curved shapes of phrases like an elegant, sensuous musical instruments. This is Lieder singing, where musical sensitivity is part of the aesthetic. Don't approach with opera values. Lieder sings don't "act", they channel. If there's one thing tha might sum up Goerne's performance, it's that he's singing with a palpable sense of wonder. For wonder is part of this cycle. The miller's lad is wonderstruck by the brook and what it reveals to him. He talks to it, asking for signals, ignoring the real girl beside him on the riverbank. These songs are the intimate heart of the cycle, tinged with tenderness. The miller's lad gets angry with the girl because she has a life in which he doesn't play a part. She hasn't done anything bad, but the brook plays upon his insecurity, its malevolence towards her more violent than his own pain. That's why the blue flowers in the Wegenlied pose such a threat to the brook's hold over the boy, for they represent the girl's eyes and an alternative reality.

Goerne's first Die Schöne Müllerin is crucial because it is the most haunted, savage version around, an important antidote to superficial pap, but for that same reason it isn't comfortable to listen to because it's not a comfortable subject. This new recording, with Eschenbach, certainly does not stint on meaning, but shrouds it in more complex mystery. The miller's lad here is truly bewitched, engrossed in the wonder of the secret bond he has with the brook. To him, such magic is more natural than outside reality. In many ways, this approach is far more unsettling than the earlier recording because it seems so seductive and convincing. But beware.

The elegance and refinement of Goerne's singing is like the brook, lots of hidden depths beneath the surface. It's a journey through several stages, but you get sucked into the miller's mind without hardly realizing. Yet Goerne's controlled restraint at critical points reminds us that the lad's mind is not a good place to be. This performance is utterly compelling, yet in some ways even more disturbing than the first, because it's so seductive. I've heard dozens of DsMs over 40 years, but this one is easily one of the best, top of my listening pile for the last 3 months.

Goerne Eschenbach Winterreise

When Matthias Goerne was about six, he heard Winterreise and was captivated. Obviously, he was too young to understand all the complex emotions in the piece but what he recognized was that they mattered. Winterreise is so powerful that even a child, albeit a talented one, could be inspired to commit it to memory.

There have been hundreds of Winterreises at the Wigmore Hall over the years. This is an audience that knows the work bar by bar and isn't easily impressed, so when most of the house stood up in applause it was serious praise indeed. I first heard Goerne sing Winterreise some 15 years ago, near the start of his adult career (he was a child prodigy in East Germany). He was only 26, yet Irwin Gage was playing, and Alfred Brendel was listening in the stalls, rapt with attention. Goerne and Brendel became a legendary partnership, creating some of the finest Schubert performances ever produced. Their recording of Winterreise is one of the must-hear classics.

Christoph Eschenbach is a superlative Schubert performer too, so this new series of Schubert cycles at the Wigmore Hall is a significant event. Goerne and Eschenbach have already recorded Die Schöne Mullerin as part of the new Harmonia Mundi Schubert Edition. Goerne's earlier recording of that cycle is exceptional. Quite frankly, you can't "know" DsM without having heard that, because it puts paid to the myth that the cycle is sweet and innocent. Darker undercurrents almost always flow through the Romantic (see other posts on Schubert on this blog - I will write more later as Schubert is where I cut my teeth).

Goerne doesn't do mundane. With Eschenbach, he's refining his approach to Winterreise yet again, this time even more cognizant of the structural underpinnings beneath the text. Each song marks a different stage in the journey, and those stages are in themselves significant, to be savoured for what they portend. The journey starts in a huff, the protagonist impulsively dashing out of town, the wind images in Die Wetterfahne expressing turbulent confusion. Gradually the woman who caused the problem fades into a more generalised image on which the man can hang his feelings. Der Lindenbaum is a temporary halt, a short moment of calm before die kalten Winde bliesen.. Then the true impact of the words ich wendete mich nicht. sinks in.

This is a psychological journey, away from the town and its bourgeois values. The protagonist is out in the wilderness, in uncharted territory, where only animal spoor marks a path. Thus Goerne and Eschenbach employ a deliberate, watchful pace: paying close attention to each passage, every detail counts. Eschenbach even brought out the faint pre echo of the posthorn that appears as early as Der Lindenbaum. Similarly, the village dogs appear, in the rhythms that start Im Dorfe.

Landscape is important in Winterreise: it is a mirror of the protagonist's soul. Schubert builds images of nature into the piano part not merely to illustrate text, but to act as an alter ego, almost a third party commentary beyond the protagonist's highly subjective anguish. Pathetic fallacy operates, of course, for the protagonist hears his troubles reflected in the storm and swollen river, and sees frost patterns as flowers. But there's infinitely more to the idea of Nature in the Romantic imagination. It stands as a symbol of something greater than mankind, something that endures beyond the personal and immediate.

This has implications for interpretation. Some performances depend on exaggeratedly emotional singing, on the assumption that the protagonist must be mad, since he gives up civilization to follow a crazy old beggar. Thus follows the idea that the journey can only end in death. But that trivializes the whole logic behind the cycle. If the protagonist is mad, why are we so drawn into this psychodrama? Wilhelm Muller – and Schubert – wanted us to experience the journey through the man's feelings, to sympathize with why someone should choose a wilder path in life. Perhaps in more psychologically repressed times the idea of madness and death prevailed but for the Romantics angst was a code for what we now call the subconscious. The Romantic interest in emotional extremes was a reaction to the tidy elegance of classicism. Schubert's contemporaries were troubled by the world Winterreise revealed, and rightly so.

The protagonist is driven to his limits but never loses sight of the world around him, even though he interprets it in terms of himself, for example when he thinks the crow is a companion. In that sense he's not a depressive, turned entirely away from reality. Some point to Der Nebensoonen as evidence that the man must be nuts if he sees three suns in the sky. But it's a physical phenomenon that in extreme cold, the sun appears distorted in this way. For a century, we've become so used to electricity and urban living that we can't imagine such things as reality. Goerne sings with quiet, understated dignity, as if he's witnessing a miracle in nature. True, the protagonist still sees the eyes of his beloved wrought as huge cosmic images in the sky, but perhaps there's something more.

The cycle ends with the strange hurdy-gurdy of Der Leiermann. The Leier isn't a lyre, but a primitive instrument, turned rather tha actively played, making a mechanical circular sound. Can music be reduced to lesser things ? The old man is barfuß auf dem Eise, barefoot on the ice, exposed to the elements, without a shred of bourgeois respectabilty. And yet he doggedly makes his way from village to village, despite being hounded by dogs and men. Wunderliches Alte! sings the protagonist, what kind of phenomenom is this? Orpheus in rags?

Goerne sings the final sentence with overwhelming grace and wonder. Willst zu meinen Liedern Deine Lieier drehn? Will the man follow the old beggar, who perhaps once set out on a similar journey? Perhaps he's like the crow, whose companionship is coincidental not real. But the old man is human annd plays a vaguely musical instrument. Perhaps he's a symbol of the power of music, which like Nature endures whatever may happen to an individual. Throughout the cycle, the rhythms of the hurdy gurdy and lurching footsteps lurk in the shifts of pace and intensity. The Leiermann haunts the whole piece, though it takes performance of this very high standard to bring them out.

Uncompromising Elijah Berlin

Mendelssohn's Elijah suffers from its popularity. Late 19th century Victorians saw it as an opportunity to go overboard. There were performances with literally several thousand voices blasting out the message "Our God is right, your's isn't!". Through association with Middle England on the warpath, self righteousness and moral certainty, Elijah (and Mendelssohn) has gained a bad reputation. Beware critics like George Bernard Shaw whose own blinkers blinded him to the reality of Mendelssohn's music.

Elijah in the Bible wasn't a cosy character. He stood up alone against the worshippers of Baal, who would have killed him if God hadn't done flashy miracles. The picture above shows Elijah confronting King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. To them he must have seemed a smelly old wild man from the desert come to destroy what to them was a pretty good way of life. So it's ironic that Middle England should have claimed him, as a kind of weapon.

For Mendelssohn himself, Elijah probably meant something quite different. He may have switched religions but he respected his Jewish origins. He knew all too well about faiths won through struggle. Significantly, for this magnum opus, he didn't do Jesus. Elijah served the God of Judaism, not C of E (episopalian). So it's good to hear the oratorio in German, in Germany, where Elijah isn't quite so entrenched as a pillar of Middle England values. Recently Seiji Osawa conducted Elijah with the Berliner Philhamoniker with Matthias Goerne as Elijah, Natalie Stutzmann, Anthony Dean Giffrey and Annette Dasch in the main other parts. Osawa uses a small orchestra and a choir that fits easily on the Philharmonie platform. The emphasis then is on the drama inherent in the music, not the experience as such. This brings us closer to Elijah himself, who has no delusions other than he's a channel for a higher power.

In Part One God does things like blitzing graven pagan images, so naturally the emphasis here is on power and drama. Magnificent singing and playing - this choir is very tight, as disciplined as the orchestra, so as music it's clear and focussed. The soloists don't have to battle against a wall of noise so their words can be heard clearly. One wonders how they must have stood out even more against early instruments : It's a credit to Osawa and this orchestra that they can do simplicity with gorgeous instruments. The quartets and terzetts are nicely don : Stutzmann and Giffrey singing more sympathetically than in a while.

Goerne stands out. Now he's turned 40, his voice is maturing, bringing out extra depth and richness. Most impressive, though, is the way that he sings as if the words mean something. This Elijah has a personality and feelings. Listen especially to the aria Es ist genug! So nimm nun, Herr. Meine Seele!. Elijah goes willingly to death, but without defiance, only gentleness. It's so beautifully nuanced and phrased: much more convincing than the noble heroes we sometimes hear.

Silence and humility in the presence of the Lord. Note how Mendelssohn builds a long pause in the Angel's lines before the lovely Verhülle dein Antlitz, denn es naht der Herr. That's also why Mendelssohn includes a boy soprano, the embodiment of purity. It's not big butch effects Mendelssohn's after but (to quote from the hymn) "the still small voice of peace".

Mendelssohn knows his Bible. God may be surrounded by earthquake, wind and fire, but he's the still, quiet voice of peace that arises out of the turbulence. So Elijah gets taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot, but Elijah himself sings tenderly. The mountains shall be riven apart but as long as God is with him, Elijah is at peace. Then the choir and orchestra can surge triumphant, for they have "witnessed" a miracle. The finale is all the more glorious because of what's gone before. Aber einer wacht von Mitternacht, und er kommt vom Aufgang der Sonne.

Schoenberg Zemlinsky Salonen London

On Thursday 12th at the South Bank, Esa Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra will be playing Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht and Zemlinsky's Lyrische Symphonie. Before that Oliver Knussen will be conducting two of his own song cycles, the wonderful Songs for Sue and Ocean de terre. Claire Booth sings Knussen - this should be very good indeed as she's made the cycles her own, she sings them so well.

Everybody but everybody repeats the usual cliché connecting Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde and Zemlinsky's LS ((code to save typing the whole name). It's much wiser though, to listen to each piece on its own terms and appreciate how unique each one is. Both are symphonies with song. Zemlinsky sets lines from Tagore about two lovers in ancient India. There's a sort of narrative, though it's not clear, but the parts are a kind of dialogue. Mahler sets Chinese poetry, but his songs don't relate to each other causatively. They are expressions of internal psychological states. Mahler's destination is linear, oriented towards transcendence, even if he refers to the return of Spring. Zemlinsky's piece is more circular, like the wheel of karma. Lots more - just listen, for comparison clouds just how original each piece is.

What the Viennese secession did was break away from the hyperfervid neurosis of High Victorian taste, the claustrophobia that exists even in Wagner. That's why it ushered in more fluid lines in design, painting, literature. Zemlinsky is a lot more than an obtuse proto-Wagnerian. He's the missing link (if there is one) between Mahler and the Second Viennese School. He uses extreme exotic lushness but doesn't swoon. Instead the whole thrust is towards new frontiers, new ideas. Prince and girl know they have to go their separate ways. He sings "Ich halte meine Lampe in die Höhe, um dir uf deinen Weg zu leuchten". I hold my lamp up high to light you on your way. Light, again, but a different kind of light. In a good performance of this symphony you can hear pre-echoes of Berg quite distinctly. Zemlinsky knew what was happening around him.

Oddly enough there are lots of tickets left for the performance on Thursday. Below is a description of the most illuminating recording of the LS ever. Scroll down , enjoy

Zemlinsky Lyrische Symphonie Magic Eschenbach

This is an absolutely fantastic recording of Zemlinsky's Lyrische Symphonie. At one stage I used to have 'em all, but this one is so outstanding it eclipses all else. Eschenbach, Orchestre de Paris, Goerne and Schafer (a dream team).

It's groundbreaking because it's informed by recent discoveries about Zemlinsky and his style. Anthony Beaumont’s is the most perceptive of Zemlinsky scholars. His research into Zemlinsky's ideas and methods resulted in a complete re-edition of the score, revealing its true, lucid beauty.

In the 1920’s, Tagore was wildly popular in progressive circles because his rejection of materialism ran counter to the values of the time. Remember, India was still a colony. Embracing Tagore's spirituality was a kind of liberation. By using Tagore as the basis of this symphony, Zemlinsky is doing more than adopting pseudo-oriental exoticism. He knew what Tagore represented. He's not looking backward, but forward..

This performance shows with penetrating clarity just how imaginative Zemlinsky’s writing was. No muddy meandering here. Eschenbach and his soloists have thought the whole symphony through. This is an interpretation with vivid insights, gained not only from the score itself, but informed by an understanding of the music of his time.

Thus those rich drum rolls that lead into the symphony announce things to come, as drum rolls should be – quite literally a “curtain raiser” for a cosmic adventure. Immediately, refreshingly clear brass introduce the three note figure that recurs in myriad guises through the whole symphony. Then, softly, out of the orchestra, the baritones voice enters, quietly but with intense depth and feeling. “Ich bin friedlos” (a variant of the three note figure). Goerne is just over forty, still not at the peak of his powers, and yet it’s hard to imagine any singer delivering such authority and nuance to these words. The way he curls his voice around the vowels is utterly delicious – Meine Seele schweift in Sensucht, den Saum der dunkeln Weite zu berühten. You don’t need a word of German to enjoy the richness of his tone.

Berühten, becalmed. Yet this music is anything but listless. It reflects the overwhelming “thirst” in the text for distant, unknown horizons and the “Great Beyond”. Goerne sings Ich bin voll Verlangen with eagerness, then shapes the next words “und wachsam” with warm, rounded, sensuality. It’s delicious to hear two different, but valid feelings, in the space of a few seconds. Make no mistake, this music is about seeking, striving for something yet unknown, which grows from a pool of stillness.

A lovely skittish violin solo introduces the second movement. Schäfer’s voice with its pure, light quality expresses youth better than most of the sopranos who’ve sung this part. She may sound almost breathless with excitement, but she’s far too assured a singer to lose the musical line, Mutter, der junge…. the vowels underline each other., opening out. For the first time we hear an almost Bergian leap in the voice, when Zemlinsky decorates the line Zieg mir, wie soll mein Haar… Both the image and the sudden leap will recur later in the symphony. For the moment, Schäfer colours it with warmth, as though blossoming into womanhood before our ears. The music illustrating the exotic procession is one of the rare overtly “oriental” touches Zemlinsky indulges in. In the tumultuous postlude, the full orchestra surges forth, complete with drums and cymbals, yet the echoes of the three note theme gradually assert themselves as the soprano song blends seamlessly into the next baritone entry. There’s no narrative, we never discover how the girl and prince meet, if they do at all. The erotic tension and waves of sound owe much to Wagner, but also to Berg and Schoenberg. Goerne’s singing in the third movement is some of the most beautiful in the whole symphony. It is quite breathtakingly sensitive and nuanced. Du bist mein Eigen, mein Eigen, he repeats, each time with intense, but nuanced feeling. These notes, too, are repeated throughout the symphony .

The fourth movement, expands the symphony into new territory. Again, an exquisite violin solo sets the mood, which deepens with cellos and violas. Schäfer’s voice cleanly rings out Spricht’s du mir Speak to me! The line here is tender, yet also discordant, with frequent sudden leaps in pitch which are decidedly modern. So, too, is the indeterminate tonality, creating at once lushness and unreality. The music seems to hover as if it were the stuff of dreams and unconscious. It’s atmospheric, pure chromatic impressionism. There are murmurs of Spricht’s du mir, and again the painfully beautiful violin, and sinister, dark woodwind. This song is sensual, but it’s no excuse for sentimental indulgence, and the orchestra plays with well judged reticence. . It is, after all, a movement about the silence of intimacy. Nur die Bäume werden im Dunkel flüstern (only the trees will whisper in the dark),

The fanfare with which the fifth movement starts seems to drive away the strange mood that had prevailed before. It may seem relatively conventional music but this is emotionally amorphous territory. When the sixth movement starts, there’s no mistaking the modernism here. Horn and bass clarinet inject a darker, discordant mood. Schäfer’s extensive experience in new music means she copes effortlessly with those sudden tonal swoops while still keeping sensual beauty. She makes “mein gierigen Hände” sound genuinely eager. This is Ewartung, minus the harsh dementia, and all the more complex for that. The mood is rocked by rhythmic melody, as the singer becomes aware Träume lassen sich nicht eingefangen (dreams can’t be made captive). Only then does the voice rise in horror, punctuated by a single, fatal drumstroke. Has it all been an illusion ? It’s not clear, nor on what level, but that’s what makes it so intruiging. Zemlinsky wisely leaves the ideas floating. Instead, he lets the music segue, mysteriously, into the final movement.

This final song is full of interpretative possibilities. The protagonist accepts that the affair is at an end, yet is dignified and positive. Lass es nicht eine Tod sein, sondern Vollendung (let it not be a death, but completeness). Even love is sublimated in creative rebirth. Lass Liebe in Erinn’rung schmelzen und Schmerz in lieder. Let love ache and melt in memory, in song. The dignified calmy with which Goerne sings confirms that the protagonist has reached that “Great Beyond” he sang of in the first movement and has found the horizons he sought.. This time, the violin returns, playing a sweet, plaintive melody., while the orchestra echoes the word Vollendung, Vollendung. Then there’s another transition. A warmer note, like a breeze, enters on the strings, and the wavering halftones resolve from minor, gradually, to major. With infinite depth , Goerne sings that last phrase Ich halte meine Lampe in die Höhe, um dir auf deinen Weg zu leuchten. I hold my lamp up high to light your way. .Lovers must part, for life has a higher purpose. “zu leuchten” is sung with such goodwill, that you feel that whoever embarks on the next phase will be going armed with knowledge and faith gained by those who care enough to light them on their way. The postlude is led by a distant woodwind, a reference to the flute that called in the very beginning of this journey. There are echoes, too, of the Du bist mein Eigen theme, emphasizing the sense of fulfillment. Gradually the wavering half tones resolve, and the music moves from minor to major, concluding in another shimmering plane of colour. .

Anthony Beaumont, in his analysis of the symphony, said “often the singers are engulfed in a dark forest of orchestral filigree work. In performance, the score requires Mozartian grace and precision. For all its abandon, this music reveals its true beauty and power only in performed with discipline and cool headed restraint”. Eschenbach recognizes its profoundly spiritual qualities, keeping the textures clear, letting them shimmer through unsullied. It’s the very purity of the orchestral playing that sheds light on the dynamics of the scoring. The soloists voices complement each other perfectly, and are in turn complemented by the elegance of the orchestral sound.

Mahler channels Beethoven 9 via Järvi

Until very recently, it wasn’t unusual for conductors to “retouch” – not “revise” - existing pieces in performance. The logic was simple. Late 19^th century instruments and orchestras could produce a much greater range of sound than might have been available in the past. If the retouched music worked, then the original composer’s aims might be achieved even if it wasn’t how he would have heard it. Before recordings, people heard only what was played in the concert hall, and audiences were not particularly aware of the originals. Historically-informed practice was irrelevant.

Mahler’s Retuschen are fairly well known, particularly of Bach where he employs an orchestral arsenal Bach may never have dreamed of. Mahler’s orchestration of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was meant to enhance its impact and underline its iconic status in music history.

We can hear echt Beethoven at any time. Since this was the first performance of a new edition of Mahler’s reorchestration, Neeme Järvi emphasized the Mahlerian textures, so we could absorb the wider range of colour. The deeper sonorities are impressive – Mahler adds a tuba, for example, so the contrast between light and darkness that runs like a stream through the symphony are heard in better focus. In the“Turkish” passages, the percussion unit placed well away from the main timpani, so its distinctive, alien nature is emphasized above the whole. Given Mahler’s predilection for marches this adds an extra perspective.

But the whole point of this symphony is that it carries connotations of revolution, freedom and international brotherhood, so it needs performances with fire and energy. Earlier this year, Riccardo Chailly led the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in a performance of exceptional vitality that made the old warhorse spring to life again as if it were brand new. Järvi’s attention to detail respected the textures in the orchestration but underplayed the soaring architecture of the symphony which gives it such power. Too much reverence for perfect detail, less understanding for what really makes the symphony work. From what we know of Mahler as conductor - headstrong, vibrant - I suspect he'd have given it more kick.

Beethoven’s 9^th is also a prototype of the song symphony which Mahler was to develop so beautifully. Surprisingly then, that the song elements didn’t get greater prominence as they play an important role throughout the symphony, even though the actual vocal parts don’t enter until the end. The soloists were fine, placed behind the orchestra. This is the sweet spot in the new RFH acoustic, where any singing in the front is drowned out. The choral singing though was a disappointment after the precise diction and delivery of the Leipzig choirs for Chailly.

This symphony was conceived on a grand scale, and Mahler faithfully extends the concept of music as spectacle. Volume is always stirring, and accordingly, reception was enthusiastic. Like many of the audiences in the past, many here were not specially committed to either Mahler or Beethoven, so could enjoy themselves quite happily.

Goerne Mahler Kindertotenlieder

Matthias Goerne has a special affinity for Mahler. Though he’s rarely recorded the composer’s work, he has such penetrating insight into the music that there are many treasured bootlegs in circulation. A friend, a Mahler specialist from the 1950’s, listened a lot to a Goerne version of Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen. It gave her strength and inspiration. It was played at her funeral.

On 4 Feb Goerne was singing Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder at the Royal Festival Hall. It’s a grim song cycle that challenges interpretation. There’s nothing autobiographical in it per se, except for the fact that Mahler, like many others in his era, had known many people around him die. Death was to the 19^th century what sex was to the 20th^th, a popular topic, a source of endless fascination.

Goerne’s singing was superb, capturing the sense of elegiac dignity. This matters, for the songs are more than just another group of Lieder: as a cycle, Kindertotenlieder is a prototype symphony, written so it works as a unified whole. Mahler chose poems which contrast images of light and shade, which recur repeatedly throughout his entire oeuvre, from the Second Symphony to the Tenth.

The texts are interesting, because they're psychologically so perceptive. The horror of what has happened numbs the poet so much that he cannot face it head on. “Nun will die Sonn’ so hell aufgehn” he says, “als sei kein Unglück die Nacht gesehen”. The sun rises, as always, as if the tragedy of the night had never come to pass. No need for histrionics on the singer’s part. He’s in denial, trying to relate the collapse of his inner world to the landscape around him.

The second song, too, is oblique. The vocal writing is soft, almost too high for a bass baritone to negotiate but that’s the whole point. Goerne delivers these ostensibly gentle lines with a sense of wonder, for already the protagonist is seeking somehow to make sense of what’s going on. The poet juxtaposes the intimate with the universal. Memories of shining eyes will become like stars, which shine on in eternity.

The third song is like a central movement in a symphony. For a moment, the poet faces the fact that the children are never coming back. This song wells up magnificently, giving Goerne a chance to unleash that powerful voice at last, before the cycle returns to the minor of numb denial. Are the children really just off on a long walk? Will they come back and bring things back to normal? Goerne brings out the intense pain of maddened hope. But even more impressively, h has this knack of cradling the words, as if by enclosing phrases he might be holding them in an embrace.He doesn’t let the words fly past but seems to hold them fast, treasuring them like the poet treasures his memories. This protagonist is strong, powerfully masculine, so the tenderness and vulnerability Goerne expresses is all the more moving.

Notice how oblique the images are. The poet sees the space above the ground by the mother's skirt, where the children would have been, but they aren't there any more. It's the emptiness that's haunting. So the singer shouldn't flaff about pulling heartstrings. Goerne makes you hear the loss, obliquely. The last thing this father is thinking of is himself and the image he's making on the listener. We should be drawn inwards, into his grief. We're not simply observers.

For a moment, we’re thrown back into the storm. “In diesem Wetter, in diesem Braus” repeats the poet. How could the children be sent out in such weather ? “Ich durfte nichts dazu sagen”. Nothing could have changed fate. Mahler writes turbulent circular figures, evoking extremes of wind, rain and anguish.Yet with Mahler, there’s always a search for resolution. Where the children have now gone transcends death. No longer will they fear the storm for they are forever von Gottes Hand bedecket. Goerne’s protective, gentle phrasing has been pointing the way all along.

After Fischer-Dieskau retired there was a lot of fuss about other singers who didn’t follow DFD’s mould. But any singer with integrity has to perform in his or her own way. Now we have more videos of singers in the past, we can see how they (and even DFD) intuitively expressed themselves through their whole physique as well as voice. Singers like Goerne communicate so much that all else falls by the way. Pity, then, that the orchestra under Neeme Jarvi wasn't on message in quite the same way.

Please read my other posts on Mahler songs and on Kindertotenlieder in particular. The key to understanding performances is to understand the music and its place in the wider scheme of Mahler's music. The final song, In diesem Wetter is crucial, because the storm here is NOT a pictorial representation of a storm. It's a cosmic shattering. The father has just lost two kids in the same night and in the morning he's gutted. So the music starts to clear, rising ever higher and purer til the man visualizes the kids in heaven, as if in "their mother's house". Nearly everything Mahler wrotes is about finding resolution, tansfiguaration, redemption in light and clarity. So beware anyone who thinks the song to be "exciting" or wild and noisy. They don't know their Mahler at all. Read the Proms review HERE.