Fantasy Botany - The Anguished Lotus Bloom

Die Lotosblume ängstigt 

Sich vor der Sonne Pracht

Und mit gesenktem Haupte 

Erwartet sie träumend die Nacht. 

Der Mond, ist ihr Buhle 

Er weckt sie mit seinem Licht,

Und ihm entschleiert sie freundlich

Ihr frommes Blumengesicht, 

Sie blüht und glüht und leuchtet 

Und starret stumm in die Höh'; 

Sie duftet und weinet und zittert

Vor Liebe und Liebesweh. 

(The lotus bloom is stressed under the glare of the sun, and bends her head to await and dream of the night.  The moon, her secret lover, awakens her with its light, and for him, she she reveals her purity. She blooms, and gleams and shines and gazes towards the heavens. She releases her fragrance to the air and weeps and trembles with love and the pain of love.) 

The poem, by Heinrich Heine, is deceptively subtle.  The setting, by Robert Schumann is discreet, but notice the throbbing piano accompaniment, suggesting the palpitations of an anxious lover's heart.  Neither Heine nor Schumann probably saw lotuses growing in their natural habitat, where they grow en masse in ponds and lakes, reaching upwards toward the sun.  It's hot in the tropics, though the water keeps them cool.  The petals look fragile, though they're strong, like the stems and roots. Perhaps Heine and Schumann and their audiences identified the lotus with the moon, stillness, and secrecy, as Goethe did when he wrote of feelings inspired by the untouchable Charlotte von Stein.  In the last  line, passion breaks through,the voice part fills out "for love, and the pain of love"

Alphonse de Lamartine Le Vallon

JMW Turner : Mont Blanc, Val d'Aosta

Alphonse de Lamartine Le Vallon, a poem I've loved since I was a kid. Today I pulled out my old school textbook, Nine French poets : H E Berthon 1961, with a dustcover I made myself from a calender of Swiss lakes and mountains. It's still intact, though the pages are well worn and yellowed, scribbled all over with notes in tiny handwriting (and many doodles).  At school we learned to parse alexandrines, to analyse, and to translate as accurately and sensitively as possible.  Do kids still study like that today?  Certainly that book shaped me, instilling my love to this day for the Early Romantic.  Read the poem in its entirety HERE.  It's too perfect to translate. Fastforward a lifetime, and it resonates even more. A few favourite verses : 

Mon coeur, lassé de tout, même de l'espérance, 
N'ira plus de ses voeux importuner le sort ; 
Prêtez-moi seulement, vallon de mon enfance,
Un asile d'un jour pour attendre la mort. 

Voici l'étroit sentier de l'obscure vallée : 
Du flanc de ces coteaux pendent des bois épais, 
Qui, courbant sur mon front leur ombre entremêlée, 
Me couvrent tout entier de silence et de paix...... 

La source de mes jours comme eux s'est écoulée ; 
Elle a passé sans bruit, sans nom et sans retour : 
Mais leur onde est limpide, et mon âme troublée 
N'aura pas réfléchi les clartés d'un beau jour.

La fraîcheur de leurs lits, l'ombre qui les couronne,
M'enchaînent tout le jour sur les bords des ruisseaux, 
Comme un enfant bercé par un chant monotone, 
Mon âme s'assoupit au murmure des eaux.......... 

J'ai trop vu, trop senti, trop aimé dans ma vie ; 
Je viens chercher vivant le calme du Léthé. 
Beaux lieux, soyez pour moi ces bords où l'on oublie :
L'oubli seul désormais est ma félicité. 

Mon coeur est en repos, mon âme est en silence ; 
Le bruit lointain du monde expire en arrivant,
Comme un son éloigné qu'affaiblit la distance, 
A l'oreille incertaine apporté par le vent......  

Mais la nature est là qui t'invite et qui t'aime ; 
Plonge-toi dans son sein qu'elle t'ouvre toujours
Quand tout change pour toi, la nature est la même,
Et le même soleil se lève sur tes jours...... 

Dieu, pour le concevoir, a fait l'intelligence : 
Sous la nature enfin découvre son auteur !
Une voix à l'esprit parle dans son silence :
Qui n'a pas entendu cette voix dans son coeur ?

Second Farewell to Cambridge Xu Zhimo

By the banks of the Cam in Cambridge, a rock dressed with Beijing marble, with an inscription that reads : "I leave as quietly as I came. I am quiet, gently flicking my sleeve, taking with me not even a wisp of cloud".  The poem is by Xu Zhimo (徐志摩) (Tsui Tsemor) father of modern Chinese poetry.  The title "Second Farewell to Cambridge" (再別康橋) is poignant. This wasn't Xu's first Cambridge farewell.  He studied at King's College in 1921-22  and had written an earlier poem about the city.  He returned in 1927-8. Perhaps he planned to return again, since he loved the place so much.  But three years after this poem was written in November 1928, he was killed in a  plane crash, aged only 34.

The poem is beautiful because it's so subtle.  It begins with the lines on which it will end "Quietly I now leave the Cam, gently waving farewell to the western skies where a golden willow stands, like the bride of the sunset."  The tree is rooted and will not leave, enduring after the poet is gone. Its branches dip over the river where rushes and duckweed throng, moving in the river's flow. Suddenly a vision : in the dappled waters and weeds, Xu sees a rainbow, shimmering as if in a dream of purity and promise. If only he could be like these weeds, But he moves on, poling his punt  towards the fields beyond, not returning until the skies are lit only by stars and moonlight.  But the images of silence return : on this evening, even the crickets are still, and do not sing. So "I leave as quietly as I came. I am quiet, gently flicking my sleeve, taking with me not even a wisp of cloud". The reference to the sleeve is significant.  Though Xu and his friends usually wore western dress, the poets of the past wore traditional garments with wide silk sleeves, so refinement was built into their slightest movemnent. In this tiny detail, Xu connects past to present,  Cambridge to China.  The deeper levels of the poiem address impermanence. The cloud, for example, cannot be "taken" because it is immaterial.  The flow of the river cannot be stopped, even though for a moment one can enjoy the pools and eddies.  The poet is quiet, because silence suggests that time is standing still : any sound might break the spell. Yet there's so much sadness : when the poet arrived, he  changed nothing, and when he leaves without changing what he loves so dearly.

Though Xu died young, his legacy is immense.  His poetry is immortal, but he also transformed the role of poetry in modern China. He adapted traditional form, using vernacular as well as scholarly form. In his personal life, he was also progressive and forward-thinking.  The women in his life were emacipated New Women, from a generation inspired by the reform movements of the time.  One of his lovers was Lin Huiyin (林徽因). Ironically, she was turned away from architecture at a US university because she was female.  Eventually she qualified, and with her husband Liang Sucheng (林徽因) pioneered the study of ancient Chinese architecture, their expertise used in urban planning and restoration.  Xu's affair with Lu Xiaomen (陆小曼) scandalized Chinese society as both were married to other parties at the time. Lu, too, went on to be a well known artist.  This background helps to explain the image of the willow tree as bride. Xu was not against marriage, but a passionate believer in the ideals of love. In Chinese culture, marriage means children, continuation and the future. In Cambridge willow and river belong together in symbiosis.  Because the poet cannot change that, he has to move on.

Xu's Farewell to Cambridge is so evocative that it's inspired many musical settings, nearly all of them Chinese. A few years back, Cambridge commissioned a setting by John Rutter, which wisely retained the Chinese text : it's quite an achievement for the singers of King’s College Choir to learn to sing in Mandarin.

Wilfred Owen, Dunsden Green - a personal memoir

Wilfred Owen died 100 years ago, but his poetry has made him immortal.  But what shaped Owen's personality, and his singular art ? Unlike Siegfried Sassoon, who recognized Owen's potential when Owen was a gauche nobody, Owen didn't come from an elite background.  Owen's parents were not well off, not poor but not secure. After many years moving from place to place they ended up in a two-up two-down Victorian terrace, now facing a downmarket shopping mall on a rough estate.  Nonetheless, for years the tenants hung hanging baskets outside, a display so colourful that the houses were a local landmark.  Owen's parents and sister are buried in All Saints Church in Dunsden Green, (pictured above) a few miles away, where Owen served as lay assistant to the Vicar from 1911 to February 1913.  That connection must have meant a lot to them.  Inside the Church, there's a memorial plaque on the wall in Wilfred's honour. 

Owen himself might not have been quite so genteel. Though the Vicarage where he stayed was luxurious (it's a local landmark, too), many of the people of the parish were desperately poor, living in overcrowded hovels, employed seasonally, often insecure. Disease speads quickly when people are overworked and underfed.   Owen used to visit  these tenements and must have been well aware of the contrasts between the Vicar's life and the lives of those in his parish.  Whenver he had the opportunity, he'd walk miles into town, visiting a bookshop for "modern" literature, different fare no doubt to what was in the vicar's library.  The route he walked is pretty much as it was then, despite the traffic. Until recently, you could still see painted signs on buildings advertising hay and coal.  The hovels are now renovated,  some of them weekend homes for the rich from London. The thatched pub at Binfield Heath, which Owen would have known, but was probably not allowed to visit, dates from 1300 and served travellers taking sheep and cattle to market. 

On 15th October 1912, one of the villagers, John Allen, set off to a new job in Maidenhead :  a  step up in the world, away from rural slums.   Full of hope and anticipation, the family loaded up a horse cart with their belongings and set off to their new life.   On the way to Playhatch, the road becomes extremely steep : even in a modern car, you notice the gears change.  A huge sofa - a status symbol - shifted and tipped the cart over, killing Mrs Allen and her daughter. The Allens are buried in the chucrhyard at All Saint's, too. Owen assisted at the funeral. This shook whatever faith Owen might have felt in the church, and in the social order.  It compounded an emotional crisis, which he resolved by getting as far away as possible, to France, where he had no connections.  And so,Owen's distinctive personality was moulded, long before the trenches and the Somme.  Below, the  poem he wrote about the Allens's tragedy,  Deep Under Turfy Grass. 

Deep under turfy grass and heavy clay 

They laid her bruisèd body, and the child 

Poor victims of a swift mischance were they, 

Adown Death’s trapdoor suddenly beguiled.

I, weeping not, as others, but heart-wild, 

Affirmed to Heaven that even Love’s fierce flame 

Must fail beneath the chill of this cold shame. 

So I rebelled, scorning and mocking such 

As had the ignorant callousness to wed 

On altar steps long frozen by the touch 

Of stretcher after stretcher of our dead. 

Love’s blindness is too terrible, I said; 

I will go counsel men, and show what bin

The harvest of their homes is gathered in.

But as I spoke, came many children nigh, 

Hurrying lightly o’er the village green; 

Methought too lightly, for they came to spy

Into their playmate’s bed terrene. 

They clustered round; some wondered what might mean 

Rich-odoured flowers so whelmed in fetid earth; 

While some Death’s riddle guessed ere that of Birth. 

And there stood one Child with them, whose pale brows 

Wore beauty like our mother Eve’s;whom seeing, 

I could not choose but undo all my vows,

And cry that it were well that human

 Being
And Birth and Death should be, just for the freeing 

Of one such face from Chaos’ murky womb, 

For Hell’s reprieve is worth not this one bloom.
 

Clunton and Clunbury, Clungunford and Clun

From A E Housman's On Wenlock Edge, set by Ralph Vaughan Williams, "Clun" the last song, tucked away at the end when all the famous songs are over.  Some don't even notice ! But for me that is the beauty of the quiet, unassuming piece. It's not "about" phsical reality but something beyond this world.

Clunton and Clunbury, Clungunford and Clun,

Are the quietest places Under the sun.

In valleys of springs of rivers, By Ony and Teme and Clun,

The country for easy livers, The quietest under the sun,

We still had sorrows to lighten, One could not be always glad,

And lads knew trouble at Knighton, When I was a Knighton lad.

By bridges that Thames runs under, In London, the town built ill,

'Tis sure small matter for wonder If sorrow is with one still.

And if as a lad grows older The troubles he bears are more,

He carries his griefs on a shoulder That handselled them long before.

Where shall one halt to deliver This luggage I'd lief set down?

Not Thames, not Teme is the river, Nor London nor Knighton the town:

'Tis a long way further than Knighton, A quieter place than Clun, 

Where doomsday may thunder and lighten And little 'twill matter to one.

Ao longo da viola morosa

Ao longo da viola morosa
Vai adormecendo a parlenda,
Sem que, amadornado, eu atenda
A lengalenga fastidiosa.
Sem que o meu coração se prenda,
Enquanto, nasal, minuciosa,
Ao longo da viola morosa,
Vai adormecendo a parlenda.
Mas que cicatriz melindrosa
Há nele, que essa viola ofenda
E faz que as asitas distenda
Numa agitação dolorosa?
Ao longo da viola, morosa...

Viola Chinesa by
Camillo Pessanha (1867-1926)   Pessanha, a Portuguese poet, who lived
in Macau, acculturating as Chinese, though never fully integrated.  In
this poem he describes a "Chinese viola" playing a nasal yet meticulous
melody which lulls into strange reverie.  What is this "mournful
agitation"  ? Why are foreigners hypnotized by these strange
imaginings?  The poem was dedicated to Wenceslau de Moraes, Pessanha's
friend who lived the same dream, but in Japan, the two of them outsiders
wherever they went.   In the above photograph, Pessanha is dressed as a
Chinese peasant, while sitting in the gardens of the Villa Leitão in
Macau, owned by the Leitão family, once wealthy and powerful in that
city, now dispersed all over the world, the villa itself long gone.  The
photo below shows Pessanha and Moraes on a visit to Hong Kong in 1895.

Pessanha's descedants still live in Macau, and are related to the Jorge family, who are distantly related to my ancestors. One of the Jorges amassed a huge
collection of Chinese antiques, which covered nearly every inch of his
own villa. My grandmother, who visited often, said that real Ming  and Qing 
porcelains covered nearly every surface in the villa, all over the
walls, in even the washrooms.  In the 1860's, the Jorge family rescued
treasures looted from the Summer Palace in Beijing in the Second Opium
War.  They met the troop ships returning from the north, offering the
soldiers beer for the wonders they'd stolen.  The collection was photographed,
catalogued and printed in a book by Vincente Jorge, printed in 1940,
which I found in an antique shop and gave my father.  A limited edition,
the frontispiece hand painted in water colours (sprays of wisteria).  That
book is now lost, too, as is the Jorge collection, supposedly destroyed
when the ship carrying it out of Macau was sunk by pirates in the late
1940's .  The photo below shows the Villa Leitão c.1890, published by  a
family collaterally related to my own.  And so past glories, past dreams, disappearing into nothing......to live for the moment, and to live well, while you can.

Für den Graben, Mutter, für den Graben.

Mutter, wozu hast du deinen Sohn aufgezogen?
Hast dich zwanzig' Jahr mit ihm gequält? 

Wozu ist er dir in deinen Arm geflogen,
und du hast ihm leise was erzählt? 

 Bis sie ihn dir weggenommen haben.
Für den Graben, Mutter, für den Graben.

 Junge, kannst du noch an Vater denken?
Vater nahm dich oft auf seinen Arm.
Und er wollt dir einen Groschen schenken,
und er spielte mit dir Räuber und Gendarm.
Bis sie ihn dir weggenommen haben.
Für den Graben, Junge, für den Graben. 

Drüben die französischen Genossen
lagen dicht bei Englands Arbeitsmann.
Alle haben sie ihr Blut vergossen,
und zerschossen ruht heut Mann bei Mann.
Alte Leute, Männer, mancher Knabe
in dem einen großen Massengrabe. 

Seid nicht stolz auf Orden und Geklunker!
Seid nicht stolz auf Narben und die Zeit!
In die Gräben schickten euch die Junker,
Staatswahn und der Fabrikantenneid.
Ihr wart gut genug zum Fraß für Raben,
für das Grab, Kameraden, für den Graben! 

Werft die Fahnen fort!
Die Militärkapellen spielen auf zu euerm Todestanz.
Seid ihr hin: ein Kranz von Immortellen -
das ist dann der Dank des Vaterlands. 

Denkt an Todesröcheln und Gestöhne.
Drüben stehen Väter, Mütter, Söhne,
schuften schwer, wie ihr, ums bißchen Leben.
Wollt ihr denen nicht die Hände geben?
Reicht die Bruderhand als schönste aller Gaben
übern Graben, Leute, übern Graben 

Kurt Tucholsky (1890-1935) 

Mother, for what have you brought your son up? What have you done for him in 20 years ? Why has he flown from your arms, and you've gently reared him?  Until he was taken from you to the trenches. Mother, for the trenches. 

Young man, can you yet think of your father? You father who held you often in his arms and gave you a penny to spend and played Cops and Robbers with you.  Until you were taken away from him, to the trenches, Lad, to the trenches.

Over by the French buddies lay the English worthies, mown down together man by man.  Old guys, men in their prime, kids, all in a single mass grave. 

Don't be proud of Orders and Medals ! Don't be proud of  wounds and of time !  You were sent to the trenches by the Junkers, mad governments and greedy merchants of war.   You're now food for ravens. For the trenches ! Comrades ! For the trenches !

Chuck out the flags ! Military bands are playing your Dance of Death. There you have a wreath of immortelles. That's the thanks you get from your country.

Heed the death rattle and the groans. Over there stand others, fathers, sons, trying hard, like you to scrape a living. Don't  you want to help, them ?  the hand of brotherhood is the finest gift. Better than graves, folks, better than graves.

Matthias Goerne Schumann Einsamkeit

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

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

Nikolaus von Lenau

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

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

Wifried von der Neun

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

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

Howard Skempton - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner NMC Roderick Williams

Another hit for NMC, specialists in modern British music: Howard Skempton The Rime of the Ancient Mariner with Roderick Williams and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, conducted by Martyn Brabbins. This recording breaks new ground, its appeal reaching beyond  new-music circles.

Samuel Taylor  Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner intrigues because there's nothing else quite like it in English verse. Though its tone suggests ancient saga, its subject was unequivocally modern, in the sense that it caught the Zeitgeist of the Romantic era's fascination with the "Gothic". The Mariner breaks unspoken  rules and kills the Albatross. He and his shipmates are cursed, dying of thirst though there's "water, water everywhere" around them.  Two centuries later, the Rime still haunts. The Mariner's journey is a descent into the darker unconscious. Like the wedding guest, we "fear thee, ancient Mariner! I fear thy skinny hand!"

Howard Skempton's setting grows from the ballad so symbiotically it seems a "living thing". The vocal part reflects the strange obsessive nature of the text, which draws the listener in as if hypnotized.  The cadences rise upwards and down, at a pace which suggests a hard march. Coleridge began the poem while hiking on the moors.  Roderick Williams is a remarkable narrator, capturing the demented undercurrents in the verse. The lines run like a form of Sprechstimme, not recitation, yet not quite singing. This nightmare does not let a voice take full flight. Williams has a gift for natural, direct communication, without theatrical histrionics. He makes us sympathetic to the Mariner as a mortal man, which makes his fate all the more tragic.

The voice is accompanied at first only by the cello, legato drawn drone-like, as if it were some ancient, primitive instrument, or, indeed, a force of nature, like a sinister wail.  The cello carries the music for a while, until other voices join in in subtle combinations. The double bass quietly murmurs, suggesting sinister depths.  The viola leads the violins, an aptly quirky reverse of "natural order". When the ship is becalmed -- "As idle as a painted ship/Upon a painted ocean" -- the music hovers almost imperceptibly, as if listening out for a breeze. When things change, the piano and other players create a tumult.  When the visionary figures appear, the high violins at last take flight.  Coleridge  writes movement into his lines, which Skempton translates into abstract sound.  We listen, as if spellbound, to the strange, unworldly atmosphere.  Maurice and Sheila Millward, who suggested the setting and commissioned the piece, had insight. Skempton's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a remarkable work which needs to become part of the canon of British music.

Like an earworm, this music burrows into your subconciousness.  The cadences in the text haunt the music, reflecting, perhaps, the tides of the ocean, and the pulse of the human body.  You're mesmerized, absorbing the surreal atmosphere so it seems almost natural. Though you're hypnotized, almost against your will, you keep listening, fascinated by the detail and inventiveness concealed within the relentless pulse.  The wedding guest must have felt the same way! It's a tribute to Skempton's skill that his music adds greatly to the effect of the poetry, enhancing its effects without overwhelming its strange personality.


On this disc, Skempton's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is paired with Only the Sound Remains, taking as a starting point an idea from Edward Thomas's The Mill Water.   The mill is gone, and its sounds have fallen still.  Yet "In calm moonlight, Gloom infinite, The sound comes surging in upon the sense:".  Thus there's no need here for a voice part: the orchestral sounds evoke the sounds that once might have been heard, though the men and machines who made them are now long gone.  John Fallas's booklet notes for NMC explain further. "Skempton's pervasive but pervasively disguised/transformed nine-note scales are the secret code generating everything, from the spare, angular counterpoint into dramatic minor chords or sudden outbreaks of warm, major key consonance". The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in particular is a tour de force, not at all easy to perform, so treasure this recording. It will become a classic.

Mailied - Goethe, egotist

Wie herrlich leuchtet
Mir die Natur!
Wie glänzt die Sonne!
Wie lacht die Flur!

Es dringen Blüten
Aus jedem Zweig
Und tausend Stimmen
Aus dem Gesträuch

Und Freud' und Wonne
Aus jeder Brust.
O Erd', o Sonne!
O Glück, o Lust!

O Lieb', o Liebe!
So golden schön,
Wie Morgenwolken
Auf jenen Höhn!

Du segnest herrlich
Das frische Feld,
Im Blütendampfe
Die volle Welt.

O Mädchen, Mädchen,
Wie lieb' ich dich!
Wie blickt dein Auge!
Wie liebst du mich!

So liebt die Lerche
Gesang und Luft,
Und Morgenblumen
Den Himmelsduft,

Wie ich dich liebe
Mit warmem Blut,
Die du mir Jugend
Und Freud' und Mut

Zu neuen Liedern
Und Tänzen gibst.
Sei ewig glücklich,
Wie du mich liebst!

Goethe's Mailied, set by Beethoven  (op 52/4).  "How gloriously Nature shines for me ! How the sun shines, how the meadow smiles !  Blossoms burst from every branch and a thousand voices sing from every shrub ! Joy and delight in every breast, O Earth ! O Sun ! O Happniess ! O Hope ! O Life ! O Love !  How beautifully golden seem the morning clouds above the hilltops.  Gloriously blessed are the fertile fields. The whole world is haloed by blossom.  O maiden, maiden, how I love you, how your eyes shine, because you love me . The lark loves song and flight,  the flowers of morning the scents of Heaven. , How I love you. You make my blood warm with the vigour of youth, and happiness and courage. On to new songs and dances I go.  Be forever glad as you love me ! "

And that's the kick. The poem is All About Him. Nature exists to make him feel good (and horny). And may the beloved be lucky as long as she loves him, too.

  

Eduard Mörike - Karwoche

Eduard Mörike Karwoche (Holy Week)

O Woche, Zeugin heiliger Beschwerde!

Du stimmst so ernst zu dieser Frühlingswonne, 

Du breitest im verjüngten Strahl der Sonne

Des Kreuzes Schatten auf die lichte Erde, 

Und senkest schweigend deine Flöre nieder; 

Der Frühling darf indessen immer keimen, 

Das Veilchen duftet unter Blütenbäumen

Und alle Vöglein singen Jubellieder. 

O schweigt, ihr Vöglein auf den grünen Auen! 

Es hallen rings die dumpfen Glockenklänge, 

Die Engel singen leise Grabgesänge; 

O still, ihr Vöglein hoch im Himmelblauen! 

Ihr Veilchen, kränzt heut keine Lockenhaare!

Euch pflückt mein frommes Kind zum dunkeln Strauße, 

Ihr wandert mit zum Muttergotteshause,

Da sollt ihr welken auf des Herrn Altare. 

Ach dort, von Trauermelodieen trunken, 

Und süß betäubt von schweren Weihrauchdüften,

Sucht sie den Bräutigam in Todesgrüften, 

Und Lieb' und Frühling, alles ist versunken!

O week ! Witness of the Passion of Christ, you seem so grim in joyful Springtime. The sun's rays awaken new growth, but you cast the shadow of the Cross over the earth as it warms. 

You cast a silent shroud while Spring renews life all round.  Sweet violets waft their scent under trees laden with blossom, while birds sing songs of jubilation.    

Be still, you birds of the verdant meadow. Heed the muffled church bells ring. Angels are singing songs of mourning  Be still, you birds in the blue heavens ! 

Violets, don't display your lovely looks, or pious children will pick you for sorrowful wreaths.  You'll then be brought to the house of the Mother of God, and wither on the altar of the Lord.  

And there, intoxicated with tearful melodies, and suffocated by the heavy perfume of incense, you will seek your bridegroom in the vaults of the tomb. Life, and Spring , all forsaken !

Nodding and Laughing....Not !

photo: Phillip Halling

His thoughts dropped back Through eighteen years, and he again saw Jack 

At the old home beneath the Malvern hills, A little fellow plucking daffodils,

A little fellow who could scarcely walk, Yet chuckling as he snapped each juicy stalk

And held up every yellow bloom to smell, Poking his tiny nose into the bell

And sniffing the fresh scent, and chuckling still As though he'd secrets with each daffodil.

Ay, he could see again the little fellow In his blue frock among that laughing yellow,

And plovers in their sheeny black and white Flirting and tumbling in the morning light

About his curly head: he still could see, Shutting his eyes, as plain as plain could be,

Drift upon drift those long-dead daffodils Against the far green of the Malvern hills,

Nodding and laughing round his little lad, As if to see him happy made them glad

— Nodding and laughing ...

They were nodding now, The daffodils, and laughing — yet somehow

They didn't seem so merry now
 ... And he

Was fighting in a bloody trench maybe
 For very life this minute

... They missed Jack, And he would give them all to have him back.

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson (1878-1962)  "Daffodils"

photo : Roger Thomas

Morgen kommt der Aschermittwoch

Ernst Hanfstängl (1840 Dresden 1897 Capri) Aschermittwoch aus unserer Rubrik

Am Aschermittwoch ist alles vorbei, die Schwüre von Treue sie brechen entzwei Von all deinen Küssen darf ich nichts mehr wissen Wie schön es auch sei dann ist alles vorbei Trink auf die Freude, denn heut ist heut das was erfreut, hat noch nie gereut fülle mit Leichtsinn dir den Pokal  Karneval, Karneval - Jupp Schmitz, popular song from the 50's.

Ash Wednesday is an important day in the liturgical calender.  Palm cRosses which marked the previous Holy Week are burned, preparing the way for the next, but the symbolism goes deeper.  "Dust to dust, ashes to ashes". So much for the vanities of this material world . We're all going to end up in smoke. Which is why Easter matters: it offers hope and some form of meaning.  In medieval  tradition, fasts were broken by feasting, drinking and excess. "Eat, drink and be merry while you can"  Because good times may not come again.  So excess and wild abadon are haunted. When you wake with a hangover, you know about Hell.  Perfect material for Heinrich Heine.

Dieser Liebe toller Fasching, Dieser Taumel unsrer Herzen,

 Geht zu Ende, und ernüchtert Gähnen wir einander an! 

 Ausgetrunken ist der Kelch, Der mit Sinnenrausch gefüllt war, 

Schäumend, lodernd, bis am Rande; Ausgetrunken ist der Kelch. 

Es verstummen auch die Geigen, Die zum Tanze mächtig spielten, 

 Zu dem Tanz der Leidenschaft; Auch die Geigen, sie verstummen. 

 Es erlöschen auch die Lampen, Die das wilde Licht ergossen 

 Auf den bunten Mummenschanz; Auch die Lampen, sie erlöschen.

 Morgen kommt der Aschermittwoch, Und ich zeichne deine Stirne 

Mit dem Aschenkreuz und spreche: Weib bedenke, daß du Staub bist.

(This lovely Fasching, this wild frenzy of our hearts. It's ending. Sobering up, we yawn at one another.  The cup's drained empty, which once intoxicated - foaming, flaming, overflowing the brim.  The violins are silent that once led the merry dance. (reference to the Devil)  The lamps are out, too, which gave light in the darkness for merry Mummenshanz (masked and costumed clown figures) .  Tomorrow it is Ash Wednesday and I'll mark your forehead with a cross of ash.  And whisper : Woman, think on it : You, too, are dust)

As far as I know this poem has only ever been set as a song once, by Wilhelm Killmayer, mentor of Wolfgang Rihm, part of Killmayer's eclectic and highly original traverse through Heine.  The piano introduction pounds, throbbing like a violent headache.  The vocal lines rise and break off suddenly into silence. The piano comments only in brief staccato flashes. A passage suggests a violin, playing in memory., and the vocal line is circular, like in a dance  The pace slows down, as f unwinding voice and piano alternating. The last strophe is striking. Like liturgical chant, it's dignified but plaintive, like an echo from the medieval past.  Killmayer substitutes the word "Menschen" for "Weibe". The last line is chant. Two phrases:  : "Mensch' bedenke"....."dass du Staub bist!"  Then the piano tolls single chords, like a funeral bell.  Get the CD here (Prégardien, Mauser)  and the score from Schott.

Goethe's März Lied

Es ist ein Schnee gefallen, 

denn es ist noch nicht Zeit, 

daß von den Blümlein allen 

wir werden hoch erfreut. 

 Der Sonnenblick betrüget

 mit mildem falschem Schein, 

die Schwalbe selber lüget,

 warum? Sie kommt allein! 

Sollt ich mich einzeln freuen, 

wenn auch der Frühling nah? 

Doch kommen wir zu zweien,

 gleich ist der Sommer da! 

Goethe

 Snow has fallen. It's not time yet for flowers to bring cheer.  The sun's rays seem mild but they're a trap.  Even the swallow is cheating. Why  Because he comes on his own !  When Spring is so close, could I ever be happy on my own  ?  Yet when the two of us are one, it will be Summer.forever.

Fingal, fantasy and creativity - Schubert and Ossian

Ossian on the banks of the Lora - Francois Gérard 1801

Despite inspiring some of the most sublime music ever written (Mendelssohn) and founding the Scottish tourist industry, Fingal was a fantasy.  Schubert set several texts attributed to Ossian, supposedly a 3rd century Celtic bard.

I've been listening to Loda's Gespenst D150 (1815). Der bleiche, kalte Mond erhob sich im Osten.  Fingal's soldiers sleep, their blue helmets glittering in the moonlight. But Fingal doesn't sleep. He looks toward Sarno's tower (see it in the pic?) . Suddenly ein Windstoß rips down from the mountains. It's the phantom Loda, umringt von seinen Schrecken.  Defiant, Fingal raises his sword. Schwach ist dein Schild, Kraftlos dein Luftbild und dein Schwert. You're a windbag, Loda! The text is heroic declamation - no ornamentation in the piano part, little lyricism in the vocal line.

Fingal defies Loda - Asmus Jacub Carsters 1754-98

Then Loda speaks. Ich dreh' die Schlacht im Felde der Tapfern.....Mein Odem verbreitet den Tod.  Fingal isn't fazed. His phrases are hurled like thunderbolts, Faß die Winde und fleuch! the piano pounds affirmation. Loda advances but Fingal spears him. Der blitzende Pfad des Stahls durchdrang den düstern Geist, and Loda disintegrates in a puff of smoke, and Fingal goes back to his men.  Considering the histrionic potential of this text, Schubert's setting is fairly straightforward. The lines aren't difficult to sing but the song runs around 12 minutes and needs a singer who can do drama without taking the mickey, because the poems were taken very seriously indeed, and were, in many ways, the germ from which grew the whole Romantic revolution .

In an age before widespread media coverage, Scotland and Ireland were wild, unknown regions, beyond civilization.  The Ossian poems captured the imagination because central Europeans could project their own concepts onto an exotic template.  Fingal and Ossian served a function like the gods of Classical Antiquity, as depicted in the 18th century blended with the concept of idealized Primitive Innocents, as in Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  Even if Mendelssohn realized that the poems weren't authentic, by travelling to Fingal's Cave, he was making a pilgrimage of sorts  to the source of an imaginary world where things could happen beyond the bounds of convention.  Names like "Carric-Thura" and "Sora" and "Comhal" thrilled, precisely because central Europeans didn't know what they meant, because they sounded wildly exotic.

This song is unusual because it's not strictly speaking by James Macpherson but by  Edmund, Baron  von Harold, born in Ireland, but resident in Düsseldorf from a very early age. When the craze for Ossian swept Europe, von Harold might have spotted an opportunity to "translate" yet more manuscripts that weren't lost so much as non-existent.  Indeed, it seems that von Harold didn't actually speak Gaelic, so his sudden discovery of Dark Age documents is improbable.  Fingal and Ossian represent the creative spirit, precursors of the 19th century fascination with strange lands and myths. So Loda was an apparition? Loda, Fingal and Ossian served a purpose even if they were fantasy. 

An inhabited Landscape : Ivor Gurney

 "An inhabited landscape", Ivor Gurney and his sensitivity to the human landscape around him, past and present. He was observer of the human legacy of place and time.  Philip Lancaster, Gurney scholar, gives a lecture at the British Academy HERE,  He describes Gurney's inspirations and motivations, with illustrations from readings from Gurney's poems and performances of Gurney's songs. Although the sound quality isn't good, the lecture itself is excellent, so persist, because this is a very significant contribution to Gurney studies. The lecture also sheds light on why Gurney went to war and what it meant to him. New material here, too.  For example, Lancaster goes into detail about Gurney's late work, with its epic vision.

C H Sorley A Swift Radiant Morning - Roderick Williams

Roderick Williams and Susie Allan  gave the world premiere of A Swift Radiant Morning commissioned for theThree Choirs Festival. Listen here, because it's an interesting work that extends the canon of British song. "A swift radiant morning" aptly describes Charles Hamilton Sorley, a young man of outstanding promise, killed by a sniper at Loos, seven months short of his 21st birthday.  At that age, few fulfil their potential, but  C H Sorley must have been quite a personality.  In this photo he stares at the camera without flinching, unfazed by the knowledge that he was going to war.  We can see why Sorley's father said "he looked upon the world with clear eyes , and the surface did not deceive him".
 
Sorley was in Trier when war was declared in 1914. On his return to England, he did his duty and joined the Suffolk Regiment . Yet in his poem To Germany, he writes of war with maturity way beyond his years. The poem is worth reading because it shows his inner strength. He could resist the hate games around him.  This lucid intelligence marks him out as a person with vision. Notice too his direct, yet highly distinctive, way with words. How he would have relished the freedoms of the 1920's and 1930's. Many good poets were destroyed by war - Wilfred Owen, Edward Thomas, Isaac Rosenberg and Ivor Gurney, but John Masefield said that Sorley was the greatest loss.

In A Swift Radiant Morning, Rhian Samuel (b 1944) sets two poems and four texts by Sorley, which has a bearing on her musical conception. Sorley left only 37 complete poems, but a large body of letters. They make fascinating reading, since Sorley was an acute observer and processed ideas with great originality.  Here's a link to the full collection of letters published in 1916. Letters are like a conversation, where one party speaks and the other responds. The voice leads, but the piano comments, unobtrusively. Sorley's texts are so expressive that the piano can't quite compete, but that's no demerit.  Samuel respects Sorley's syntax and turns of phrase, editing the longer texts with sensitivity.    Roderick Williams is an ideal interpreter, since he has the uncanny ability to make what he sings feel personal and direct. A natural match for CH Sorley !  At times, Samuel forces the voice above its natural range. Williams manages extremely well, but I wonder if this cycle could be transposed for tenor.  A Swift Radiant Morning is a well-crafted, sensitive work which deserves attention, and not just because the subject himself was so singular. I've subscribed to a source which features a lot of Rhian Samuel's work. Lots worth listening to.

At Hereford, Roderick Williams and Susie Allan also did Tim Torry's The Face of Grief (2003) to poems by Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) but the setting is minimal and the poems not  in the same league as Sorley's.  Please also read my piece on the rest of Roderick Williams's  recital, which highlighted Elgar's Sea Pictures, in the piano version, transposed for baritone. 

Hubert Parry's Jerusalem - more dangerous than you'd think

Jerusalem is so embedded in the British national consciousness that it seems to have been around forever. Yet Hubert Parry's setting of William Blake's poem was written and premiered only 100 years ago this month.  Simon Heffer has written an informative  account of its genesis in the Telegraph which is strikingly prescient in a Britain that's turning inward, embracing insular, xenophobic values that neither Blake, nor  Parry nor even Elgar would have countenanced.  In the UK, we're all immigrants apart from a few pure-bred Celts.

Jerusalem is interesting crossover, written and orchestrated by serious classical composers, which has taken on new life as an icon of popular culture. But what does it say about Britain when we read elsewhere, bluntly and without further elucidation, that  "Hubert Parry is famous for just this single work, he composed hugely influential chorales and symphonies". So Parry doesn't have street cred, but he's hardly unknown.  Jeremy Dibble's biography, C Hubert H Parry : His Life and Music was published in 1992. But just as Parry was getting the recognition he merits,  his reputation was commandeered into the PR machine of HRH the Prince of Wales. The real Parry, who wasn't a monarchist, doesn't deserve to be rebranded into that niche. Pushing Parry "back to the ghetto" of stereotype does no favours for British music history, nor indeed for national self respect.

 So for Parry, as well as for Britain, we should
".... not cease from Mental Fight, 
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand: 
Till we have built Jerusalem,
 In England's green & pleasant Land"

At this time of Brexit and UKIP pressure, we should also ponder what Jerusalem really means.  It is significant that Blake's first line starts with the word "And". Blake refers to the legend that Joseph of Arimathea came to England either before or after Jesus died, bringing with him a cutting from the bush from which was cut the Crown of Thorns used in the Crucifixion.  At Glastonbury today, there are hawthorn rtrees supposedly brought straight from Jerusalem where early Christians were being persecuted by the Romans.  Glastonbury is an ancient sacred site, connected to prehistoric religions and myth. The whole landscape can be "read" in mystical terms.So "those feet in ancient times", connect pre-Christian religion to the legend that Jesus himself escaped death. So the lines "And was the holy Lamb of God, On England's pleasant pastures seen? And did the Countenance Divine, Shine forth upon our clouded hills?".  Hardly orthodox.

 Blake lived in a period in which the Established Church  was being challenged by many other strands of Christianity, like the Primitive Methodists -- more radical than Wesley. Today's millennials don't have a patch on  millenarianism as it was in Blake's time.  The "dark Satanic mills" Blake mentions could refer, literally, to industrialization and the end of pastoral innocence, or to the machinations of temporal power.  We don't really know what future Blake envisioned, except that it would be apocalyptic. the "Bow of Burning Gold", the "Arrows  of desire", the "Spear" and "Chariot of Fire".. Yet there will be no rest til "Jerusalem", whatever that might be. is built in "England's green and pleasant Land".

On the Last Night of the Proms, and elsewhere, Jerusalem is sung with unquestioning fervour by huge crowds, armed with the certainity that doing something in a large group must mean it's right. The music is so stirring, and so emotive, that anyone can interpret it as suits them. Nothing wrong with that at all: in fact, I think it is actually better to leave things open ended than to go for simplistic dogma.  For me, being British means being heterodox, liberally embracing different strands of belief, standing up for the rights of man (and women).  In an increasingly intolerant world of willful ignorance and bigotry, maybe that's no bad thing. 
.

Auf eine Christblume Real life Eduard Mörike Magic

Auf eine Christblume : a poem by Eduard Mörike , set by Hugo Wolf at Percholdtsdorf in April 1888, encapsulates so much of the spirit of Mörike  that it's worth deep contemplation.  One evening in October 1841, Mörike  came across a rare bloom in a wintry graveyard, shining white and glorious in the gloom.  It was all the more miraculous to him because he had never seen such a flower before, especially in such a grim setting.  Being of an erudite bent like his friend the doctor/poet Justinius Kerner, he rushed home to check his botanical treatises and find out what the bloom was.  It was Helleborus Niger, the Christmas Rose, a flower of deep woods, rarely known in cultivation at the time. Here it was flowering out of season and out of context.  Mörike  put it in a glass just outside the window for he felt it needed to breathe out in the moonlight and in the free, open air.

 Next morning he found that the wind had ravaged it and it was no more than a lieblisches Geist ( a lovely ghost)..The poem grows out of the botanical journal, referring to the plant's natural habitat hidden deep in the woods, and commenting on the wonder of finding it in a windswept cemetery.  It is lily-like and exotic, yet hardy enough to brave the grim winter barrenness. Then Mörike's characteristic curiosity - whose grave was it growing on? how was it planted? He then connects the mystery of finding the flower with the wider realms of magic and wonder. Deep in the woods he finds the image of the crystal-clear pool, a "Heimat zaubbereich" ( epicentre of magic). This "Kind des Mondes, nicht der Sonne", so unlike other ordinary plants; is ephemeral and spreads its invisble magic by a heavenly scent which seems to emanate from no less than the robes of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mörike was a Lutheran pastor but he was known for his heterodox tolerance and married a Catholic.  Many of his poems show a fascination with the Virgin Mary, not necessarily in a purely theological context, as here where there's a strange juxtaposition of conventional piety  and pagan earth magic.

Mörike  enters a secret spirit world of elves and mystery. An elf, on his way to a wild midnight party, gazes in wonder at the glory of the mystical flower.  Then the poet makes another leap into transcendence. Now we are with the butterfly, another ephemeral being, hibernating in winter, waiting for spring, emerging from its chrysalis and flying bravely into the sun. It may never taste the wonder of the Christblumes's nectar, for by then the fragile flower will be no more.  Or will it? As Mörike says: Wer aber weiss? Perhaps, when the gaudy joys of summer are gone, and the butterfly too becomes a ghost, it might be drawn, in spirit, by the magical scent of the flower. This for me is a truly cosmic metaphor. A long ago commentator, von Weise, in his interpretation of this poem, says the mystery of all being is revealed in the image of this flower

As is typical of Mörike, there are metaphysical aspects to the poem. The flower emerges in the depths of winter, against all odds, braving darkness and freezing temperatures. The flower Mörike found was in an old graveyard, a cemetery so neglected that he couldn't figure out whose grave it was growing from. As a poet, he assumed that the grave may have been that of a young man or maiden,who died before their time, becoming immortalized, symbolically, in a fragile flower. In a sense that's a metaphor for all human life: a cycle of regeneration that never ends. 

I originally wrote this piece nearly twenty years ago. Amazingly, it's lasted fine. I was then working on ancient archives in a very hot part of South China,  Exhausted, and with no music or poetry around me, I unexpectedly came across an early edition of Mörike's poems!  It was like a sudden flash of magic, so uncanny that it took me a while to realize it wasn't a dream.  Opening the book to the page with Auf eine Christblume with its crisp, frosty imagery was like a sudden, sharp shock. In steamy, subtropical South China no Christblume will ever grow, though we have frangipani instead, and other exotics like Michaelia Alba (pikake)  whose  minute, unseen  flowers  fill the air with heady perfume,. So much like the mystery of the Christblume.  Pondering on the last two stanzas, I reflected on the mystery of how things which don't seem to have anything in common can find a correspondence, even if its on another plane than surface reality.  Good old Mörike! Magic does happen.

Benjamin Appl Eichendorff Lieder Wigmore Hall

Eager anticipation for Benjamin Appl's recital with Graham Johnson at the Wigmore Hall , since Appl is one of the most promising young singers around. Being a BBC New Generation Artist automatically rockets any performer to star status, though some have appealed more for their looks, youth and marketability than for their talent. Appl, though, is one of the genuine discoveries. He has real potetial.

For his Wigmore Hall recital, Appl sang an interesting programme of settings of poems by Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (1788-1853). Taken out of context, some of Eichendorff's poetry might seem simplistic, as the BBC continuity suggests, but Eichendorff was a highly influential thinker whose ideas shaped the spirit of the Romantic era. Nature, for the Romantics, wasn't an escape into Disneyesque fantasy. but an affirmation of elemental forces beyond the control of conventional ordered civilization.  Eichendorff's respect for pure, unspoiled Nature also reflected his spiritual beliefs.  Eichendorff was a devout Catholic, a member of a minority in the Prussian state.  As a social reformer,  Eichendorff was a progressive who revamped the Prussian education system, making it more open to all. Most definitely not a small "r" romantic daydreamer ! Throughout his writings run  deep themes like spirituality, tolerance and respect for humble yet genuinely noble values. How I wish this programme had included Verschweigene Liebe, one of Eichendorff's most magical poems, with its refrain that clarion call of the Romantic age, "Gedanken sind Frei!"

Much better, I think, a recital that deals with a single poet in relative depth than the usual sampler programmes that demonstrate a young singer's vocal range rather than his or her understanding of the underlying principles of the repertoire. Appl began with three Schumann Eichendorff settings Frühlingsfahrt (Op 45/2)  Der Einsiedler (Op 77/1) and  Der frohe Wandersmann Op 83/3).  
In  Eichendorff's Fruhlingsfahrt, two sturdy youths set forth, both striving for lofty things. One finds happiness in simple things. The other is seduced by the sirens of the deep and ends up a shattered wreck. Both Fruhlingsfahrt and Der frohe Wandersman show that  Eichendorff was fascinated by wilder shores even while he praises domesticity. His homilies to God are talismanic, for he intuits that creativity can be dangerous. An artist is driven by something greater than his own free will.  Happy Wanderer? No way.

Graham Johnson's accompaniment was steady rather than spectacular, giving Appl decent support.  Appl's voice is naturally interesting. . I've heard very vivid singing from him before, full of character and intelligence, so I hoped he'd take more risks with less-familiar repertoire.  The Mendelssohn Eichendorff settings are delicately refined and need expressiveness to bring out the innate strength beneath the surface elegance. Appl's Pagenlied moved thoughfully from noon-day meadow to evening serenade, and his Nachtlied responded to the liveliness in the paino part, and the text. Truly  "Will keiner mit mir munter sein?".  Wanderlied  burst with vigorous spirit.

It was good, too, to hear Brahms's settings of In der Fremde and Mondnacht for a change isntead of Schumann, for they illustrate the differences between the two composers. Schumann's settings are effervescent,but Appla and Graham Johnson showed how Brahms's more down to earth approach gives them solidity.  More characteristically "Brahmsian" were Parole and Anklänge, which reminded me of Brahms's Liebeslieder Walzer. Perhaps the more "folksy" element in the poems appealed to the composer, who wasn't as acutely attuned to literature as Schumann was.

Similarly, I suspect that Hans Pfitzner's appreciation of Eichendorff shaped his settings of the poems.  Fortunately, Appl and Johnson did not start their Pfitzner set with Der Gartner, written before 1896, and published in 1899.  Alas, it's leaden,  its heaviness bearing little relation to the subtle ideas in the poem. Pfitzner is far better suited to poems like In Danzig (from1907)  in which Eichendorff describes the city under moonlight.

"Dunkel Giebel, hohe Fenster,
Türme wie aus Nebel sehn.
Bleiche Statuen wie Gespenster
Lautlos an den Türen stehn."

Pfitzner's murky tone-painting colours the scene as if it were a painting from Caspar David Friedrich so effectively that it captures the discreetly hidden punchline embedded within the text :"Nur des Meeres fernes Rauschen.Wunderbare Einsamkeit!"  Typically of Eichendorff this portrait of the city is psychological rather than purely physical.  The poem dates from 1842.  Eichendorff almost certainly knew Heinrich Heine's mysterious Die Stadt, and Pfitzner must have known the masterpiece setting thereof.  Similazrly, Pfitzner's setting of Zum Abschied meiner Tochter describes a physical situation, the autumnal images in the poem nicely translated into sound, Yet again, though, Pfitzner underestimates the horror in the final strophe, disguised by mechanical images: 
 
"Die Gassen schauen nochnächtlich,
Es rasselt der Wagen bedächtig –
Nun plötzlich rascher der Trott
Durchs Tor in die Stille der Felder,
Da grüßen so mutig die Wälder,
Lieb Töchterlein, fahre mit Gott!

Probably no other composer set Eichendorff as brilliantly as Hugo Wolf (though I wouldn't, couldn't be without Schumann).  Wolf was so intent on expressing poems through music that he called his songs "poems", and wrote in bursts of frenzied inspiration.  Appl and Johnson could have devoted a whole recital to Wolf's Eichendorff songs, but they chose just five - Nachruf; Das Ständchen; Der Musikant; Der Scholar; and Der Freund. Perhaps they knew we'd heard these so many times that we'd be more interested in Mendelssohn, Brahms and Pfitzner for a change, and put their best efforts into creating their best performances there.  Appl does have the voice, and the intelligence, to do great things. I'd like to hear him be more daring, connecting to the intensity inherent in this poetry. I think he's got what it takes, but he needs to take risks.  The Romantic Revolution broke boundaries: we should heed its audacity.