Heinrich Heine dumps date by text

Au port de Venasque, Septembre 1899, Bagnères-de-Luchon, Haute-Garonne

Über die Berge steigt schon die Sonne, 

Die Lämmerheerde läutet von fern: 

Mein Liebchen, mein Lamm, meine Sonne und Wonne,

Noch einmal säh' ich dich gar zu gern! 

 Ich schaue hinauf mit spähender Miene, 

"Leb' wohl, mein Kind, ich wandre von hier!"

 Vergebens! es regt sich keine Gardine; 

Sie liegt noch und schläft und träumt von mir. 

Heinrich Heine

(Over the mountain peaks, the sun is rising. Lambs can be heard, frolicking in the distance.  My little love, my lamb, my sun, my fun.  How I'd like to see you again ! I look upwards with searching gaze. "Farewell, my child, I'm moving on !".  Forget it !  Her curtain doesn't even twitch. She's still lying in bed, and sleeping, and dreaming of me. )

A cheerful farewell  ! The lover wants to explore the world, the loved one to stay in bed.  He thinks she's a lamb, a child, someone not too bright.  Maybe he wants to see her one more time, but he's off and away.  Maybe they're better off apart.   The poem is no 83 in Heinrich Heine's Buch der Lieder Heimkehr, from 1823-4.  Felix Mendelssoh set it as Morgengruß in his 6 Gesänge, Op.47 (1839).  His sister Fanny set it too, but nothing beats Felix's understated setting.   The gentle rocking rhythm suggests the lambs, innocently dancing in the sunshine.  The  lover sings "Ich schaue hinauf" and  the line stretches, leaping into space.  He can't bring himself to ditch the girl, so off he goes, singing sweetly, as if nothing's wrong.  The lambs might end up as dinner but, like the girl, they don't have a clue.  Christoph Prégardien recorded this with Andreas Staier on fortepiano, nearly 20years ago. Harmonia Mundi has reissued a 4 CD box set of their Schubert songs. This song, though, is part of Prégardiuen and Staier's Heine song set.  With their Schiller and Goethe song sets, these are esesential listening! A few years ago, someone ran out of a fortepiano song recital in a rage. What a fool !  Fortepiano reflects the true, pristine purity of Lieder so beautiufully that it's a pity that there aren't more fortepiano/tenor combinations around.

Magic and mayhem : Christoph Prégardien Wigmore Hall

Christoph Prégardien has always been a master of creative, exciting ways with Lieder. He and Michael Gees gave a recital at the Wigmore Hall, London, which showed how vigorous the Lieder tradition continues to be.

Prégardien and Gees created a programme that illuminated the liveliness of the Romantic imagination. Nature spirits abound, and fairy tales and ghostly figures of legend. Lulled into fantasy, one might miss the hints of danger that lurk behind these charming dreamscapes. The Romantics were intrigued by the subconcious long before the language of psychology was coined.

The recital began with one of the most lyrical songs in the whole Lieder repertoire, Carl Loewe's Der Nöck (Op129/2 1857)  to a poem by August Kopisch. A Nix, a male water sprite who plays his harp by a wild waterfall. Its waves hang suspended in mid air, the vapours forming a rainbow halo around the Nix. Circular figures in the piano part suggest tumbling waters. Prégardien breathed into the long vowel sounds so they rolled beautifully We could hear what the text means when it refers to a nightingale, silenced in awe. Suddenly the magic is broken when humans draw near. The waves roar, the trees stand tall, and the nightingale flees, until it's safe for the Nöck to reveal himself again. Prégardien and Gees paired Loewe's song with Franz Schubert.s Der Zwerg (D771, 1822) to a poem by Matthäus von Collin. A queen and a dwarf are alone on a boat on a lake. Love, murder and possible suicide haunt the idyll. The Id is released, violently, in a blissful setting.

Franz Liszt's Es war ein König in Thule (S278/2 1856) sets a poem from Goethe's Faust.  Schubert's setting is more folkloric, reflecting the innocence of Gretchen sings in  the novel. Liszt's setting is more elaborate. Lovely, falling diminuendos describe the way the King drinks one last time from his chalice, before throwing it "hinunter in die Flut". Perhaps the queen who gave him the chalice was herself a nature spirit  who lived beneath the lake?  Prégardien intoned the line "Trank nie einen Tropfen mehr" solemnly : the King has died.

Prégardien has championed the songs of Franz Lachner (1803-1890), who knew Schubert, Loewe, Schumann and Wagner, and worked in court circles in Munich, where he learned only too well what the Romantic imagination could do to real kings like Ludwig II. Lachner's Die Meerfrau  was written in Vienna,  comes from early in his career and sets a poem by Heinrich Heine. A  water spirit appears and drags a mortal to a watery grave. The song comes from Lachner's magnum opus,  Sängerfahrt op 33 (1831) where there are numerous songs on  similar themes of supernatural seduction and death. Ironically, Lachner wrote the collection on the eve of his own marriage, dedicating it to his bride. One wonders what modern psychoanalysts might make of that. Prégardien and Gees also performed Lachner's Ein Traumbild from the same collection. Tjhe final strophe is particularly luscious: The cock crows at dawn, and the vampire seductress flees. 

Prégardien and Gees also performed Liszt's Die Loreley (S273/2 1854-9), whose long prelude contains the Tristan motif in germ, before it was developed by Wagner. As Richard Stokes writes in his programme notes, it "begins with a leap of a diminished seventh : the voice however begins with a fourth ...and then soars a sixth - identical in harmonic terms with the piano's diminished sevenths".  In the context of  these feverish succubi,  Hugo Wolf's Ritter Kurts Brautfahrt (1888) made an interesting contrast.  On the way to his wedding, the Knight meets many temptations that almost throw him off course, including a mystery nursemaid who claims that her charge is his child. Yet it's quite a cheery song with cryptic in-jokes that refer to the music of Wolf's friend, the composer Karl Goldmark, who lent Wolf money, knowing he wouldn't be repaid.

Prégardien's unique timbre and ability to float legato has inspired several composers, most notably Wilhelm Killmayer (b 1927). Killmayer's  Hölderlin Lieder were written for Peter Schreier and are, I think, the most exquisite songs of the last half of the last century. Prégardien has recorded them too.  Killmayer wrote his Heine Lieder for Prégardien, setting 35 songs by Heine. Killmayer's songs don't imitate Schumann's. They engage with the meaning of Heine's texts in a highly original style, with pauses, and piano resonances that float in the air. The effect resembles speech, yet also inner contemplation. Killmayer revisits the poets of the past, and writes music for them in  a new, refreshing way.

 In this Wigmore Hall recital, Prégardien and Gees performed Killmayer's Schön-Rohtraut (2004).  The poem is Eduard Mörike, from 1838. Rohtraut is King Ringang's daughter. She doesn't spin or sew, but hunts annd fishes like a man. Mörike was inspired by the strange sound of the names, which he found in an ancient book, but the princess could be a reincarnation of the wild and elusive "Peregrina" who might have led Mörike astray. The lines are simple and repetitive, which suits Killmayer's abstract, almost zen-like purity. As Rohtraut leads the boy into the woods, his excitement mounts. Killmayer's delicate, fluttering note sequences suggest a heart beating with nervous anticipation. We feel we are at one with the boy, as enthralled as he. 

Michael Gees is himself a composer, and Prégardien has performed and recorded his songs several times. This time, we heard Gees's Der Zauberlehrling (2005) where he sets Goethe's poem about the sorcerer's apprentice who uses magic to wash the floor and conjures up a flood. Gees setting is delightful. Rolling, rumbling figures to suggest the rising waters, and a stiff march to suggest the legions of broomsticks.  Syncopated rhythms and zany downbeats, used with great flair. The audience burst into spontaneous applause. Gees and Prégardien were taken by surprise. Gees was thrilled, and beamed with happiness. It's heart warming to see a composer get respect like that.

The recital ended with old favourites like Loewe's Edward (Op1/11818) Tom der Reimer (Op 135a 1860), Schumann's Belsazar (Op57 1840) ans Wolf's Der Feuerreiter (1888).  Schubert's Erlkönig made a rousing encore, Since Prégardien and Gees had done Loewe's Erlkönig (Op 1/23 1818)  earlier in the evening, it was good to reflect on the differences between the two settings. Loewe's real answer to Schubert's Erlkönig is his Herr Oluf, which is another song of prenuptial anxiety, murder and mayhem, . Prégardien and Gees could be doing recitals like this over and over and not exhaust the  Lieder repertoire. 

A more formal version of this review appears in Opera Today.

Hugo Wolf : Mörike Goethe Prégardien Richter Wigmore Hall

Hugo Wolf is a hard sell. Technical expertise isn't enough. The secret to singing Wolf is expressing the unique personality in each song. Wolf, perhaps more than any other composer, creates miniatures that open out into mini-operas when performed well. Singing Wolf can never be generic, so true Wolf specialists are hard to find.

Christoph Prégardien started off the Wigmore Hall's new series of Hugo Wolf Songbooks with Lieder to texts by Mörike and Goethe. Prégardien is one of the best Wolf singers around, with the right combination of  timbre and individuality. At his best, he's brilliant. For whatever reason, on this occasion, he wasn't his usual self, the voice sounding tired and occluded. Nonetheless, he has years of experience to fall back on. Intelligent phrasing, the right emphases in the right places, accurate intonation. Yet not the luminous, transcendent tones he's capable of, which lift his performance way above most everyone else. Still, proof that mastery of technique pulls one through. His Feuerreiter was suitably dramatic, though not quite at the demonic level he and some others (especially baritones) can reach. But he brought real drama to Ritter Kurts Brautfahrt, a strophic ballad that can fall flat in the wrong hands (voice) (read more about Feuerreiter here). In Sankt Nepomuks Vorabend, one could hear glimmers of Prégardien's natural translucence, reflecting his youth as a choirboy. "Lichtlein, schwimmen auf dem Strom"

Listen to Prégardien's most recent recording of Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch which came out in Spring 2011 on the small label Channel Classics (reviewed here). The soprano on that disc was Julia Kleiter, a fellow Limburger, good for the ensemble work so crucial to the Italian Songbook. But the Mörike and Goethe are much more sharply defined and need great personality. When we heard that Kelier was being replaced ar minimal notice by a singer born in 1990, our hearts dropped. What could any singer that young bring to Hugo Wolf?

Yet Anna Lucia Richter turned out to be the surprise of the evening. Obviously someone aged 21 isn't going to sound polished but Richter turned her youth to advantage. In Nixe Binsefuß, bright, almost staccato notes sparkle like sharp icicles. But this Nixe is a water sprite with attitude who would like to slash the fisherman's nets and liberate the fish. Richter's voice is pure, but has a wild edge totally in keeping with the Nixe's free spirited anarchy. Then, when she sings about the fisherman's daughter, her voice warms. Icicles no more! And so the Nixe flies away as the day breaks. (read more about this song here)

It's difficult to combine the technical demands of Elfenlied with a true sense of innocence, but Richter manages well. Her elf is genuinely naive and she describes his accident with droll humour. Similarly, Richter's Begegnung is turbulent, like the wind and the emotions the young girl experiences.  I don't know how long Richter had to prepare, as the programme was printed before she was hired,  but she threw herself into the songs with unselfconscious enthusiasm, so they come over extremely well.

No-one at Richter's age, or even ten years older,  is going to have finesse, but that will come with experience. It's much better that a singer starts out with enthusiasm, and engages with what she sings, as Richter does. Her voice has colour and range, so she has plenty of potential. Definitely someone to follow. She has dramatic instincts, leaping into some songs in the second part of the programme as an opera singer might, so she will have many options. She's still studying at the Cologne Conservatory but is scheduled to  join the company of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf from 2012-13. She's also worked with Prégardien before  and recorded Schumann with him."We'd better give the poor girl some help" said Julius Drake before the encore (a Mendelssohn duet). He played gloriously, but part of a song pianist's brief is to work with singers, especially the young.

Heinrich Heine's non-naive Nativity

Heinrich Heine isn't someone you'd normally associate with Nativity scenes. So pay attention when Heine does Christmas.

Wilhelm Killmayer (b 1927) set Heine's Die heiligen drei Könige as part of his Heine Lieder. Killmayer is extremely underrated, but worshiped by those who know his work, including Wolfgang Rihm, who calls him his master. Killmayer's music is whimsical and gentle, but packs a powerful emotional and mental punch.

Killmayer arranges 35 songs to Heine poems in four progressive themes. His choice is perceptive even if you think you know Heine by heart. The first section starts with the idea of dreams and aspirations. Ideas gradually build up towards a final section Die Macht des Gesanges, the power of song. Die heiligen drei Könige appears almost at the end of the fourth cycle, ie. near the goal. See why Killmayer is so sharp? The Three Kings have come from the East (das Morgenland) searching for something they know is essential even if they don't know what it is. The piano part is rhythmic yet sways  slightly of centre: camels, with long legs crossing a desert?

How do we get to Bethleham, they ask Ihr leiben Buben und Mädchen (You dear little bumpkins and lassies) Heine's humour - exotic Kings from afar chatting to yokellish (and very German) children. But of course no-one knows, so the Kings continue following the Star. Killmayer sets the Goldener Stern. so it shoots right above the stave, almost unattainable. (Killmayer is kind to the singer, as the build up is gradual).   But what a lovely glow on words like leuchtete lieblich und heiter. (shining sweetly and bright). Piano part sweet, good natured, confident that the star leads the right way..

Then the star stops over Joseph's house. Killmayer sets this totally matter of fact, like it's the most natural thing in the world for strange Kings to pop in on a peasant. No decoration, but typical Killmayer silence, single notes that make you listen. Decoration is reserved for the line Das sind sie hineingegangen, which Killmayer sets on a soaring arc. You're drawn into the little house, so to speak.

Inside the house, gorgeous tumult! Das Öchslein brüllte, das Kindlein schrie. The oxen moo and the Baby screams. It's more vivid auf Deutsch, but Killmayer wants to capture the sense of energy generated by different layers of sound. No plasterboard Nativity this, but full of life and action.

Then the glorious finale. The Kings burst into song. They've found their miracle. Killmayer sets the word "Sangen" in multiple patterns, so it feels ecstatic. One "sangen" draws the "a" out for at least 8 measures. Meanwhile, the pianist's left hand delineates a steady rhythm, the right embroidering a truly lyrical melody. The whole Killmayer cycle started on the theme of dreams and seeking knowledge. Now the resolution through The Power of Song. Yet it's a non-naive Nativity.

Neither Killmayer nor Heine do superficial. Killmayer ends his cycle on a completely different note. Children, Heine says, sing in the darkness so they won't be afraid. So the poet ein tolles Kind (a big Kid) sings in his all-too-dark life of strife. Here the translation of the last two lines (Susan Mary Praeder) is superb, capturing the fear but adding wry humour and irony. She  uses a rhyming couplet, very Germanic. "The song may not be so delightful, but it's freed me from all things frightful" So the culmination of this long cycle is astonishingly modern. We live in horrible times, but as long as we have the power of song, we have hope.

Killmayer's Heine-Lieder cycle is huge, so not many singers have the heft to carry it off, especially with its constant changes of mood. But it's  remarkably well thought through. Killmayer understands Heine well, and in the process creates anew the whole concept of Lieder cycle. Meaning is what Lieder is really about, not just surface beauty. Killmayer's trademark is a kind of observant silence and stillness, that draws the listener in.  Although the cycle as a whole is daunting to sing, there's no reason why the sections can't be performed on their own,  Die heiligen drei Könige is a small masterpiece on its own and really should be part of the repertoire. It's very deep, its meaning applies beyond just Christmas. When Pen Hadow (my kind of guy) walked to the North Pole (and got trapped) a few years ago, I played this song on continuous loop so much that I had to get an extra copy of the CD. Things weren't easy for me at the time, but the idea of Hadow trudging through the Arctic seemed totally in keeping with Heine's poem and Killmayer's setting.

Killmayer's Heine Lieder are difficult to sing yet easy to listen to. Killmayer is a warm, humorous and totally individual person who defies stereotype. Start with the Heine-Lieder and go onto the truly outstanding Hölderlin-Lieder which I think is one of the most significant works of the late 20th century. Grab the sole recording of Killmayer's Heine-Lieder if you get a chance. (Christoph Prégardien and Siegfried Mauser, CPO)  Or get the score bei Schott. The painting, oddly enough, is Hieronymus Bosch.

Padmore Lachner and Kynoch Brahms

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Franz Paul Lachner Sängerfahrt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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