Mark Padmore sings Lachner Oxford

Once in a car park, I saw a nice car, old, but a performance car nonetheless, a lot like mine. Then up popped the owner, who looked familiar - Mark Padmore!

So it was good to hear him yesterday evening in the intimate surroundings of the Holywell Music Room in Oxford, which seats only 100 people, most of whom know each other as we've grown old together, since we've been coming to the Holywell for decades. That's what makes the Holywell ideal for Lieder. It's intimate, seats rising on three sides, so the small performance platform feels shielded, like it's in a womb. Perfect Liederabend mystique. The idea isn't showy flamboyance but private, personal communication.

Padmore sang Schumann and Franz Lachner, Simon Lepper (he of the hypnotic eyes) on piano, instead of the originally scheduled voice and pianoforte programme.

Franz Lachner? If you know Wagner, you've heard the name before. He was the big man in Munich music, pushed aside abruptly by Wagner and Hans von Bülow, the Young Turks of 1864. Partisan times, but Lachner steered clear of the turmoil.  He outlived Wagner, dying as late as 1890, but by then Wagner had changed music forever. Lachner's music seemed like a relic of the past. 

Yet Lachner represents a strain of music that goes right back to Beethoven.  One of his teachers was Beethoven's student. As a young man, Lachner was close to Schubert . he almost certainly knew the work of Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms and Loewe. Padmore's become interested in Lachner and plans to do a Lachner programme in the near future.

He mentioned coming across Christoph Prégardien's 1999 recording, "Lachner, Krufft, Beethoven: Lieder", with Andreas Staier on pianoforte.  It's the only one available because it would be hard to outclass Prégardien's combination of lithe purity and golden warmth. Because Staier's a brilliant fortepianist, totally at home in this style, it's a wonderful combination.

Padmore sang Lachner's op 33 Sängerfahrt, from the period when Schubert, too, was writing Heine settings. Yet what's striking is how Lachner's songs sound more Beethovenian than Schubert-like. Specifically, I could hear echoes of Beethoven's folk song settings - circular pseudo-dances, perhaps evocations of simple folk instruments translated through the genteel frame of urban, middle class sensibility.  Im Mai  in particular sounds Beethovenian,  nothing like Schumann's Im wunderschönen Mai.  Die Meerfrau and Das Fischermädchen flow into each other, both with lilting wave-like rhythms.

Ein Traumbild, though, is a nightmare, where a succubus starts to seduce the poet, who's saved by cocks crowing at dawn.   By Heine standards, this is no Allnächtlich in Traume but it suits Lachner who responds to the poem with Erlkönig melodrama. Lachner's no Schubert, but it's good enough.   More attractive, partly because it's perhaps more Lachner's own voice, is Die einsame Träne. A single tear flows down the poet's face,  reminding him of the past. But he's older and wiser now, and the pain is fading. In equilibrium, he can tell the lonely tear, zerfliesse jetzunder auch (go  away like the others). Lovely song, in the intimacy of the Holywell Music Room.

Padmore also sang Schumann: Liederkreis op 24 and Dichterliebe op 48. Lovely to hear, and much welcomed, but written about so often that I won't do so here. Lachner's the "news" item, and Padmore's forthcoming concerts. But tomorrow I'll write about a very special Dichterliebe Padmore sang in Oxford many years ago in a very unusual situation, a memorial for Aung San Suu Kyi's husband, Michael Aris.
 Photo credit : Marco Borggreve

Frühe und Fröhe – Mahler Lieder Roderick Williams

Irreverent and funny Lieder? Roderick Williams's recital at the Oxford Lieder Festival sparkled wth wit and joie de vivre. The atmosphere was electric - Williams is a much loved "local" boy. Indeed, he made his earliest public appearance at the Holywell Music Room, so it was a kind of homecoming. Many in the audience had been listening to him for years. They were rewarded by a very well chosen programme and a particularly vivacious performance. Williams in now entering his prime, his upper register secure, but it's the agility of his voice that impresses. Lovely tone is one thing, but flexible, fluid singing is a better sign of technique.

Frühe und Fröhe ! Williams chose 6 selections from Mahler's Lieder aus der Jugendzeit. In Aus! Aus! a young soldier is thrilled to be marching off to war, hence the rousing refrain. Yet Mahler's mock serious setting implies more. Williams sings the refrain so you hear the stolid, unimaginative lad who prefers playing soldiers to playing with girls, and prefers drinking to thinking. Even more picaresque is Um Schlimme Kinder artig zu machen, where Williams's liveliness captures the jaunty rhythm of the prancing horse. The man sings "cuckoo! cuckoo!". It's a signal to the mother. When he sees how naughty the woman's children are, he flees. Again, there's a double meaning. It tells kids to behave or they don't get goodies from the stranger. On the other hand if they didn't act up, their mother would fool around. Williams's very mobile face lights up, singing the last "kuk kuk" with savage delight.

Some composers might be tempted by the nightingales and lovers in Ich ging mit Lust to write saccharine kitsch, but Mahler sends up the cosiness factor, while writing a melody so beautiful, even the biggest kitsch fans could swoon to it. Andrew West plays the rococo piano part beautifully, so Williams can mix utter sincerity with cheerful wit. The agility of his voice paid off handsomely here. The high parts are so tricky that even Thomas Hampson strains to reach them. Williams is so flexible that they flow as smoothly as the melody.

In Hans und Grete Williams leaps from darkly steady rhythms to the almost yodel-like Juchhe! Many singers have been thrown by that but Williams makes it sound easy. There are relatively few recordings of these songs. Thomas Hampson is the benchmark, his recording having the benefit of orchestrations by Luciano Berio, very sympathetic to Mahler's idiom. Matthias Goerne does a programme mixing these songs with later Wunderhorn songs, which is very good, but not preserved on tape. So Roderick Williams would be doing a duty to art if he records these songs for posterity.

Hugo Wolf died tragically, but he, too, had a wicked sense of humour. Williams didn't chose the obviously funny Mörike and Goethe settings but picked selections from the Italienisches Liederbuch, where the wit is more subtle, secondary to the sheer beauty of the poems. In Schon streckt' ich aus im Bett, the poet leaps out of bed to roam the streets singing about his love. The wandering shifts in the melody reflect the gentle movements of the poet playing his lute in the night : William's voice caught the sensuality. Even more mysterious is Heut' Nacht erhob ich mich um Mitternacht, where the poet awakes to find his heart has jumped from his chest and run away. The loving way Williams sings "Du, Traute" makes it completely logical.

Williams's forte has hitherto rested with English song, but he's worked on his German and now sounds very good. His Schumann Kerner-lieder were enjoyable. Baritones often slip up on the very high "girl's voice" in Stirb, Lieb' und Freud', so it's proof of Williams's maturity that he sang with smoothness and control. Less well-known were the Korngold songs from op 14 Lieder im Abschieds. Written when the composer was 23, they are a young man's attempts to write something ambitiously elaborate. He marked 198 of 200 bars with instructions for performance. They're good songs but not spontaneous or freely expressed. Korngold was a nice guy, but so dominated by his father that perhaps he couldn't allow himself the irreverent freedom of a young Mahler or Wolf.

Ned Rorem Evidence of Things Not Seen - Oxford Lieder

Ned Rorem's Evidence of Things Not Seen received its European premiere in Oxford. Rorem is a very important song composer, and this is a major cycle so it's a scoop for the Oxford Lieder Festival. Oxford Lieder spots what's good long before it reaches the mainstream. This is the way to keep your fingers on the pulse of what's happening in art song. Some of these concerts will be repeated later in London, but Oxford is where things start.

It's strange that a composer as famous as Ned Rorem should be considered "unknown" in Europe. He may not be performed here as frequently as he is in the US but everyone has access to recordings. Susan Grahams's Rorem Songs was a huge hit a few years ago, winning awards all over. Carole Farley's recorded him for Naxos and there's even a British recording of his Auden and Santa Fe songs (Black Box) And these are the tip of the iceberg.

The Prince Consort have recorded Rorem's On an Echoing Road for Linn. It's excellent - follow the link for extensive sound samples and hear why! Highly recommended for those who love RVW, Quilter, etc and want to hear how Rorem rejuvenates the form.

The Prince Consort is another Oxford Lieder discovery. This is a lively, flexible ensemble which brings together some of the most exciting young singers around. Many are already quite high profile - some have been heard at the Royal Opera House, Glyndebourne and Salzburg. They're seriously good - grab tickets for their Wigmore Hall appearance in January 2010.

Evidence of Things Not Seen is a collection of 36 songs that flow together to form a whole greater than its parts. The first group of songs are optimistic, open ended. Rorem calls them "Beginnings". "From whence cometh song?" is the very first line. The same questioning reappears throughout the cycle, expressed in Rorem's characteristic rising and falling cadences.

"Middles" (the middle section) explores ideas more deeply, rather like development in symphonic form. There are some very strong songs here, such as ..I saw a mass, from John Woolman's Journal. Woolman was a Quaker, and Quaker values infuse the whole 80 minute sequence. Indeed, the the title Evidence of Things Not seen comes from William Penn. Rorem's cadences are light quiet breathing, the way Quakers think things through in silent contemplation. Two songs to poems by Stephen Crane, The Candid Man and A Learned Man, provide counterpoint. The candid man blusters, using violence to impose his will.

Rorem chooses his texts carefully. Middles ends with a song to an 18th century hymn text by Thomas Ken which leads into Julien Green's He thinks upon his Death. W H Auden jostles with Robert Frost, Colette with A E Housman. Mark Doty and Paul Monette write poems referring to AIDS. Jane Kenyon's The Sick Wife poignantly describes a woman lost , still young, to some illness that keep her alive but barely sensate. In its own simple, direct way it connects to the final song, in which Penn reflects on the Bible. "For Death is no more than the Turning of us over from Time to Eternity". Whatever the Evidence of Things Not Seen may be, following the journey in a performance as good as this is a moving experienece.

The Prince Consort was represented tonight by its founder, the pianist Alisdair Hogarth, and the singers Anna Leese, Jennifer Johnston, Nicholas Mulroy and Jacques Imbrailo (a former Jette Parker artist) Perhaps the sparse audience showed that people are scared off by the idea of an "unknown" modern American composer. Too bad, it's their loss. This was excellent music in excellent performance and really deserved better exposure. Public booking for the Wigmore Hall concert in January starts next week - don't miss the next chance to hear these songs again.

The trail of the missing Mendelssohn songs

Imagine the media hysteria if some unknown work by Mozart or Schubert were found? When dodgy bits of "evidence" or composer trivia about a composer come up, the world goes agog with frenzy. But when 46 "unknown" songs by Mendelssohn are unearthed, there's hardly a ripple. Why?

The discovery of these songs is quite a story. Mendelssohn was so prolific that he simply didn't get around to cataloguing and publishing all he wrote. He was a workaholic, a genius in many fields. Apart from composing, he was a virtuoso pianist and violinist, a painter, an athlete, and a formidable organizer of orchestras and cultural events. He spent his gap year in the Scottish Highlands, in those days very remote and primitive. He died aged only 38, weakened by exhaustion.

The "unknown" songs were scattered among his manuscripts, which have since themselves been scattered around the world. There's a big cache of Mendelssohn papers in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, donated via his grandchildren, (of whom there were many), so that's where Eugene Asti went to follow the trail of the "missing" songs.

Mendelssohn's penmanship was so clear that the manuscripts were easy to transcribe, even though the composer wrote quickly, with great fluency. Tracking down the poems was in most cases straightforward - Goethe, Holty, Uhland - but others proved more elusive since some were written by the composer himself, and in Fraktur, the old-style German script that most people can't read today. Mendelssohn's letters and papers provide background into how and when the songs were written, and for whom. Intriguingly, there are references to yet more unknown songs.

What's even more remarkable is how good some of these songs are. Nachtlied, from 1847, should take its place in any anthology of Eichendorff settings. Two lovely matching strophes blossom into swelling, soaring lines as the song describes a nightingale, greeting the dawn.

Altdeutsches Frühlingslied, also from the same period towards the end of Mendelssohn's life, is another masterpiece. The piano part is brooding, melancholy, figures repeating like circles, reflecting the despair that lies under the ostensibly cheerful text (Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld 1591-1635). Spring has returned after a hard winter, "everyone is happy, wallowing almost in pleasure" (wonderful idiomatic translation by Richard Stokes). But the protagonist quietly states Nur ich allein, Ich liede Pein. In the winter just past, someone very dear him was taken away. So much nonsense is written about Mendelssohn being "happy" and mindless. This song is further evidence how silly the myth is. Mendelssohn wasn't given to unseemly display, he didn't flaff about. But his emotions ran very deep indeed. The deeply felt intensity of the final verse breaks through the polite homilies to Spring, chilling the atmosphere. Mendelssohn's beloved sister Fanny had just passed away, but feelings as passionate as these spring from veryt deep sources in the composer's personality.

Part of the reason Mendelssohn songs don't grab the average listener at first is that they don't word paint the way we're used to. Goethe is famously supposed to have rejected Schubert's settings of his poems. There's no direct evidence he even saw them, but it fits in with ideas prevalent in Goethe's circles which considered noble ideas and text more important than musical invention. Mendelssohn was very much in Goethe's orbit. the picture above shows him aged 9, playing for Goethe. Goethe adored the young Mendelssohn, introducing him to composers he knew, like Zelter. So Mendelssohn is very much a part of that neo-classical sensibility, where people didn't do unseemly self-display. Nonetheless, Mendelssohn was far too original not to connect to the early Romantic mode. He just did it in a different, more self-effacing way. Mendelssohn songs are an important thread in song development: at times you can hear where Schumann and Brahms got their ideas from.

The Goethean mindset certainly doesn't preclude passion. Die Liebende schreibt, an 1830 setting of Goethe, is surprisingly erotic. The poet's so much in love that his whole being focuses on the idea of a letter from the beloved. Yet in his quietly observant way, Mendelssohn has picked up that the beloved does not actually respond. The composer puts his emphasis on the small phrase "Gib mir ein Zeichen", (give me a sign). The word Zeichen repeats, ever louder and more passionately, as if Mendelssohn is reminding us that it's been sent out in hope, and there might, conceivably, be no answer.

Lots of other beautiful songs, too, like Seltsam, Muter, geht es mir (1830 to Johannes Ludwig Casper). The young girl's thrilled by the physical sensation of being in love, like the rising of sap in spring. Mendelsson expresses her excitement with breathless, rollicking lines: you can almost feel the girl's heart beat faster and faster. The punchline's hilarious, the girl doesn't know why her mother knows about such things. This, incidentally, is a song only discovered in 2007 when the manuscript came up for sale, having been uncatalogued and in private hands for 150 years.

Since Eugene Asti spent so many hours burrowing away in the Bodleian, it was good to hear the songs performed at the Holywell Music Room, a few hundred metres from where the papers are preserved. Asti's work is informed by his experience as a pianist, so his new edition of the "unknown" songs for Bärenreiter are specially valuable for practical performance. I had a quick look at the book. It's very detailed, lots of notes on critical decisions made and background material which will enrich interpretation. Serious Mendelssohn singers and painists need this work. HERE is a link to the edition on Bärenreiter's site.

The Oxford Lieder Festival brings treasures like this all the time, which is why it's such an important series for serious music people. Make an effort to attend as it's always interesting. This concert was almost sold out, which was good since the premiere at Kings Place in London in February happened during a blizzard and didn't get the attendance such an occasion deserved. Tonight the artists were young and relatively unknown (Aoife Miskelly, Roderick Morris, Peter Davoren, Marcus Farnsworth, Christopher Hopkins and Colin Scott) but that was no demerit: some of these songs were written for private, intimate performance, like Lied zum Geburtstage meines guten Vaters, which the 10-year-old Felix wrote for his father's birthday in 1819. His sister Fanny wrote a song too, it must have been quite some party.

Mendelssohn wrote many part songs because they suit performances where people sing and play for pleasure, not to display technique. In his understated way, Mendelssohn gets to the heart of why music is so much fun for ordinary people. The final song in this concert was Volslied, a song where the whole ensemble could join together. Written in 1839, it was performed at the composer's funeral service a few years later. Different soloists sing different lines, but they unite in the full-throated final verse, Wenn Menschen auseinander gehn, so sagen sie : Auf Wiedersehen ! The last two words repeat again and again as if the composer can't bear to let them end. Yet the same notes appear throughout the song, in different guises, so if you hear the song again, it's haunted by "Auf Wiedersehen".

Oxford Lieder Festival - Britten Canticles

Benjamin Britten had few connections with the usual hotspots of British culture, but hearing him in Oxford is apt. "Oxford people don't conform", one elderly St Hilda's graduate once told me, "even when they try". A broad generalization, but with a grain of truth. Perhaps Britten might not have felt not too much out of place here. So it is was good to hear Britten's Canticles at St Hilda's, on the banks of the Cherwell, on the opening weekend of the Oxford Lieder Festival.

Britten didn't follow the usual Three Choirs and academia route. Gerald Finzi may have made more extensive studies of 17th century poets, and RVW transcribed folk songs in the field, but early British music, poetry and sensibilities inform Britten's music to an extraordinary degree. In this concert, the third of three marking the opening weekend of the Oxford Lieder Festival, Julius Drake set the 2nd and 4th Canticles with Britten's arrangements of songs by Henry Purcell.

I love countertenors. The voice type is ethereal, so exquisitely beautiful that it seems to come from a strange rarified atmosphere beyond this dimension, ideal for angels and unworldly spirits. In Canticle 2, "The Journey of the Magi", Britten shows how countertenors can extend the range of possibilty, the countertenor part soaring where baritone and tenor can't hope to reach. TS Eliot's text isn't sympathetic to song, with unwieldy syntax and words like "vegetation" and "dispensation", but Britten combines the voices so they extend the unison without breaking the line. The magi are marching toegether in a train, their progress as solemn as the tread of their camels. In the final verse, the steadiness gives way to a strange new consciousness: they don't really know what kind of Birth they've witnessed, and return to their kingdoms "no longer at ease".

There were three magi in the New Testament, but Britten could have written the third part for bass or for alto. but countertenor adds a kind if shimmering glow that brightens the palette. What if Britten had dared to write a part in the War Requiem for countertenor? What a different balance that would have made to the whole thing. I'm one of the very rare few who doesn't really get the War Requiem, but to me the female part doesn't stand up to the two male parts. Perhaps it's because I cannot think of the war as a western European conflict: Mother Russia should be the biggest part of all. But I digress......

William Towers was the countertenor here. He's one of my favourites because his voice is so naturally high, completely fluid and natural. Some popular countertenors push their voices up and sound forced and artificial. Towers sounds masculine, like Andreas Scholl does, and certainly his looks help, too. With his dark, brooding good looks, and tousled riot of curls, he looks like a Byronic hero, capable of great tragedy and wildness. If he didn't sing, he could be a fantastic actor. Or Goth rock star, flashing hints of dark mystery. Luckily for us, the present generation of English countertenors are all good, but Towers has stage presence. I heard him once in a semi-staged Death in Venice as the voice of Apollo. His voice filled the auditorium even before he walked in, and suddenly he materialized, sheathed in gleaming white.

Countertenors are interesting because they're not simply creatures of sweetness and light. When Towers sang Purcell's In the black, dismal dungeon of despair he evoked horror. "wracked with my fears.....with dreadful expectation of my doom". He created chilling despair by voice alone, sitting quietly on an ordinary chair, without props or gestures.

Towers was very well balanced by the baritone Nigel Cliffe. He's another singer who can act. Let the dreadful engines showcased his dramatic phrasing and colour, enhanced by particularly vivid playing by Julius Drake. What fun it must be to play the dark rumbling ferocity in this song! It made the music spring to life even if much of it was written 400 years ago.

After the modern sensibility of Canticle 4, with its non-commital lack of religious certainity, it was odd to return to Canticle 2, but perhaps that was Julius Drake's intention, to make us reconsider. Canticle 2 is perhaps the best known and best loved of all because it's a relatively straightforward story from the Bible. Abraham builds an altar to sacrifice his child but at the last moment God intervenes and tells him to kill a lamb instead. Traditionally, the story illustrates the idea of unquestioning obedience. and faith in the authority of God. But what if God hadn't changed his mind? And why does any God need the slaughter of an innocent lamb? Britten's text is archaically obstruse, as if to create a distance between the text and its meaning. For the meaning is more troubling than conventional religion might suggest. What does Isaac mean, in terms of Britten's innocents? Or for that matter where are Abraham's voices coming from?

A boy soprano could sing Isaac, and a bass might plausibly create Abraham the elderly patriarch, but tenor and countertenor are more equivocal, because the balance of power isn't so obvious.
William Tower's Isaac was intense, veering from terror to meek acceptance, while Daniel Norman's Abraham came over as a basically decent fellow, not one prone to hearing strange voices whispering "Kill!" But that's fair enough, for we know what the tenor voice signified for Britten. So what is he really saying in Canticle 2 ?

More on the Oxford Lieder Festival in the next ten days. This is how song should be experienced, in small, intimate settings with an audience that seriously listens. It's worth the trip to Oxford, especially for the weekend, and the Festival has deals with hotels. The Jacqueline du Pré Building is bigger than the Holywell Music Room, but you're still up close with the performers. Two of the concerts, (Holzmair's Winterreise and Joan Rodgers's Russian Songs) are being repeated at the Wigmore Hall in November, so if you go to both you can experience for yourself how ambiences can differ.

Tomorrow : Mahler Von der Jugend from Das Lied von der Erde, and its lotus imagery.

Oxford Lieder Festival 2009

In the autumn, Oxford is especially beautiful. The ancient colleges are swathed in scarlet vines, and the mellow evening light creates great atmosphere. For those who love art song, though, the best reason for visiting Oxford at this time of year is the Oxford Lieder Festival, which starts October 16th 2009.

In only eight years, the Oxford Lieder Festival has established itself as the foremost art song festival in Britain, with an international reputation for innovation. Oxford is an ideal setting because art song works best in small, intimate settings with perfect acoustic. The Holywell Music Room, where many concerts take place, seats barely a hundred people, but the atmosphere is unique. The Holywell was the first purpose built public performance space in Europe, built around 1740. As a young boy Mozart played on this very platform: Handel and Haydn visited and may have played here too. The streets nearby are still cobbled, and the pub across the way dates from 1200. The Holywell isn't usually open to the public, so recitals at this Festival are always a special experience.

The Festival's first weekend (18th and 19th October) features the complete Britten Canticles in a special series curated by Julius Drake, The Canticles on their own are too long for a single concert, so here they are spread over two days, supplemented by other works. Hearing them together is like following Britten as he develops over the course of his life. These concerts take place at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building, in beautiful gardens, with a view over the Oxford skyline. Refreshments will be available for a mini Glyndebourne atmosphere.

Oxford Lieder has always championed interesting repertoire. Ned Rorem's Evidence of Things Not Seen receives its European premiere on October 25th. Rorem is one of the greatest American art song composers, so it's a major event. The cycle is ambitious, written for four voices and piano, in all combinations. Some songs are humorous, others sad and some plain fun!

“It’s a huge privilege for the OLF to be hosting this performance; the first time this extraordinary piece has been heard outside of America. And we couldn’t hope for a better, more dynamic group of artists to present it tha the Prince Consort.” says Sholto Kynoch, the charismatic Artistic Director of Oxford Lieder. The Prince Consort are well regarded, and their recording of The Songs of Ned Rorem is about to be released by the audiophile label Linn Records.

The Festival also showcases unpublished, unknown songs and duets by Felix Mendelssohn, including many from Eugene Asti's new Bärenreiter Edition. Some of the manuscripts are in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, very close to where the recital will take place, preceded by a talk by Asti and Richard Stokes. "Some of these songs are wonderful" says Stokes, who is well known for his translations of French and German song.

The Festival features recitals by major European performers like Wolfgang Holzmair, Andreas Haefliger, Werner Güra, James Gilchrist, Roderick Williams, Joan Rodgers and Christopher Maltman. Nonetheless, an important part of the Oxford Lieder mission has always been to encourage all aspects of song performance. Central to the Festival is a fortnight-long residential masterclass. It's a rewarding experience as participants benefit from excellent teaching and performance opportunities and take part in all the concerts and activities the Festival has to offer. There are study days and workshops and special programmes that reach out to young singers in local schools.

I've been going to this Festival since it started and it gets better every year. It means a lot to me because it's more than "justr" a festival but part of a wider programme to enhance the performance of art song and encourage poeople to sing. Being a Friend has other advantages, too. It gets you into private dining clubs that aren't normally open to the public. Oxford restauarnts are horribly expensive and poor value, so it is important to have a place you can enjoy good food in nice, welcoming surroundings. Friends membership (£30) pays off unless you really like sitting in bars or Junior Common Rooms. Visit the Oxford Lieder site and book early as tickets sell fast.

Read HERE about the Britten concerts and HERE about the rediscovered Mendelssohn songs