Florian Boesch Schubert journeys online

Florian Boesch sings Schubert. with Malcolm Martineau. Quite probably the best baritone in this rep in the business at the moment - exceptionally intelligent, elegant yet profound.  An antidote to pretty and shallow! Available now online, internationally and on demand for 7 days on BBC Radio 3 :

Schwanengesang HERE

Die Schöne Müllerin HERE

Winterreise HERE 

After 40 years of listening to Lieder, I've heard a lot. But Boesch and Martineau reveal so much more with the depth of their interpretation and the clarity of expression.

 HERE is a link to my review of their Winterreise at the Wigmore Hall in Dec 2012.   

HERE is a link to my review of Die Schõne Müllerin at the Wigmore Hall in March 2012. When he sang it in October that year at the Oxford Lieder festival, he was even deeper, even more convincing.  I was so overwhelmed that I could not write it up.  Just as Matthias Goerne's first Die schõne Müllerin with Eric Schneider changed the way we hear the songs, so too does Boesch's Die schõne Müllerin help us find new depths in this amazing music. Please read Boesch's insights here in this keynote interview "Strong minded Die schône Müllerin"

Florian Boesch - strong minded Die Schöne Müllerin

Florian Boesch is singing Schubert Die Schöne Müllerin at the Oxford Lieder Festival on Sunday 14th October. This won’t be routine. Radically challenging conventional interpretation, Boesch says “I don’t believe it ends in suicide”.

”Through performing, I've come to understand Die Schöne Müllerin in a different way”. A young miller follows a brook which leads him to a mill. There’s nothing sinister in that per se, for millstreams lead to mills and the miller is looking for work. The miller falls in love with the miller's daughter, but she falls in love with a huntsman. The last song, Des Baches Wiegenlied, is a lullaby, and it’s often assumed that the references to sleep and nightfall mean death.

“It’s much stronger than that”, says Boesch. "The miller is not schizophrenic, he's articulate and has a sophisticated inner consciousness. The Wiegenlied is not romantic simple-mindedness. It's much more profound than a love dream. I believe it is a sensitive human being's way of connecting with his inner self".
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"We know about Wilhelm Müller and we understand what an intelligent man he was. Although Müller is known today for Schubert’s setting of his poems, in his own time he was known for much more. He fought in the battles of the Prussian Resistance to Napoleon and passionately supported the Greek wars of independence from the Turks. Romanticism involved more than escapist dreams: it embraced action, freedom and progressive ideas.

Boesch refers to the work of Erwin Ringel, the Austrian psychoanalyst who studied suicide. Ringel’s theory on Presuicidal Syndrome involved three phases: constriction caused by situations in life, aggression channeled inward towards the self, and fantasies about suicide as a form of action.  Not all who think about suicide actually follow through. “In that sense” says Boesch, “we can interpret Die schöne Müllerin as a psychological dialogue.  The miller is thinking about the situation he is in and is trying to imagine how to resolve it.  Thoughtful people are always considering the possibilities before them. The miller doesn't have to be talking to a real brook. The brook is another aspect of his own personality, guiding him to make the right choices."

"So," says Boesch, "consider the text". At times of stress, the miller reflects by projecting his feelings. "In Der Müller und der Bach the dialogue is clear. The man speaks of angels singing  to rest the soul. But the Brook says Ein Sternlein, ein neues, Am Himmel erblinkt (a little star, a new one, shining in the heavens)". Then will rise three roses Die welken nicht wieder, Aus Dornenreis.. From the thorns, new growth that will never wilt. "And then, "says Boesch, the image of "die Engelein schneiden, Die Flügel sich ab und gehn alle Morgen zur Erde hinab", What is an angel without wings? A new woman, who will always return. The brook is the more mature, more positive side of the miller's mind. It's telling him that no matter how bad he feels now there will be new mornings and faithful women in the future. The brook is always moving forward, it does not stand still".

Significantly, Wilhelm Müller had a bad love affair but later married happily. Although Schubert wrote the cycle around the time he learned he had syphilis, it isn't necessarily autobiographical.  "Consider Winterreise" says Boesch. "Again, the man does not have to die or go mad."

Boesch's rationale is far more sophisticated.  "In Das Wirtshaus, the man visits the cemetery. Allhier will ich einkehren, hab' ich bei mir gedacht (here I'll settle, I thought). But he rejects death.  Nun weiter denn, nur weiter, mein treuer Wanderstab!" The walking stick leads him on, just like the brook keeps flowing. The man has many chances to stop and die but he chooses to brave the wild weather and struggle on. "Even in the beginning, there's that phrase Die Liebe liebt das Wandern, Gott hat sie so gemacht, von einem zu dem andern. God is not willing death, but Wandern".

"The word Wunder occurs three times in the cycle at critical points" says Boesch. "it means something strange, like Zauberhaft. So Der Leiermann is 'wunderlicher Alter'. Soll ich mit dir geh'n? Willst zu meinen Liedern Deine Leier dreh'n? .(should I go with you ? Do you want to play my songs be played on your hurdy-gurdy? ). The dogs that howl in Gute Nacht appear again in Der Leiermann, who struggles forward, still trying to play although his fingers are frozen. "So I believe in an inner psychological meaning in Winterreise too".

"When I was 12 years old, my grandfather gave me an LP of recited ballads by Goethe and Schiller", adds Boesch. "Two weeks after Christmas, I knew them all by heart. I was fascinated. I studied violincello for many years, but I realized that I would not be that kind of musician. My music is the text", he says decisively "I love the music of language, and expressing the meaning of words in music."

"A performance involves two people, the pianist and the singer", adds Boesch. "Malcolm Martineau is wonderful, because he's very quick to pick up on what I'm singing, and he's very fast to adjust. Although I have a clear understanding of what I want to do, in performance spontaneous ideas can develop". Sometimes Boesch feels like he's accompanying the pianist. "I like working with pianists like Martineau, Roger Vignoles and Justus Zeyen, because they can adjust so well to spontaneity".

This interview also appears in Opera Today

Sensitive Florian Boesch Die schöne Müllerin Wigmore Hall

Florian Boesch and Malcolm Martineau's Schubert Die schöne Müllerin at the Wigmore Hall was outstanding. Over several decades, I've heard hundreds of performances, but this was exceptionally perceptive. This was a wholly original, perceptive reading, informed by great insight. In Die schöne Müllerin the brook speaks through the piano. A brook flows forth with force. This isn't a pretty little Bachlein, even if the protagonist is fooled. It powers a large commercial millwheel. This master miller employs many staff, and the brook keeps them all in work. The millwheel crushes grain into flour. The brook also controls the miller lad's mind and crushes him with overwhelming force.

From the outset, it was clear that Malcolm Martineau understood why Schubert wrote such pounding, repetitive rhythms into the piano part. They are so shocking tthat most pianists soften them to make them more "musical", but when they're heard with this force, you realize that the brook is a personality. That's certainly how the miller's lad sees it. "Vom Wasser haben wir's gelent, vom Wasser". Right from the start, he's doing what the brook tells him. The energy in the piano part is compulsive rather than merely compelling, so Martineau's approach is psychologically right. The poem, too, reflects this hard-driven quality, with words repeated at the end of sentences, for emphasis. Boesch sings them purposefully, "Das Wandern", ""Das Wasser" and "und wandern" yet again. Piano and voice in harmony, but it's the unison of goosestep march.

Also perceptive was the way Boesch and Martineau revealed the jarring contrasts between each song. The hard-driven march gives way to more seductive rolling patterns, then voice and piano diverge. The miller has spotted the mill. Boesch's voice warms with hope, "War es also gemeint?", but Martineau's dark pedalling tells us no. Am Feierabend is often sung gemütlich, for the miller's lad now feels part of a community.. But the imagery includes the millwheel, still grinding when the workers are at rest. Martineau's attack is ferocious, for the brook is, and will become ever more jealous. Later, the young miller will obey, but for the moment, he's still contemplating love. Significantly, the voice is relatively unaccompanied at the start of Der Neugierige, and Boesch's voice finds lyrical stillness. But the brook attacks again in Ungeduld, with its manic pace. Seldom have these mood swings seemed so bi-polar. In Mein! Boesch sings as if he's won the girl. Martineau's playing reminds us that the brook might think quite something else. Emphatic, brutal last note, no quibbling.

Many years ago, Matthias Goerne's first recording of  Die schöne Müllerin revealed the young miller as emotionally disturbed, living in schizoid fantasy. It's a perfectly valid interpretation, though Goerne was to adopt a more conventional but superlative approach in his recording with Christoph Eschenbach (review here - it's one of the best). Boesch, however, makes the young miller sympathetic. Because it's easier to identify with a miller created with such warmth, the brook's vindictive pursuit seems all the more tragic. Boesch's rich timbre makes him plausibly masculine, so the rivalry between the miller and the huntsman isn't entirely one-sided. No less than six songs in this 20 song cycle deal with the miller, the hunstman and the girl, with music and the colour green and all that signifies. The songs were performed without a break, since they're a last interlude, when the miller still inhabits the real world.

With the minor key Trockne Blumen, the young miller enters the death zone. Boesch sings quietly but it's an unnatural calm. His last cry "Der Mai ist kommen, der Winter is aus!" was a last backwards look at happier times. Martineau makes the last chords resonate into silence. The miller will not live to see Spring. The brook now "speaks" through the text, as well as through the piano. Miller and brook are becoming one again, the miller's soul absorbed by the brook. This is surreal, even by the Gothic norms of Romantic poetry. Boesch makes interesting connections. His hands may clasp involuntarily, but the stillness of his singing suggests quasi-religious sacrifice. Did the poet Wilhelm Müller think of pre-Christian fertility rites, or to primeval myths of female water spirits luring men to their doom? It hardly matters. Boesch's eerie stillness is disconcerting, as if the miller is willingly being hypnotized.

The last song, Das Baches Weigenlied is a lullaby but most certainly not serene or comforting. Rolling rhythms again, but now the piano part falls into gentle repose. The brook is now speaking through the voice part and through the miller. It's not the miller who is now at peace. He's dead. The brook has consumed him and no longer needs to rage. Schubert sets the song lyrically, but it's the culmination of a nightmare, straight out of the aesthetic that gave rise to Erlkönig (and indeed to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein) As I've said many times before, only the shallow hear shallow in Schubert, but it needs to be said if we are to learn from him. This recital shows us what real Lieder singing is about. It's uncompromising psychological truth. Full review to appear in Opera Today.

First Schubert recording - 1890 out now!

First ever Schubert recording? It's 1890 but out now. In the photo is Thomas Edison, with an early phonograph machine - revolutionary technology! It was an experiemntal technique, so Edison marketed it by recording famous people and sounds. The Schubert recording (Wohin) was made on 23rd January 1890 in Cologne. Franz Lachner, who knew Schubert personally had died just three days before in Munich, so it's feasible that there might have been others around who remembered Schubert himself. Performers are Karl Mayer (1852-1933)  baritone, and Franz Wüllner (1832-1902)  piano. The Wagnerian friend who sent me details adds "Wüllner was the conductor of the first ever Rheingold and Walkuere and teacher of Mengelberg, von Schuch, Andreae, Oestvig and many others. A unique document if only it could be heard.!" because the sound quality is hardly bearable. You can hear voices in the background, and the singer seems to wait til it's OK to start.

The audio engineer was Theo Wangemann who worked for Edison in Europe. He also recorded Otto von Bismarck singing the Marsellaise, and Helmut von Moltke reciting Goethe and Shakespeare at Kreisau. A lost world! The cylinders were discovered in 1957 but some were only made available this week.   Here is the link, scroll down and enjoy. SACD it ain't but who cares? Just imagine  those people huddled over state of the art technology, not knowing we'd heard them 122 years later.

Wangemann also recorded Johannes Brahms, playing Brahms, Hungarian Dance no 1, recorded 2nd December 1889. Listen HERE, scroll down.   There are lots of archaic recordings around, which I've written about here many times, including Mahler plays Mahler, Grieg plays Grieg , Grainger playing Grieg, Schoenberg conducting Mahler in 1934, Anton Webern conducting Schubert and the first recording of the Habanera from Carmen. Lots of archive early film including Edison in China 1898. I really should organize all the pieces I've done on this site so they're easier to find.

James Gilchrist Die Schöne Müllerin

James Gilchrist is singing Winterreise at Kings Place on Thursday 17th - the highlight of the month for me. Should be atmospheric, since the weather's turning cold and the room at Kings Place is ideal for Lieder. He's very good indeed, and Winterreise suits his voice and style.

There are dozens of recordings of Die Schöne Müllerin, but this new CD by James Gilchrist stands out from the competition because it’s distinctive, and interpretation of great insight and sensitivity. The key to singing Lieder is understanding what it means. I don't like "operatic" versions which distance the singer from the rawness of the experience, and I don't like smooth versions which blank out the knots. Gilchrist may not be in the league of Schreier, Wunderlich or Goerne, but his version is psychologically well observed and is a significant contribution, even if you have dozens of recordings already.

Die Schöne Müllerin is filled with sunny, pastoral images, but it isn’t a pretty story. Gilchrist and Tilbrook demonstrate how Schubert builds the young miller’s hyperactive extremes into the music. Long before psychology taught us about mental illness, Schubert observed with almost clinically observed accuracy. Gilchrist and his pianist Anna Tilbrook observe the startling contrasts in the music. The young miller is unbalanced. He has violent mood swings, hears voices and kills himself when reality doesn’t match his delusions. Now he might be diagnosed bi-polar.

Disturbed as the miller may be, Gilchrist doesn’t judge. Indeed, this is a surprisingly sympathetic portrayal, for Gilchrist takes the young man on his own terms. When the miller is happy, Gilchrist’s voice lights up with glee. When harsh truth encroaches, Gilchrist’s tone hardens, reflecting the young man’s bitterness. You can hear the manic energy that propels Das Wandern, the piano part relentless beating out the steady rhythm. When the miller spots the mill in Halt!, Gilchrist’s voices rises with excitement. In Mein! – note the exclamation marks – the miller is so sure he’s go the girl that his joy reaches fever pitch.

Yet this brightness is unnatural. Again, this is psychologically astute, for in the young miller’s mind there are no shadows, only the glow of madness. When it dawns on him that the girl might fancy someone else, his heightened mood switches to anger. One moment he sings of Die liebe Farbe (the beloved colour), and the next it’s Die böse Farbe (the hated colour). Gilchrist’s voice takes on a harsh edge which is perfect in the circumstances. In a cycle like this, emotional truth is far more important than superficial prettiness. The spirit of the brook is speaking through the young man, and it’s malevolent, like a supernatural demon.

Gradually the spirit of the brook takes control, submerging the young miller long before he drowns in its depths. Unable to resist, the lad talks to the brook. In Der Müller und die Bach, Gilchrist pauses imperceptibly, as if he’s really listening to another entity. It’s eerie. Tilbrook’s assertive style works well, because the brook is in control now. Compare the meekness of the miller’s lines with the dominance of the piano part. “Du meinst es so gut” (you mean so well) the boy tells the brook, unconcerned that suicide is an extreme solution to being jilted. In fact, he probably doesn’t register on her radar.

At last, he drowns himself, merging with the spirit of the brook. “Böses Mägdelein”, Gilchrist snarls. Even though the boy is past caring, the brook remains vindictive because it’s irrational. Even when the boy is dead, the brook remains so manipulative that it tries to control the girl. Gilchrist and Tilbrook reach the psychological core of this remarkable song cycle, yet do so with surprising humanity. Deluded as he was, they make you identify with the boy’s vulnerability. When he’s destroyed, his fate seems horribly unfair.

The clarity of this performance is matched by the clarity of the translation by Richard Stokes. It’s lucid and direct, a bracing antidote to the devious spirit of the brook. There are many new recordings of this cycle, every year, some more aggressively marketed than others. This recording, by the small independent label Orchid Classics, deserves more attention because it’s so original. These days huge multinationals are creating a monomarket, squeezing out innovation, so it's important to support lively small independents like Orchid. And with this DSM, you're getting something very original, too.

I've been following Gilchrist's career since first hearing him at Ludlow way out in rural Shropshire at the English Song Weekend organized by Finzi Friends. This is "the" major English song festival, the biggest one of all. This year's programme is just out so I'll write about it shgortly This year really is the best ever. I've heard Gilchrist sing both DSM and Winterreise before - follow the labels on right to read about him at Oxford last year.

Goerne Eschenbach Die Schöne Müllerin Schubert

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

James Gilchrist Die Schöne Müllerin Oxford Lieder Festival

Twenty-five years ago I heard Die Schöne Müllerin in a country church beside the Thames in South Oxfordshire. “How lovely”, said the vicar, noting that the village is famous for its old mill. Had he known the cycle he might not have been so thrilled! Beneath the sunlit rippling of the brook in Schubert’s music lies menace indeed.

In an excellent pre performance talk, James Gilchrist made the point of contrasting the brightness of the music with the darkness of its content. All around the young miller, nature blossoms, but he’s totally indifferent. He lives in a vacuum, disconnected from reality. The world hums steadily along but he’s hyperactive, swinging from one extreme to another. He hears voices, becomes violent and finally throws himself into the millpond. It’s not pretty. Nowadays, he’d be heavily medicated and thrown into the community without support, harming others as well as himself.

The vernal landscape deceives, as it’s meant to. Hence exquisite performances like Fritz Wunderlich, where you’re taken in by the sheer beauty of the voice. That’s why Matthias Goerne’s version a few years back was so shocking. “There’s nothing cute about teenage suicide”, he said, producing a version so psychologically penetrating that it’s frightening to listen to, even though it’s groundbreaking and a superlative performance. Ian Bostridge, in his more recent work with Mitsuko Uchida, takes another path, connecting the spirit of the brook to the earth spirits and folk magic so dear to the Romantic imagination. James Gilchrist has found yet another distinctive approach, which is quite an achievement in a cycle as frequently performed as this.

I made a special effort to hear this concert as I thought it would be well suited to Gilchrist’s style and I was right. Firstly, his clear, lucid singing works extremely well for it’s direct and naturalistic : songs like this need an understated, almost conversational style for what we are hearing are highly personal “unspoken thoughts”. Secondly, Gilchrist doesn’t declaim, he convinces by genuinely communicating the inner world of his protagonist. Like a true method actor, his characterization comes from understanding how the young man thinks, alien as it may be to “normal” people, so the performance grows from this. Thirdly, he understands how the poetry and music work as external commentary, following the miller’s descent towards death. There’s a journey here, just as there is in Winterreise.

Gilchrist’s young miller is most certainly delusional, a very sick loner unable to form even the most basic of relationships. As he approaches the mill, he’s almost manic with expectation, the voice taking on a shrill excitement. Peter Schreier’s miller had a similar unnerving intensity. This is observant, for the miller’s mind is lit up with an unnaturally bright light : he sees things in extremes. Phrases repeat, like double takes, as if the miller is contemplating his own vision. The rhythms of the millwheel and brook are resolute, Anna Tilbrook’s playing captures the relentless flow. The miller’s fundamental weakness is thrown into contrast : he doesn’t think he’s as strong as the apprentices : Ungeduld is a list of the things he’d like to do, but can’t.

In some interpretations, Mein! is a moment of hope. But Gilchrist appreciates how it connects to the previous song, Tränenregen, where the miller at last gets to spend time with the girl. Instead of talking to her, he talks to the brook ! No wonder she makes her excuses and leaves. To anyone else, that would be rejection, but suddenly the miller thinks he’s won the girl. Gilchrist’s Mein! is heartbreaking, because the ecstasy is so clearly delusional. The miller “feels” intensely, therefore assumes everyone else feels as he does, without compromise. As Gilchrist shows, this joyous song is the beginning of the end. The miller’s jealousy and anger seem quite healthy in comparison. Just as the brook misleads deceptively, Schubert builds in deceptively happy music at the grimmest movements.

Gilchrist and Tilbrook use silence to create space the two final songs, for they are the threshold from which there is no return. When the miller stops being hyperactively manic, he becomes numb, unable to resist the brook’s lethal powers. This is also tn opportunity for Gilchrist to comment as an observer. All along, he’s acknowledged the miller’s mania accurately, but with sympathy rather than judgement : the poor lad is no grotesque. Gilchrist doesn’t look “at” him, but “with” him. In the end, though, he can’t go where the miller goes. These two songs are trickier than they seem, for the singer has to express sympathy yet detachment. Tenderness is important for the miller has suffered so much. Yet listen to what the brook is saying : It blames the huntsman, it blames the girl, the böses Mägdelein, who still has the power to wake the drowned boy ! Give into the brooks seductive lies and enter into the madness. Gilchrist sings gently, but he knows this is no lullaby, it’s dangerous.

This was one of the key concerts in this year’s Oxford Lieder Festival, and for good reason. Oxford Lieder is dedicated to extending the art of Lieder, making people think how and why it’s such a special art form. Gilchrist demonstrates exactly the sort of intelligence and sensitivity that makes good Lieder singing. This was a masterclass in itself.

See the review and the lovely pic :

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jul-Dec08/olf1210.htm

Please note, James Gilchrist has recorded this on Orchid, to be issued late September 2009

Die Schöne Müllerin - Bostridge Goerne Uchida

Ian Bostridge astounded the song world with his seminal Die Schöne Müllerin with Graham Johnson in 1994. He's pulled off the feat a second time, in this outstanding performance with Mitsuko Uchida. Indeed, this is even more distinctive for it's shaped with much more depth of insight.

Schubert's song cycles are much more than the sum of their parts: performing them requires a breadth of vision to illuminate the cycle as a whole. It is not enough to sing well: understanding and interpretation are paramount. What is fascinating is how Bostridge has lived with, and grown with, this cycle. With Johnson, Bostridge emphasized the painful vulnerability of the miller's lad, a portrayal of youthful anguish. Now, Bostridge brings to it the insight of a more mature observer, more attuned to the psychological drama that is at the heart of the cycle. It is a tour de force, reflecting an infinitely deeper understanding of what the cycle means. There is nothing quite like it. The nearest comparison is Matthias Goerne, whose depiction of the psychosis haunting the miller's lad shocked many by its intensity. Bostridge manages a different, if equally perceptive understanding, without Goerne's unorthodox tempi. He's also a tenor. Schubert envisioned the cycle for higher voice and was a tenor himself. This matters a lot, for this version expresses much of what might have been Schubert's personal subtext.

This is, therefore, almost as innovative as Goerne's groundbreaking version, but perhaps more accessible. Bostridge and Uchida make more of the brook's demonic struggle to overpower the boy than his inner demons. This makes their version closer to the Romantic spirit where magic and menace lurk close beneath the surface, where nature spirits can be malevolent. It also fits in with the theory that Schubert himself may have felt cursed by his illness, the result of a natural act of love. Danger and the supernatural are Bostridge's natural territory: witness his brilliant Janáček and Henze recordings where he elucidates terrifying mysteries beyond the realm of consciousness. This new interpretation has, therefore, all the virtues of an intelligent, modern psychological reading while remaining within the mainstream of the Romantic tradition.

Significantly, Bostridge emphasizes that the poet Wilhelm Müller said it was a set "Im Winter zu lesen" - to be read in winter, in barrenness and cold. The text may speak of Spring and flowers but it is, frankly about suicide of a very young man. Schubert connected love with death only too well, for he had been diagnosed with venereal disease shortly before setting the poems. It is not a pretty cycle, by any means. Bostridge and Uchida focus on the uneven dialogue between the brook, representing death, and the young man, dreaming of love.

Uchida is almost too dominant a partner, yet her evocation of the powerful, unyielding movement of the mill wheel expresses the unrelenting power of the waters. This brook has a demonic life of its own, calling to the boy, drawing him towards its crushing embrace. Bostridge's voice has developed deeper colours over the years and his portrayal of the lad is exquisite – lyrical yet richly shaded, making the contrast between the boy and the brook all the more poignant. He whispers, both in awe and excitement “ist das denn meine Straβe ?". The brook has already shown who's boss. In the brief vignette of "reality", where the miller talks with his apprentices after work, Bostridge manages to portray the gathering vividly, yet the piano reminds us of the ferocity lurking outside, threatening to shatter the cosy scene. Der Neugierige (the questioner) is one of the critical turning points in the cycle. For Goerne it was as if we were inside the boy's troubled mind, a terrifying inner sanctum. For Bostridge, it is the curiosity of innocence, a moment when the demons in the brook for once are still, while the boy wonders about love. But not for long – Ungeduld starts almost immediately with its insistent, demented pressures. Bostridge sings the verse, when he thinks he's won love with heartfelt openness and triumph but Uchida has already told us that something's amiss. The contrast between lyricism and the violence of the piano part is striking.

In a Wigmore Hall recital in 2005, he sang the last verse of Morgengruβ with much more defiance than on the recording, which was much more effective, for it shows that there's still spirit and hope in the lad's mind. Soon after, though, follows Pause, which for Bostridge is the turning point of the cycle. The boy has hung his lute on the wall, and can sing no more. Bostridge's voice actually takes on a lute like quality from here on. It is as if the boy has already lost the power to be a proactive individual. The two "lute" songs, Pause and Mit dem grünen Lautenbande are balanced by two angry songs about the huntsman whom the miller's daughter clearly prefers. Bostridge and Uchida hardly stop to breathe between songs, allowing them to form a striking group that in turn connects to the "colour" songs, Der liebe Farbe and Die böse Farbe. As a unit of six, without a break, the drama is intensified. In the middle was a most ferocious Eifersucht und Stolz (Jealousy and Pride). It is somewhat restrained on this recording, compared to the fire with which Bostridge sings it in recital. His recent years in opera have certainly taught him expressive, passionate characterisation.

By the time Bostridge sings "Der Mai ist kommen, der Winter is aus!" we are left under no illusion that Spring really will come. The miller's lad and the brook have a final dialogue. Uchida starts Der Müller und die Bach as if she were playing a funeral march, for the brook is calling the boy to itself. Yet Bostridge infuses the last verses with revived lyricism. "Ach, Bächlein, liebes Bächlein ... aber weiβt du wie Liebe tut?" These are "his" last words in the cycle, and Bostridge has him depart with tenderness.

Just as Uchida started the cycle evoking the mechanical process of the mill wheel, she ends it with the same relentless turning over of the same small motif. In this context, I've often thought of the folktune "muss i' den" with a similar hurdy-gurdy type figure revolving over and over. Here, the coy, fake sentimentality of the folktune seems absolutely right - the brook's quaint song is ersatz. The brook has destroyed the lad and absorbed him into itself. Goerne managed a strange but brilliant synthesis, expressing sympathy for the boy while expressing anger at the waste of a destroyed life. For Bostridge the final Wiegenlied is no tender lullaby either, but the chilling voice of the brook and its lack of conscience. It possessively warns the flowers not to arouse the lad from his slumber, like the warped mother in the movie Psycho. It is all the more disturbing because Bostridge sings this with such understatement, letting the horror speak for itself.

Bostridge has emerged from a period of quiet in his career and become a more mature, deeper and sensitive performer than before. A true artist keeps creating, thinking things over and developing and to his credit, Bostridge seems to have endless reserves of musical intelligence. Creating one distinctive Schöne Müllerin enshrines him as one of the cycle's best performers. Creating a second, exceptional and far more original interpretation as this new version, earns him a place in the pantheon.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2005/Mar05/Schubert_Mullerin_5578272.htm