Pierre Boulez Saal opening concert : Schubert Der Hirt auf dem Felsen

The Opening Concert  of the Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin's new hall for chamber recitals.  Daniel Barenboim  did the honours in the Mozart Piano Quartet KV 493, with his son, Michael, the violinist, beside him.  No way would a concert as significant as this have been  complete without a star like Barenboim.  The invisible star, nonetheless was Pierre Boulez, for whom the hall is named. Fittingly, the concert began and ended with Boulez: Initiale initiating proceedings, with Sur Incises as the grand highlight. Both pieces also demonstrated the acoustic and flexibility of this new hall.  It's more than a recital hall, since it can be adapted for larger ensembles and even, potentially, for chamber opera.  Seating seems generous, so backstage facilities might also be of the same high standard.  Coffin-shaped concert halls are dead.  London, wake up!

Barenboim will also be remembered for posterity because he nurtures young musicians, just as he himself was nurtured when he was a child prodigy. It was good to hear Karim Said, whom Barenboim has mentored since childhood. Please see my article Why we need  to know who Karim Said Is from 2008. Said has matured nicely. He was the soloist in Alban Berg's Kammerkonzert for piano, violin and thirteen winds, with Barenboim as conductor. Later, Said was the lead pianist in Sur Incises.  Jörg Widmann appeared, both as clarinettist and as composer, performing his own Fantasie. The whole concert can be heard on repeat here, a good idea since you can fast forward past the inordinately long breaks between pieces.   You can see who's in the audience, too - Simon Rattle. 

Being a Lieder person,  I was keen to hear Schubert Der Hirt auf dem Felsen D 965 with  Barenboim, Widmann  and the incomparable Anna Prohaska.  Pauline Anna Milder-Hauptmann, the celebrity coloratura of her day, wanted a showpiece that would test her range and artistry. Der Hirt auf dem Felsen is a challenge, even for the finest performers.  The piano part is dense, "rock-like" in its complexity, and the clarinet part equally daunting. But the soprano is the star. The piece runs for twelve minutes, connecting three different poems (Wilhelm Müller and Karl August Vernhagen).  Schubert's setting replicates the imagery in the first poem,  Müller's Der Berghirt, whiuch describes a young shepherd, sitting high on a rock on a mountain, looking down on the valley below, where his beloved lives, far away. Thus the extremes of height and depth,the soprano's voice soaring upwards, while the clarinet's lower register floats seductively around her, sometimes in duet.

In the early part of the 19th century, there was a craze for "Alpine" music connecting the Romantic concepts of Nature, purity and freedom with picturesque mountain scenery and peasant simplicity.   Weber's Der Freischütz premiered in 1821 and Rossini's William Tell in 1829, the year after Schubert wrote this remarkable song. Tragically, it was his last completed work., but it might indicate how Schubert might have progressed had he survived.  Later in the century,"Alpine opera", such as La Wally came into vogue.   Strauss and Mahler wrote music in which mountains appear, figuratively. Indeed,  the whole genre of Bergfilm is an adaptation of the style. Lots on this site about mountains in music and Bergfilme.

Although the soprano in Der Hirt auf dem Felsen certainly does not yodel, the idea of a song designed to carry over long distances applies, and requires good breath control (as do pan pipes and Alpenhorn), Milder-Hauptmann and Schubert no doubt realized the piece would be a tour de force.   Prohaska was wonderful, singing with mellifluous grace.  Her words rang clear and true.

"Je weiter meine Stimme dringt,
Je heller sie mir wieder klingt
Von unten".  

In the last section, Prohaska's voice trilled deliciousl, .duetting with Widmann's clarinet. Tricky phrasing, but joyously agile, like a mountain spirit. 

"Der Frühling will kommen,
Der Frühling, meine Freud',
Nun mach' ich mich fertig
Zum Wandern bereit"

It might seem trivial, but I loved the outfit Prohaska wore: cropped trousers, knee-high boots and a long jacket.  Very elegant, yet also reminiscent of a 19th century traveller, a poet or a wanderer.

Berge in Flammen : Mountains in flames

Berge in Flammen, Mountains on Fire -  Bergfilm, art film, and war film, conceived and directed By Luis Trenker (1892-1990).  You'd think, from English language media, that 1914-1918 happened only on the western front. Not so! Millions died on the eastern front and in the south, in the Alps. All the more reason for watching Berge in Flammen, set in the Dolomites during the war of attrition that ran almost non stop from 1915 to 1917.  Imagine, trenches in mountains way above the snowline,dug into permafrost, cut off from supply lines.

Largely filmed on location,  the camera crew were themselves  skilled mountaineers - some of these shots would have been technically difficult to carry off.  Yet Berge in Flammen is an astonishingly beautiful film, a symphony of high peaks, snowfields and rockwalls,  shot from dizzying, expressionist angles.  Nature as poetry, dwarfing the silly battles below.  Global warming and safety regulations probably mean that films like this can't be made again. In any case, the South Tyrol depicted here is largely memory, but that, too, is a reason for seeing this film and appreciating its message. Not for nothing is this film bilingual, and those involved in the making thereof, a mix of Germans, Austrians, Frenchmen and Italians. Very much the "can do" camaraderie of the mountains. Some of the camera crew were not only climbers but also actors.

An idyllic beginning. Florian Dimal (Luis Trenker) and Arthur Franchini (Luigi Serventi) help each other up a rockstack.  They're free climbing, using only ropes, no helmets, no fancy modern gear.  But in the valley below, the church bells ring, It's August 1914. Franz Josef, the Emperor, has announced war. Florian and Arthur end up on different sides. Fantastic shots of life in underground caves and trenches tunneled through metres of snow.  Rickety ladders up steep slopes. Constant bombardment and with that, rock falls. Not many "special effects" in this filming. When the men trek through snow up to their hips, they're not acting. Bergfilme audiences knew about mountains and the technical aspects of climbing . 

Machine guns on precipices, hand grenades thrown by men clinging to ledges. Barbed wire and frozen bodies.  A sentry goes snow blind in a storm, frozen to the sandbags he was guarding. At one stage an officer with binoculars watches the action. The man at his shoulder is shot by a sniper. The officer keeps talking, unaware that his companion is dead.  Soldiers scale vertical cliffs, using mechanical drills to place explosives or maximum damage.  It doesn't take much to set off an  avalanches .And avalanches happen all the time. Most Bergfilme include shots of skiers in mass formation, but those here are particularly impressive because the men wear white coats with hoods, moving like apparitions.  The snowfields on glaciers are as spectacular as the cliffs and peaks.

Meanwhile, Florian's village has been occupied by the Italians.  Florian's home is billeted but the soldiers friendly. "Farina!"  says an Italian. "Mehl" says Pia, Florian's wife.  Florian is sent out alone, in secret on reconnaissance.  But he can't stay.  Crawling back up to the summit, during an enemy barrage, he's shot at by his own men, though is saved. The fortress is dynamited :  the whole peak explodes.  Twenty years later, Florian and Arthur (from Rome) ascend the mountains again, over the old battlefield. A vista of the Twin peaks of the Dolomites. They sit happily, together, no need for words.  The soundtrack, incidentally is very good, as modern as the cinematography.  The composer was Giuseppe Becci.

Florian Boesch Ernst Krenek Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen Wigmore Hall

Florian Boesch and Roger Vignoles at the Wigmore Hall in Ernst Krenek Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen. Matthias Goerne has called Hanns Eisler's Hollywooder Liederbuch the Winterreise of the 20th century. Boesch and Vignoles showed how Krenek's Reisebuch is a journey of discovery into identity at an era of extreme social change. It is a parable, indeed, of modern times. 

Before the recital, Boesch and Vignoles spoke  for about 15 minutes, explaining the context and imagery which are fundamental to a true understanding of the depths of this piece, which is unusual though by no means a rarity.  If only more performers were as articulate as they were, since the better informed an audience is, the more they'll get out of a performance. Although this recital was one of the highlights of the year, the Wigmore Hall was only half-full, since the Royal Opera House Andrea Chénier was being screened elsewhere. Here is a differemce  between Lieder and opera, even if some do not understand. The Wigmore Hall's reputation has been built on very high standards. Boesch and Vignoles gave the core Wigmore Hall a challenge to rise to.

"Ich reise auf, mein Heimat zu entdecken". From the outset, the 'Motif ' makes it clear that this is a voyage of self discovery, not sight-seeing. Specifically, Boesch quoted from  'Auf und ab', where the tourists were guided by the "durren Weisungen  der Reisebücher, Alpenführer, Fahrpläne und  Prospekte". Spouting received wisdom, they don't think for themselves. They take photographs of each other "und dahinter auch wohl einen Berg und sehen nichts" They've travelled, but haven't engaged with experience. "Gelangweilt verhüllen die grossen alten Berge  ihre Häuptter, wenn die Põbel ihnen auf die Füsse tritt.".  A metaphor for the Lieder ethos, where what you get equates with what you put in of yourself.

Krenek grew up in the comfortable certainties of pre-war Vienna. Everything changed with the collapse of the grand Empire. Austrians were cut of from  "Welschland", the Süden, and to the idealized image of southern climes which runs so strongly through the Northern European imagination, from neo-classical times, through Goethe and to the late Romantics. Imagine Hugo Wolf  cut off from his dreams of the South.  How then should Austrians come to terms with an  identity within narrow borders, and  a new relationship with Germany?  Furthermore , the 1920's were a time of rapid social change. Krenek himself was part of the avant garde, incorporating jazz into classical tradition. The image of a black saxophonist, which so horrified the Nazis, has its origins in Krenek's Jonny spielt auf.   When Krenek journeyed to the Alps, he wasn't sight-seeing, but observing.

The Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen  meant so much to Krenek that he wrote the texts himself, as rapidly as he wrote the music. It's hard to stress enough the importance of context and extra-musical meaning. Boesch referred to the "blutigen HansWurst", the evil clown of German language satire. When he's mentioned in the song 'Politik', with specific references to war and mountains in the west (Bavaria) , the implications are clear. "Beendet die Todesmaskerade". Miss that reference and miss much of the point of the whole cycle. Indeed, this song could hardly be more trenchant or specific. the empire was called on to shepherd the people of the south and the east,  but "Wir haben die Aufgabe nicht erfüllt". The punishment was war and deprivation. Cut off by trade blockades, civilians starved. In the Alps, as Krenek and his contemporaries knew only too well, there was warfare as savage as anything on the Western Front. Trench warfare,  but in deep snow. And this in a region where Italians and Austrians had more or less peaceably co-existed. Krenek emphasizes the difference between genuine love of homeland and the "Blutige Gespenst" of extremist nationalism. Hitler couldn't come to terms with the new, truncated Austria. As Boesch said, it might well be that "Das Nahe, Kleine, Einzelne empfiehlt sich der Betrachtung".

Krenek was also paying homage to Franz Schubert.'Unser Wein (dem Andenken Franz Schuberts)' is the most "Schubertian" song in Krenek's cycle, with its images of golden, lilting lyricism, but it would be wrong, I think, to look for simplistic connections. Krenek visits Schubert territory, but from new perspectives, a far greater tribute than mere quotation or imitation. On the surface, the poem purports to be about wine.  In the context of the rest of the song cycle, its real meaning may be more complex. Austrian wine "ist kõsstlich unser Wein nur dem, der ihn zu finden weiß". Outsiders may not know it because it's "anspruchslos im Äußern ist die Gabe" ie, not mass-marketed for unquestioning hordes. Schubert's idiom is also too pure to lend itself to vulgarity. Images of distorted music occur several times in the cycle.  Trashy Schlager played on scratchy gramophones, a  small town band plays "feurige Weisen, ein bißchen falsch, ein we it schnell", Even in 'Unser Wein', the melody is ever so slightly out of kilter. But that's the point. When the whole world is off balance, how else can things be?

Krenek writes in a thoroughly modern (for his time) idiom. His quirky phrasing creates disconcerting undercurrents which express the unease inherent to meaning.  Syncopation creeps in, as if mechanical processes are disrupting supposedly natural smooth flowing lines. Krenek describes speeding trains,  revving motorcycle engines, and even the sound of heavy cars skidding on rutted roads. Krenek alludes to Schubert's penchant for repetitive motifs, but gives them tensions that suggest mechanical, impersonal processes. Krenek's music rises up the scale and expands in volume, then does sudden switchbacks. changes direction and abruptly breaks off.  Krenek was a lifelong modernist, and a devotee of dodecaphony. He acknowledges the past but is driven, inexorably, forward. In Reisebuch aus den östereichischen Alpen, he shows that  there are many other means (eg, tempo, pauses and rhythms) which a composer can employ to make his music distinctive. Tonality, as such, is neither here nor there, and can be stretched in highly individual ways.
 
The protagonist in Winterreise cannot linger. Nor can Krenek.  In the Alps, weather conditions are extreme. Sunshine can suddenly turn to thunderstorm.  "Unverlässlich wie ein Lieferant wechselt es von Stunde zu Stunde". An obvious allusion for  turbulent times. Hard as their existence may be, the local populace scrape a living, even when they're dead ("Friedhof in Gerbirgsdorf")  They endure,  "Wetter komm und reinige uns von Dummheit, Bosheit, schleichender  Gemeinheit!" ('Gewitter')  Change isn't necessarily negative.

In 'Ausblick nach Süden', Ktrenek lovingly looks back, but knows the dream must end. A thistle cannot become a rose even when transplanted to an ideal garden. As he speeds home on the train, he ponders the "Schmerz der Vergänglichkeit", the "pain of transistoriness," as he put it himself.  The song ends with a glowing, rising figure, expanding on the word "Heimat", as if by illuminating it in this way,  its beauty might seem its attainment. But then comes the 'Epilogue', dispelling easy answers.

The musical language Krenek employs in the 'Epilogue' is so unusual and so individual that there's nothing quite like it in the art song repertoire  The piano tolls ominously. The voice part unfolds, almost bereft of accompaniment. Plaintive declamation, suggesting ancient plainchant. Are we at last approaching the secretive wisdom the monks in 'Kloster in den Alpen' didn't waste on gawping tourists?  "Seltsam ist die Strasse, die hinführt". The landscape here is alien, urban, and industrial, yet here Krenek finds a resolution.

Throughout the cycle,. Krenek hints at images of death. Wine cellars are cold and silent, like tombs, "wie die Gräber orientalischer Kõnige". The King who is sleeping here is wine.  This "tomb" has a purpose,  for it's part of the process of creation. Good wines need to mature to develop. Quite the opposite of the instant expertise of the tourists in 'Auf und Ab', who mistake data for genuine wisdom.  In 'Unser Wein', Krenek contemplated Schubert. In vino veritas. For thousands of years, wine has been a symbol of free expression. It's  a perfect metaphor for creativity. The image of the wine cellar also connects to the image of mountains as ancient fastnesses, under which, in Alpine legend, mythic powers dwell. The 'Epilogue' thus draws together many strands from the songs that have gone before, while heading forth in a completely new direction.

At the gate to the wine cellar is an inscription, probably carved deep into the wood  in archaic Gothic script. "Ich lebe, und weiß nicht, wie lang. Ich sterbe, und weiß nicht, wann.   Ich geh'  und weiß nicht, wohin. "  A simple ditty, yet one which conveys existential angst,  the "Ewiger Zwiespalt der Kreatur!". For the first time in this cycle, Krenek repeats words, as if ruminating.  Boesch sang with measured deliberation, enhancing the effect. Perhaps we don't need to know the answers to life, but still find happiness where we can. 

Boesch brings exceptional authority to his traverse of Krenek's Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen.  At the heart of  this amazing song cycle lies anguish and protest. Boesch's phrasing was uncompromisingly direct. He didn't mitigate the violence in the background, so fundamental to the whole meaning of the cycle.  Yet, warmed by the richness of his Austrian burr,  his singing glowed with gentle humanity.  Perhaps that's the key to the resolution Krenek finds in the 'Epilogue', and also, possibly in Schubert. Ostensibly simple things sometimes hold clues to the vast questions of life. Perhaps that was just as well for Krenek, who was forced into exile by the Anschluss and thereby lost his physical Heimat less than 10 years after writing the Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen. 

This review also appears in Opera Today. Please also see my other posts on Lieder, on MOuntains in Music usw

Rossini William Tell, WNO, Oxford

Rossini William Tell  (Guillaume Tell) from the Welsh National Opera at the New Theatre Oxford, last night. Companies that tour, like WNO, have to strike a balance between excellence in-house and portability on the road. Even when a production is designed tto travel, it's not easy to make it fit every venue, every time, especially on one-night stops.  A lifetime ago, I used to sit up in the gods. Now I can afford posh tickets but I'm fussier. You can't win. Next time, I'm going to Cardiff.

The New Theatre wasn't built for opera, so the orchestra is so close to the audience that it overwhelms. Had this been a sublime musical experience it might not have mattered so much, but this performance, conducted by Andrew Greenwood (instead of Carlo Rizzi) was pretty ropey. The singing wasn't much, either. The orchestra and much the same cast had been singing for four nights in a row. It would be asking far too much of them, as human beings, not to sound tired. In any case, Arnold is one of the most difficult parts in the repertoire, such a killer role that it's hard to cast at the best of times. All respect to Barry Banks for a good enough performance. By putting 'Asile héréditaire' two and a half hours into the performance, Rossini was expecting superhuman effort. No audience should expect a singer to jeopardize his voice for one night.  I discreetly removed myself after the Third Act, leaving with good memories of Banks and Gisella Stille's moving duet, where they sing alone together, surrounded only by atmospheric, beautiful lighting. A lovely image, which reinforces the idea that Guillaume Tell might indeed be an opera better suited to the imagination than to staging.

Since the Royal Opera House is doing a new production of Guillaume Tell next spring (with Pappano, who is brilliant) , and we've recently heard the Munich production (with divine, unequalable Bryan Hymel)  this is a good time to be thinking about how Rossini's music can be recreated visually on stage. The instructions for the First Act militate against easy depiction. Many small groups of happy peasants mill about doing what happy peasants are supposed to do.  Rossini's music is much too beautiful to spoil with fussy kitsch. Short episodes are great for dancing, though they don't sustain theatrical cohesion. David Pountney uses a backdrop of glaciers. One newspaper critic sniffily dismissed this as depicting Antarctica, not the forests of Switzerland. But aren't there glaciers in Switzerland?  In any case, a friend identified the backdrop as the painting by Caspar David Friedrich The Sea of Ice which also references the boat in which William Tell sails  across the lake.

The Alps kept Switzerland independent. They're much more than decoration.  Many operas set in the Alps, like Catalani's La Wally, are hard to stage because the Alps are just hard to beat in terms of spectacle. Much wiser, I think, to focus on what the music suggests - wide open skies, endless vistas and the fresh, pure air of freedom. In Rossini's music, we can hear local colour, even the suggestion of yodel, carrying across vast distances, wild mountain winds and craggy "hiking" rhythms.  The ideas in William Tell are so noble that the opera shouldn't be reduced to tourist kitsch. Pierre Audi's staging for Amsterdam let the music tell the story! But that's assuming opera audiences actually like music, which isn't always the case.


photos : Robert Hubert Smith, courtesy WNO

Lucerne Abbado Memorial - COMPLETE FREE online

How often do you see the members of an orchestra weep openly? The Lucerne Festival Orchestra's memorial  for Claudio Abbado  on 7th April is now available complete and free on arte.tv. This is infinitely more than an ordinary concert.  What makes it unique - and compelling - isn't "just" the music. Every player here knew Claudio Abbado personally and worked with him. Everyone in the audience had memories, too. There are people who think music should be judged purely in musical terms. This concert proves that without the human spirit, notes alone are meaningless. Without vision, without endeavour, without feeling, we are nothing. Claudio Abbado taught us a lot technically about the music he conducted, but even more so, I think, about being human.

The programme: Franz Schubert (1797-1828) «Allegro moderato» de la Symphonie n° 7 en si mineur D 759 Inachevée, Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) Elegie Brot und Wein (Pain et Vin), Alban Berg (1885-1935), Concerto pour violon et orchestre A la mémoire d’un ange, Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), Finale de la Symphonie n° 3 en ré mineur.  Each piece chosen because they were closely associated with the conductor, but also because each touches upon some aspect of the human condition.  They also reference the idea of artists being taken before their time. Not death so much as the loss of what might have been. Thank whatever power gave us Abbado's finest years, after his near fatal cancer. "Half the stomach, twice the soul" someone once quipped

Significantly, the concert formally ends with the Finale of Mahler's Symphony no 3, soaring ever upwards, higher and higher until the very sounds dissolve into infinity. The Lucerne Festival Orchestra might have picked the Finale of Mahler 6th or Mahler 9th but the Finale of Mahler's 3rd is perhaps right in context: the Alps around Lucerne, but even more what mountains symbolize. Mountains endure, when mortals pass on. Most of us never reach the pinnacle, but we're lost if we don't dream.

 Here  is the text of the Hölderlin Elegy. Again a brilliant choice. The poet famously lived in a tower, contemplating the moon.  His work became hugely influential on 20th century composers, long after his death.  Why poems in a concert, and horror of horrors not in English, as some would say.  To paraphrase Mahler, speaking of the young know-it-alls of his time, "Have they read Dostoevsky"
 
Listen to the concert - not just to the sounds the orchestra is playing, but also to what might be happening in your heart. That, I think, is the real gift of musicianship, and Claudio Abbado's enduring legacy. There are many different ways to show emotion. The members of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra are not afraid to hide their feelings. Even the concert master gives in to his. I've watched this several times over, thoroughly gutted.

Szymanowski Strauss Søndergård Stenhammer

Thomas Søndergård conducted Stenhammer, Szymanowski and Strauss at BBC Prom 9 (BBC National Orchestra of Wales). Why shouldn't we play with alliteration when far too much emphasis is placed on nationality and other relative irrelevancies?  Music is music whatever its "nationality". Narrow definitions of nationality ignore the reality of the creative imagination. Beautifully executed Stenhammer Excelsior  ending with a dramatic punch.Whether that's German, Swedish, Danish or Welsh, who cares ?  It's good music..

Karol Szymanowski came from a part of the Ukraine which became part of Russia when he was young. In later life he had a house in Zakopane but essentially he was upper class and international. If anything, his horizons were defined by dreams. Although he went as a tourist to romantic places, he inhabited them mainly in his dreams. Like so many buttoned-up Europeans, he could express dangerous ideas under the disguise of alien and exotic.

Søndergård conducted the fourth Szymanowski Symphony no 3 (Song of the Night) heard in London in barely 18 months. It's fast becoming a "greatest hit". Read my Scriabin on Speed and my review of the Eötvös at the Barbican.  Numerous posts on Szymanowski on this site. Søndergård's approach to Szymanowski leans towards Boulez's exceptionally lucid interpretation. Boulez responded to Szymanowski's sense of adventure and liberation. Under the cover of night, the poet (and composer) could express secrets otherwise too dangerous to reveal.  Søndergård shaped the murmuring rumble at the beginning with great portent, so the tenor emerged as if glimpsed in a clearing. In some passages, the BBC NOW played with a limpidity that made me think, oddly enough, of Britten's Sea Interludes, which also express dark undercurrents. The "dance" theme was also nicely done, though with rather less electric excitement than Boulez gives it. Søndergård's good at creating the thicket of confluent sounds, keeping individual elements, like the bright "footsteps", clear,.

Michael Weinius has a firm, authoritative tone. His "O nie spij, druhu, nocy tej" (O, sleep not, dearest friend this night") rang out with defiance. His timbre is harder than some tenors who've done the piece before, but it worked well, partly because the violin part was more understated than usual. The BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC National Chorus of Wales were forthright rather than mysterious, so Weinius's strength provided good balance.

Last year at the Proms, Bernard Haitink conducted the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in an exceptionally wonderful Richard Strauss Ein Alpensinfonie An Alpine Symphony (read more here). It would be too much to ask for lightning to strike twice. Søndergård's traverse was very good in the sunlit passages. The orchestra was steady and sturdy. Hillwalking in the Brecon Beacons, or Snowdonia, perhaps. Great panoramas, and danger when the clouds descend and winter sets in. Not quite the extremes of the high Alps, though, but  Søndergård's interpretation fitted nicely with Strauss's good-natured humour.  The photo above (Bill Boaden) shows Tryfan, which I almost scaled but was driven back by inclement weather.

Music for hikers : Wolf Fussreise

The "Vienna Myth" distorts music history. Everyone likes Strauss Waltzes and Klimt derived decorative arts. So if you want to make money, you repackage music in their image. But look more carefully though. Mahler, for example,  couldn't wait to get out of Vienna and head for the hills where he could be creative. Vienna was where he made a living (for a while). It was not his life. Even Schubert, impoverished city boy as he was, was tranfixed by the Salzkammergut. We owe much of Schubert's music to Gmunden rather than Vienna per se (many of Schubert's friends knew the countryside well).  Another popular myth : Romanticism wasn't necessarily "romantic" (though some of it was maudlin).  Romanticism was revolutionary because it focussed on the individual rather than groups. It was an outgrowth of modern ideas on political liberty and freedom. It was the foreunner of modern ideas of identity and psychology.
I've been writing about music and mountains for years because mountains are metaphors for many Romantic ideals. On a simpler level, walking was what people did before cheap public transport. Even in big cities people walked and climbed flights of stairs. If you were poor, you had no alternative. Please see my work on Mahler 3rd and 6th, on Strauss Alpensinfonie, Ernst Krenek's Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen and  much else. Today, I'll focus on one song that epitomizes the whole idea : Hugo Wolf's Fussreise.

Wolf was perhaps the true country boy among Lieder composers, growing up in an impoverished  family in provincial Windischgrätz (surrounded by mountains). Later, he walked from Vienna to Bayreuth. To him, hiking was as natural as breathing. Listen to those brisk, jaunty rhythms, repeated in the piano part. You actually can tramp to them, I've tried, singing the song while walking. Wolf knew about "frischgeschnittnen Wanderstab" (freshly cut walking stick). These  help regulate walking rhythms. Optimistic, energetic. But the poet is Eduard Mörike (another man who preferred countryside to city). Almost imperceptibly the mood becomes more serious.

"So fühlt auch mein alter, lieber Adam Herbst und Frühlingsfieber, Gottbeherzte, Nie verscherzte Erstlings Paradiseswonne." (my old, beloved Adam felt Spring and Autumn fever, given by God, never forgotten by those who were the first creations of Paradise). Wonderfully compressed German phrase which means that the spirit of Adam in Eden lives on in us when we experience the joy of Spring and Autumn). Mörike and Wolf refer to Adam and Eve before the Fall, suggesting that primeval bliss lives on in modern man when he interacts with Nature in Spring (growth) and Autumn (colour). "Wie an ewig neuen Schöpfungstagen" (like an eternally new Day of Creation).

 Mörike, a country parson, uses Bible terminology but emotionally, this "Creator" could be Dionysius or something even more ancient. But the greatest joy of this song, to me, is the way it expresses the physicality of walking, in its pace and in the tiny detail "leichten Wanderschweiße" (light "walking" perspiration). Mörike and Wolf know first hand what brisk walking means. Without effort, no results. Walking keeps you grounded. Definitely not salon aesthetic.  

Semyon Bychkov Mahler 6th Prom 56

Of all the Mahler Proms this season, only one really stands out for attention, and it's this, Prom 56 with Semyon Bychkov. When Bychkov conducted Mahler in Cologne, I was disappointed, because he favoured Romantic repertoire. Last Proms, he conducted Mahler's 3rd, which I found too refined, but some of my friends loved. But Bychkov is an extremely important conductor, who has a lot to say in Romantic repertoire and opera. So I was thrilled by this Proms performance of Mahler 6. Oddly, in part, because Bychkov draws the parallels with Mahler 3. It's a wonderful insight.

Dispense with the usual maudlin sentimentality that attaches to this symphony, typical of the period. It's good to know what the hammerblows mean and that the symphony's called the "Tragic" but such myths detract from what's really in the music. As pure music, Mahler 6 is remarkably well-constructed, themes interweaving in constantly repeated patterns, which develop imperceptibly towards resolution. Since it's Mahler, it can't be purely abstract, though a straight autobiographical programme is misleading. Interpretation depends on understanding Mahler's music and mindset on a much deeper level. Whatever Haitink may say, everyone interprets. You can't even read a score without interpreting how the marks fit together. Only a machine doesn't "interpret". What I liked about Bychkov's interpretation was that it evolves from the music itself, rather than what Bruno Walter, or Alma, or anyone else might say.

Right from the start, Bychkov goes for the attack. The powerful opening march leads into a quieter theme - not passive, but contemplative. Then a third, expansive theme, often called "alpine", sounds heard from a distance. Hence cowbells and distant natural-sounding trumpets. These three themes interact throughout the symphony, providing a kind of inner skeleton, the "backbone" of the piece. Bychkov's entry is very bright and assertive. Immediately you sense this won't be a doom laden  wail. Mahler wasn't like that. For all his ruminations on death, it's life he's interested in, and its continuation in other forms after death. Hence the marches that run throughout most of the symphonies. Marches aren't necessarily military. Bychkov's march isn't ragged but elegant, even classical. The Mahler 3 connection becomes clear. (Please see what I've written about that on the labels at right) This isn't barbarism but purposeful forward thrust. It's orderly even though it's relentless. Is this the march of time or of nature ?

After the assertive first movement, Bychkov chooses the Scherzo. In this performance, it makes sense because it keeps up the energy levels, and develops the themes of the first in new ways. Placing the Andante third thus gives respite before the explosion that is the Finale, like the first "allegro energico". Classical structure again, right for this performance. Bychkov keeps this Scherzo almost blindingly bright - sharp, clean playing from the BBCSO, flagship of the whole BBC orchestra fleet. This emphasizes the troubling nature of this movement. It's as if unnatural light is throwing shapes into surreal contrast. Here, the march morphs into screams, repeated shrilly. The brass blare then fall into dizzying diminuendo. The percussion sound deliberately wooden. This is altväterisch, a very Austrian expression evoking nostalgic pastoralism. Yet it's not purely for ethnic colour, since Mahler knows very well that folk sounds aren't nearly as complex as full symphonic expression. Perhaps the hollow knocking is a reminder of a heartbeat, or a precursor of the hammerblows to follow. The "alpine" theme emerges quietly, very much alone amid the tumult, and it, too, spirals downwards. The mysterioso seems haunted. Yet the march returns, uncowed. This doesn't feel like a defeat, but a strategic retreat, which again makes sense of Andante before Finale.

After that Scherzo, the Andante does not seem like peace. Bychkov's poise in the Andante implies that the warmth of this alpine summer is fragile, as summers are in the mountains. The delicate balance is soon ruffled by sweeping chill. Yet the march themes remind us that time, or weather, or life, moves ever onwards.  The surging vigour of the march returns, suggesting that whatever might lie ahead shall also pass. The mood is quieter, but uncowed.

The attack that started the first movement returns at the start of the Finale. It's a monumental statement but again is carefully structured. Cowbells suggest the countryside, simple sounds (like heartbeats) underlying the sophisticated achievement of grand symphonic form. They're not just for decoration. The cartoon makes fun of the cowbells and hammer blows in this symphony, but the subject is complex, and worth discussing in depth. Another time ! Bychkov's clarity shows how carefully Mahler 6 is constructed, everything integrated. The trumpet calls refer to "music heard from afar" and also to communication between horns in the mountains, and even perhaps to cosmic trumpets heard from heaven. The celeste suggests otherworldly sounds, wafting from heights unknown. Marvellously brash discords melt into mysterious murmurs.

The march theme returns again, bright, sharp, almost demonic. Bychkov makes it burst with the vigour we associate with the onward march of spring in Mahler 3. Trumpet calls in marches function to rally forces onwards, and whip them into action. The march in this Finale grows ever more strident and energtic, so the dizzying, blinding flash that cuts it off comes as an absolute shock. Silence. Hammerblows. Silence.  Perhaps the hammerblows signify a heart attack or sudden death.  Certainly they're heart-wrenching because they mean the end of all that remarkable music. Yet remember that marches continue relentlessly, marchers who fall replced by new. Mahler's marches are surges of creative energy that cannot be dimmed.

Please see lots more on this site about Mahler and related subjects. My life work, in  a sense.I'm just passing on what I've learned so it might help others. I cover about 40 Proms each year. Please take a bit of time and read more.