Listening again to Franz Schreker's Die Geburtstag der Infantin (The Birthday of the Infanta) in both the 1908/9 original (Jürgen Bruns, Kammersymphonie Berlin, 1992) and in the Suite arranged in 1923, of which there are so many performances that it's pretty much standard repertoire. Recommended recordings are Gerd Albrecht and Lothar Zagrosek. This had me thinking aboutb the connections between the two Schreker versions, Schreker's Die Gezeichneten,(Please read more about that HERE) Zemlinsky's Der Zwerg, Wilde's short story, Velasquez's painting Las Meninas and the historical roots of the legend.
Schreker's Die Geburtstag der Infantin was commisioned by Grete and Elsa Wreisenthal, dancers in the "expressive" fashion of the time, an early 20th century rebellion against 19th century ballet. Think Ida Rubenstein and even the character Leni Riefenstahl played in Das blaue Licht rather than Diaghilev and the Ballets Russe. Schreker's original was thus described as "pantomime", and scored for chamber orchestra. The Suite was created for large orchestra, minus dancers and story line. the emphasis now is on the series of dances which work as "pure" music. The last two sections Die Rose and Der Spiegel are missing, for reasons unknown, which is a pity, since these are the punchline of the drama. The Infanta gives the dwarf a white rose : why does it mean so much to the dwarf ? When he sees himself in the mirror and realizes that it is his own reflection he dies of a broken heart.
The idea that music must be "romantic" when there's a big, lush orchestra isn't true. Romanticism with a big "R" refers to the intellectual movement that revolutionized 19th century thought, which impacted on social and political change and on all art forms.romanticism exploreed what we now call the Unconscious, and ideas about psychology before the term was invented. Thus the idea of the mirror, which incidentally exists in Velasquez's painting, where the artist is seen in the background as a reverse image. He's painting the scene yet is also part of the picture. In Velasquez's time, dwarves were no big deal at court, but for Wilde the story predicates on the Infanta who concludes "'For the future let those who come to play with me have no hearts!" So Schreker's suite revision of Die Geburtstag der Infantin should really be understood in context. Far from being slush romance, it has a very dark side, connecting to the taste for morbidity behind the spirit of the period, which found expression in many art forms, from Baudelaire to Wilde, to the Secession in Vienna and Munich, to Hugo von Hofmannstahl, to expressionism in painting and in the cinema. Schreker's Die Geburtstag der Infantin is also not a one-off. Schreker would develop the ideas in many later works, most obviously Die Gezeichneten, where the "dwarf figure", Salvago, creates a paradise which becomes a cover for depravity. What seems beautiful on the surface, just might not be so within. And vice versa - ugliness might conceal true inner beauty. Please read my analysis of the opera here.
And thus to Zemlinsky's Der Zwerg. Significntly, this was written 1919-1921, after Die Gezeichneten, which premiered in 1918, and at a period when Expressionist ideas were influencing art, film, music and literature. The libretto was written by Georg Klaren, adapting the story further, with multiple new connections. Alma Mahler and Franz Werfel (who'd been her partner since 1917) were interested too. The bucolic dwarf in Wilde's story is now a sophisticated composer "from the East", a snide reference to Zemlinsky's ancestry and his father's pretensions to nobility. But Klaren pointed out that the Court, for all its sumptuous riches, was "peopled with over-refined, decadent, not to say tainted characters" while the Dwarf represents a purer soul. There's much more to the opera than Alma, who had dumped Zemlinsky in 1902. By this stage Zemlinsky was successful and married to Luise, a woman almost the reverse image of Alma, and in many ways had sublimated his feelings for Alma in art. As Anthony Beaumont writes, Der Zwerg was like a coffin "to borrow the imagery of Dichterliebe - in which his love and pain were laid to rest". Perhaps the ghosts of the dwarf and those who hurt him are thus buried. Zemlimnsky's next major work was the Lyric Symphony, a masterpiece which breaks new ground musically and in terms of subject. Please read more about that HERE and alsoHERE
A very unusual concert last month at Royaumont in the L'Île-de-France,"Jardins d'amour", for all three pieces deal with gardens, lushness and enchantment. - Mahler Blumine, Wagner Good Friday Music and Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony with the Secession Orchestra, conducted by Clément Mao-Takacs with soloists Stéphane Degout and Elsa Dreisig, now on France Musique. Royaumont, despite its royal connections, was a Cistercian monastery, not quite the place for full-scale Wagner, or Zemlinsky or Mahler, so this was an opportunity for close-up, detailed listening.
It was also a good way to hear Mahler's orphan Blumine (1884) written as incidental music for the play Der Trompeter von Sakkingen, now lost. At first, he incorporated it into his Symphony no 1, but discarded it. It wasn't published together with the symphony, and was also thought lost until Donald Mitchell discovered the manuscript in 1967. Though it does get played, it doesn't really fit well with the symphony, so is generally heard as a stand-alone. It's a very early piece which has its charms but is also rather slight. As Prof. Henry-Louis de La Grange said, soon after the discovery,"It is the music of a late-nineteenth-century Mendelssohn, pretty, charming, lightweight, urbane, and repetitious, just what Mahler’s music never is." All the more reason for enjoying it as an entrée. The instrumentation is so spare that it's effectively a chamber piece anyway. The horn call, which will become a Mahler signature, rises above a shimmering background of strings, til it's joined by oboe, clarinet and flutes in serenade. Eventually the textures thin out, with a long high note hanging in the air. Wagner's Good Friday Music from Parsifal fares less well in chamber reduction. Though it's suitably reverential it's not easy to capture the power of the original. Nonetheless it connects well with the theme of regeneration central to Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony, the highlight of this programme, in the 2012 arrangement by Thomas Heinisch. .
Regeneration and renewal, the handing on of enlightenment, even after death. Although Zemlinsky's music is lush, Tagore's texts don't depict a love affair in the usual romantic sense. The music is sensual, but the longing here is for higher goals than earthly lust. At the end, the Prince sings Ich halte meine Lampe in die Höhe, um dir auf deinen Weg zu leuchten. (I hold my lamp up high to light your way. .Lovers must part, for life has a higher purpose.). Zemlinsky compared this work to Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde , wishful thinking on his part since there really aren't many points oif comparison apart from the exotic setting.. But what they do share is the idea that things go on, even when one generation gives way to the next. Please read my piece on what is still the finest recording of the work : Eschenbach, Goerne, Schafer. I've written lots on this symphony and composer.
Thus the piece adapts well to chamber arrangement where the emphasis goes towards essential meaning, as opposed to lushness for its own sake, which throws some performances way off beam. No problem here, with cleaner textures, and the soloists, Elsa Dreisig and Stéphane Degout, whose clear, pure baritone captures the images of light in the text. This new arrangement, published by Schott, should have a place in performing spaces where a full orchestra isn't feasible, because it's very true to the original.
Heinisch writes "To my surprise, it was relatively easy to arrange the first three movements for ensemble, as the orchestra never goes beyond the traditional four-part harmony, with a texture that – interestingly enough – is closer to Brahms than, for instance, to Schönberg. From an instrumentation perspective, the exquisite slow fourth movement “Sprich zu mir, Geliebter” (Speak to me, my love) in the middle of the work poses a challenge, given the subtle separation of the string parts. As the string parts are not played by several instrumentalists, it was necessary to assign some of them to the harmonium or accordion (either can be used in my version). I feel that this movement has lost none of its mysterious charm through this alteration. It was also necessary to make changes to the short yet massive fifth movement. By introducing the shrill E-flat clarinet, which does not feature at all in the original, Ihave attempted to do justice to the abrasiveness and corporeality of this movement."
Zemlinksy Lyric Symphony Prom 62, with Simone Young and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. But first, BBC researchers should wake up and realize that this symphony is NOT rare! There are numerous recordings, and many performances, including Salonen and Jurowski in London in recent years, and many others which I haven't written about. Even three previous Proms performances. Perpetuating the myth that the Lyric Symphony is a rarity is counter-productive because it fools audiences into accepting mediocrity when there are so many excellent performances to explore. This symphony is such a masterpiece that it's shameful how clichés have got in the way of insight.
Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony was written in 1926-7, at a time of groundbreaking creative change. That the texts come from Tagore is no accident. Tagore was a literary superstar, at a time when western culture was more open to change and alien influences than ever before. The Exotic East represented new, unknown frontiers . Zemlinsky was doing what Debussy, Stravinsky and Ravel had done before him, and also drawing on a long-standing German fascination with Asia. Tagore was popular in progressive circles because his rejection of materialism ran counter to the values of a a western world that had been shaken to its foundations by war and revolution. Embracing Tagore's spirituality was a kind of liberation. By using Tagore as the basis of this symphony, Zemlinsky is doing more than
adopting pseudo-oriental exoticism. Zemlinsky used a large orchestra, rich with colour and texture, not to look backwards. The ending does not represent resignation. "Ich halte meine Lampe in die Höhe, um dir auf deinen Weg zu leuchten". I hold my lamp up high to light you on your way. Zemlinsky, like the Prince, is looking forwards, toward directions unknown. The Lyric Symphony deals with love, but it is by no means a romantic symphony: the protagonist move on, and apart. The Alma Mahler connection is also very much over-rated. So beware of heavy-handed "romantic" interpretations, more suited to Hollywood than to a key work of the 20th century. Just as Zemlinsky recognized the clear-sighted non-sentimentality in Tagore's texts, so too should performance be based on clarity and intellectual precision.
Anthony Beaumont, the paramount Zemlinsky authority, without whose work Zemlinsky studies would be nowhere, wrote in his analysis of this symphony that “often the singers are engulfed in a dark forest of orchestral filigree work. In performance, the score requires Mozartian grace and precision. For all its abandon, this music reveals its true beauty and power only if performed with discipline and cool headed restraint”.
Simone Young's approach to Zemlinsky will no doubt be praised because it meets audience expectations, some shaped by unidiomatic performances and by the kind of clichés the BBC regurgitates. But audience expectations are fatal to art. A good conductor should work from the score, to find new insight, even though these days some audiences don't want change so much as processed consumer product. Young's Zemlinsky is straightforward, earthbound, without much connection to the originality of the piece. The BBC SO is far too good an orchestra to "engulf" the soloists as Beaumont warned, though at this Prom the soloists, Siobhan Stagg and Christopher Maltman, could have done with more cover from the "forest". Maltman was not on best form, his voice not quite lithe enough to finesse the trickier passages in the part. While the female voice in this symphony portrays a very young girl, youth itself is not enough. Siobhan Stagg is very young, her voice pretty enough but rather shrill at times. The Girl she's singing is made of such strong stuff that the Prince knows he's met someone who will surpass him. Nonetheless, Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony is such a wonder that those who liked this Prom would do well to listen further, to Chailly and to Eschenbach, and pray that Salonen does it again with good soloists.
Baiba Skride was the soloist in Mozart's Violin Concerto No 5 in A major, K219, Turkish. Her playing has personality, well suited to the quirky nature of the piece. Here the BBC SO shone, rising to Skride's agile enticements.
Throughout this Proms season, there have been odd mismatches between performers and repertoire,. Though Bayan Northcott's Concerto for Orchestra, commissioned for the BBC SO, is well within their natural territory, I felt it might need time to settle It's a good piece with lots of interest, perhaps too much to absorb without many hearings, which hopefully it will receive.
Marc André Hamelin was the soloist in Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto no 3 with Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, this week. Hamelin and Rachmaninov were clearly the crowd puller, and rightly so, for it was a very fine performance indeed, well poised and expressive. Hamelin and Jurowski play to each other's strengths. I enjoyed it very much, but for me the draw was Alexander Zemlinsky Die Seejungfrau (1905)
Although Die Seejungfrau (The Mermaid) was loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen's story of the Little Mermaid, don't expect Disneyfied prettiness. The tale is tragic and, for Zemlinsky, had personal resonance. Even the most charitable would not call Zemlinsky good-looking, while Alma Schindler was so beautiful as to be almost unattainable: the mermaid and the prince, sexes reversed. Alma dumped Zemlinsky overnight, when better prospects came her way. Losing Alma might have been the best thing to happen to Zemlinsky. The pay-offs included Der Traumgörge, The Florentine Tragedy and Der Zwerg. The mermaid tries to kill the prince she cannot imitate. The dwarf cannot become what he is not however hard he tries to pretend. But by creating works of genuine originality, Zemlinsky proved that he was no ugly dwarf.
Jurowski captured the menacing depths in the introduction. Small, sparkling figures served to highlight the sinister gloom. The violin melody suggests the upward movement of the mermaid swimming upward: the LPO playing with energetic sense of purpose. Jurowskiu didn't bask too long in the sunshine. the urgent, almost violent theme which might represent the prince as huntsman churned up dissonance. Already we know this fairy tale will end in death. Jurowski and the orchestra delineated the churning undercurrents. Frequent turbulent contrasts between lyricism and violence. Jurowski didn't steer clear of the innate ugliness lurking within. The two-minute Sea Witch passage unearthed and edited by Anthony
Beaumont makes a difference, intensifying the violence and the ultimate
tragedy. Jurowski's interpretation is even more perceptive than Riccardo Chailly's 1996 recording, which leaves all the others for dead.
Jurowski's background as opera conductor helps greatly, too, for he emphasizes the inherent drama in the orchestration. Jurowski's Die Seejungfrau is an opera where the orchestra sings. It's vivid in a cinematic way without being maudlin or sentimental.
Descending diminuendos prepare us for the final confrontation. Jurowski lets sounds surge forth, yet holds it back, creating extreme tension. The LPO play with such richness that you could feel the intensity of her loss. Had she had legs instead of a fishtail, she might have been a princess, but in her sacrifice, she finds Isolde-like transfiguration.
High hopes for Vladimir Jurowski's Zemlinsky Lyric Symphony with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall tonight :after a wonderful performance of Peter Eötvös Shadows. It was an unusual set up - soloists in the centre of the orchestra, brass and winds backwards to the audience, so their sound was naturally oblique. A large ensemble, yet conducted with such sensitivity that Eötvös's gossamer textures shone beautifully.
Similar refinement for Liszt's Piano Concerto no 2. Alexander Markovich isn't the most restrained of pianists, but tonight he seemed transformed. Beautiful lambent passagework, well integrated into the orchestra, superbly well judged.
Jurowski is a master of fine detail and balance, which can be virtues with pieces like Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony where so much is happening throughout the huge ensemble. On the other hand, too much attention to detail blurs lines and dulls colours. Zemlinsky structured the symphony, of alternating song and orchestral interlude. It's almost a series of concentric circles, each section in its own orbit, but given horizontal coherence by short snatches of theme that return, as if in cyclic motion. In Indian cosmology, the Sacred Wheel is the symbol of time and growth, erosion and renewal. Thus Zemlinsky incorporates the gist of Tagore's text into the very substance of his music. Like a wheel, the Lyric Symphony surges forward as its sections turn, but the movement needs to be made clear rather than submerged in detail.
Melanie Diener was excellent. The fourth song is in many ways the critical moment in the whole symphony. Diener understood that the voice should sound young and fragile, but it's also powerful, for it represents the future. That combination of vulnerability and forcefulness isn't easy. The Lyric Symphony is infinitely more than a sex romp, just as Das Lied von derr Erde is more than a hymn to alcohol abuse.
Zemlinsky is careful to emphasize the still, watchful mood, so the words Sprich zu mir, Geliebter penetrate, even though they're quietly enunciated.Around the words, he writes detail - stings and weinds murmuring like the trees in the text, but critically they are background, receding into the distance. The beauty of the moment is lost when the background intrudes on the voice.
Thomas Hampson showed the gravitas of greater age, which isn't at all inappropriate in this music. He made his final lines glow with meaning : Ich halte meine Lampe in die Höhe, um dir auf deinem Weg zu leuchten. An artist like Hampson always has something to show us. Jurowski had much better soloists than Salonen had two years ago when he conducted Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony with the Philharmonia. Yet Salonen's reading was more focused, although his orchestra needed much more rehearsal time, having exhausted themselves into a magnificent Gurrelieder shortly before. I5 rem9nded me of old recordings where technical stanadrds are poor, but there's verve.
Orchestrally, what would have helped Jurowski and the LPO was less attention to minutiae, more to the overall dynamics. Rich as Zemlinsky's textures are they're not Hollywood so much as delicately transparent washes, c9ontrasted with moments of glory. Träume laasen sich nicht eingefangen (Dreams don't let them selves be captured). As Jurowski demonstrated in Liszt and Eötvös, he can do gossamer beautifully, so why not apply the restraint to Zemlinsky? Details are wonderful,, but when they're all over polished and given equal weight, textures become congested and hold up flow. The Wheel should move forward easily, not become enthralled to its own beauty.
Please look at my numerous posts on Zemlinsky, (Here on LS, a symphony I lived with and loved for years) Jurowski, Mahler, Schoenberg and related composers. PLENTY on this site, take the time to explore.
Thinking again about Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony, pulled out the Eschenbach recording again and it still gives me goosebumps. It was the first recording to use Anthony Beaumont's revised edition based on the manuscript, as opposed to what was previously published. This alone gives it an edge over the nearest contender, Riccardo Chailly (and Eschenbach's soloists are the best in the business). Because it's the smallish Capriccio and not one of the Big Bucks labels, it doesn't get the marketing it deserves. Anway here's what I wrote about the recording when it came out fresh. If anything, my admiration has deepened with time.
"It's groundbreaking because it's informed by recent discoveries about Zemlinsky and his style. Anthony Beaumont is the most perceptive of Zemlinsky scholars. His research into Zemlinsky's ideas and methods resulted in a complete re-edition of the score, revealing its true, lucid beauty.
In the 1920’s, Tagore was wildly popular in progressive circles because his rejection of materialism ran counter to the values of the time. Remember, India was still a colony. Embracing Tagore's spirituality was a kind of liberation. By using Tagore as the basis of this symphony, Zemlinsky is doing more than adopting pseudo-oriental exoticism. He knew what Tagore represented. He's not looking backward, but forward.
This performance shows with penetrating clarity just how imaginative Zemlinsky’s writing was. No muddy meandering here. Eschenbach and his soloists have thought the whole symphony through. This is an interpretation with vivid insights, gained not only from the score itself, but informed by an understanding of the music of his time.
Thus those rich drum rolls that lead into the symphony announce things to come, as drum rolls should be – quite literally a “curtain raiser” for a cosmic adventure. Immediately, refreshingly clear brass introduce the three note figure that recurs in myriad guises through the whole symphony. Then, softly, out of the orchestra, the baritones voice enters, quietly but with intense depth and feeling. “Ich bin friedlos” (a variant of the three note figure). Goerne is just over forty, still not at the peak of his powers, and yet it’s hard to imagine any singer delivering such authority and nuance to these words. The way he curls his voice around the vowels is utterly delicious – Meine Seele schweift in Sensucht, den Saum der dunkeln Weite zu berühten. You don’t need a word of German to enjoy the richness of his tone.
Berühten, becalmed. Yet this music is anything but listless. It reflects the overwhelming “thirst” in the text for distant, unknown horizons and the “Great Beyond”. Goerne sings Ich bin voll Verlangen with eagerness, then shapes the next words “und wachsam” with warm, rounded, sensuality. It’s delicious to hear two different, but valid feelings, in the space of a few seconds. Make no mistake, this music is about seeking, striving for something yet unknown, which grows from a pool of stillness.
A lovely skittish violin solo introduces the second movement. Schäfer’s voice with its pure, light quality expresses youth better than most of the sopranos who’ve sung this part. She may sound almost breathless with excitement, but she’s far too assured a singer to lose the musical line, Mutter, der junge…. the vowels underline each other., opening out. For the first time we hear an almost Bergian leap in the voice, when Zemlinsky decorates the line Zieg mir, wie soll mein Haar… Both the image and the sudden leap will recur later in the symphony. For the moment, Schäfer colours it with warmth, as though blossoming into womanhood before our ears. The music illustrating the exotic procession is one of the rare overtly “oriental” touches Zemlinsky indulges in. In the tumultuous postlude, the full orchestra surges forth, complete with drums and cymbals, yet the echoes of the three note theme gradually assert themselves as the soprano song blends seamlessly into the next baritone entry. There’s no narrative, we never discover how the girl and prince meet, if they do at all. The erotic tension and waves of sound owe much to Wagner, but also to Berg and Schoenberg. Goerne’s singing in the third movement is some of the most beautiful in the whole symphony. It is quite breathtakingly sensitive and nuanced. Du bist mein Eigen, mein Eigen, he repeats, each time with intense, but nuanced feeling. These notes, too, are repeated throughout the symphony.
The fourth movement, expands the symphony into new territory. Again, an exquisite violin solo sets the mood, which deepens with cellos and violas. Schäfer’s voice cleanly rings out Spricht’s du mir Speak to me! The line here is tender, yet also discordant, with frequent sudden leaps in pitch which are decidedly modern. So, too, is the indeterminate tonality, creating at once lushness and unreality. The music seems to hover as if it were the stuff of dreams and unconscious. It’s atmospheric, pure chromatic impressionism. There are murmurs of Spricht’s du mir, and again the painfully beautiful violin, and sinister, dark woodwind. This song is sensual, but it’s no excuse for sentimental indulgence, and the orchestra plays with well judged reticence. . It is, after all, a movement about the silence of intimacy. Nur die Bäume werden im Dunkel flüstern (only the trees will whisper in the dark),
The fanfare with which the fifth movement starts seems to drive away the strange mood that had prevailed before. It may seem relatively conventional music but this is emotionally amorphous territory. When the sixth movement starts, there’s no mistaking the modernism here. Horn and bass clarinet inject a darker, discordant mood. Schäfer’s extensive experience in new music means she copes effortlessly with those sudden tonal swoops while still keeping sensual beauty. She makes “mein gierigen Hände” sound genuinely eager. This is Ewartung, minus the harsh dementia, and all the more complex for that. The mood is rocked by rhythmic melody, as the singer becomes aware Träume lassen sich nicht eingefangen (dreams can’t be made captive). Only then does the voice rise in horror, punctuated by a single, fatal drumstroke. Has it all been an illusion ? It’s not clear, nor on what level, but that’s what makes it so intruiging. Zemlinsky wisely leaves the ideas floating. Instead, he lets the music segue, mysteriously, into the final movement.
This final song is full of interpretative possibilities. The protagonist accepts that the affair is at an end, yet is dignified and positive. Lass es nicht eine Tod sein, sondern Vollendung (let it not be a death, but completeness). Even love is sublimated in creative rebirth. Lass Liebe in Erinn’rung schmelzen und Schmerz in lieder. Let love ache and melt in memory, in song. The dignified calm with which Goerne sings confirms that the protagonist has reached that “Great Beyond” he sang of in the first movement and has found the horizons he sought.. This time, the violin returns, playing a sweet, plaintive melody. while the orchestra echoes the word Vollendung, Vollendung. Then there’s another transition. A warmer note, like a breeze, enters on the strings, and the wavering halftones resolve from minor, gradually, to major. With infinite depth , Goerne sings that last phrase Ich halte meine Lampe in die Höhe, um dir auf deinen Weg zu leuchten. I hold my lamp up high to light your way. .Lovers must part, for life has a higher purpose. “zu leuchten” is sung with such goodwill, that you feel that whoever embarks on the next phase will be going armed with knowledge and faith gained by those who care enough to light them on their way. The postlude is led by a distant woodwind, a reference to the flute that called in the very beginning of this journey. There are echoes, too, of the Du bist mein Eigen theme, emphasizing the sense of fulfilment. Gradually the wavering half tones resolve, and the music moves from minor to major, concluding in another shimmering plane of colour. .
Anthony Beaumont, in his analysis of the symphony, said “often the singers are engulfed in a dark forest of orchestral filigree work. In performance, the score requires Mozartian grace and precision. For all its abandon, this music reveals its true beauty and power only if performed with discipline and cool headed restraint”. Eschenbach recognizes its profoundly spiritual qualities, keeping the textures clear, letting them shimmer through unsullied. It’s the very purity of the orchestral playing that sheds light on the dynamics of the scoring. The soloists voices complement each other perfectly, and are in turn complemented by the elegance of the orchestral sound."
Lots more on the Lyric tymphony, Zemlinsky, Etc on this site, please explore.
Next week, Vladimir Jurowski's conducting Alexander Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony with the LPO at the South Bank. It will be fun to compare it with Esa-Pekka Salonen's glowing account with the Philharmonia in 2009.
There's a lot more to this symphony than often assumed. Zemlinsky himself compared it to Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde but that was wishful thinking on his part. Both use exotic themes and merge song with orchestra, but structurally and conceptually they're different. Indeed, I think the more you know both works, the more they seem to diverge. The world changed drastically in the 15 years between the two pieces. Zemlinsky was caught up in the fashionable esoteric circles of the post-war years like many others seeking an alternative to ruined Europe. Much wiser, then, to discard the old Mahler canard and think about what makes the Lyric Symphony unique on its own terms.
Even in terms of Zemlinsky's output as a whole, the Lyric Symphony stands out, like a sudden effloresence blazing out in a sudden flash of glory. And what does the Lyrisches mean? Zemlinsky uses a German translation of Tagore which to Europeans in the 1910's and 20's represented "ancient eastern wisdom". Musically, too, it's daring, as if Zemlinsky's approaching iunknown shores. Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin, Szymanowski, Janáček, all adventuring into new worlds wherre mainstream western traditions don't apply. Later in life, Zemlinsky experiments with jazz but nothing like the wild freedom that inspired the Lyric Symphony.
To assess any performance, it helps to know the piece well, and its context and background. I originally learned the Lyric Symphony from the Bernhard Klee/BRSO recording from 1982 with Duesing and Söderström. She's wonderful, but the rest doesn't really hold together so well. There are several very good recordings and one major dud. Recommended: Eschenbach, Orchestre de Paris, Goerne and Schafer. This one's based on Beaumont's lucid edition, and shines with spirituial and musical conviction. Chailly, Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Marc, Hagegård, is also excellent. The ancient Gabriele Ferro recording with Nimsgern and Dorothy Dorow is worth searching for as it's gloriously over the top. You also need to know Anthony Beaumont's recording because Beaumont knows what he's doing and has insight. Orchestra and soloists are OK but don't come near Eschenbach and Chailly. The dud is Conlon, but that in itself illustrates the significance of this symphony in the wider spread of Zemlinsky's music. Conlon immersed himself in the composer's work, but the Lyrisches escapes him.
Also, read Beaumont's biography of Zemlinsky, which is the benchmark, extremely well researched and analyzed. There is another more recent book, which doesn't come remotely near in terms of quality. Not recommended, not even as an introduction. and unless you know Beaumont, you can't assess the new book properly. Beaumont's book is not at all difficult to read but is not at all superficial. It's based a real understanding of the background and sources, so is an reliable, balanced work for general background as well as for Zemlinsky. Beaumont sets the best case for Zemlinsky, man and musician in his own right. He's much more interesting than the "late Romantic" pseudo-Mahler label would suggest. The Lyric Symphony is very much a work of its time - the 1920's - and should be assessed in proper historical context. Zemlinsky, after all, was extremely well connected, and knew Schoenberg, Korngold, Schreker, Berg and so on. (LOTS on this site, and in depth about these composers and this periiod, one of my specialities)
The Dream Team of Wolfgang Holzmair and Imogen Cooper gave the keynote recital in the Wigmore Hall's Schumann year celebration of German song. Having been to nearly all their recitals since 1998 I gave this a miss but maybe I should have gone after all. Richard Fairtman at the FT reviewed it. The Kerner Lieder aren't unloved, except by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who had problems with the extremely high tessitura in sections like the young nun in Stirb, Lieb' und Freud', so he only recorded it I think twice, making DFD fans think it's less valued. It's unfair, as this is one of Schumann's most tightly constructed cycles, as full of interrelationships as a miniature symphony. Tenors sing it beautifully (Gilchrist at the Wigmore Hall in September) but it's also a favourite with baritones such as Matthias Goerne who can bring out the layers of spookiness as well as the innate musical logic.
In fact, Holzmair is one of the great Kerner-Lieder exponents. His recording - also with Imogen Cooper - is one of the essentials in the discography. Holzmair's voice is naturally light and sweet-toned, so he makes the cycle flow beautifully, so you realize it's almost a whole piece rather than a group of songs. Get it and hear why Schumann's Kerner-Lieder are so significant.
What also makes this recording significant is that Holzmair and Cooper include songs by Clara Schumann on the disc, on equal terms with the more famous Robert Schumann songs. They'd been championing Clara for years before this 2002 recording, so the songs are about as sympathetically done as you could expect. Clara was a pianist, so devoted to her work that to some extent she resented being pregnant and feeding because it took her away from her music. Robert and Clara were so close that they kept a joint diary (with code for intimacy), so her songs were an extension of this closeness. I've often wondered, though, why she didn't write more pieces for solo piano, since that was her instrument par excellence. Robert did, of course, and she played him all round Europe. But she was one of the great virtuoso megastars of her time, with a glittering international career, and contemporary with some very big names like Franz Liszt. So one dreams.
Also on the Wigmore Hall programme was Aribert Reimann’s Nachtstück which Holzmair has made an icon. It's on his 2003 CD (also with Imogen Cooper). This too is a classic, because Holzmair worked the programme around Freiherr von Eichendorff the Prussian Catholic poet and civil servant. The disc includes relatively little known Eichendorff settings such as those by Robert Franz, Zemlinsky, Korngold, Pfitzner and Othmar Schoeck. The different settings enhance the poems yet also show how each composer functions. Alas, I really don't like Reimann's Nachtstück (one of the reasons I steered clear of the WH recital) Reimann was closely associated with Fischer-Dieskau and I want to like his work, but sometimes things don't click. OTOH I adore Hans Werner Henze's Nachtstück und Arien (Michaela Kaune sings) but that's a whole other story.
The real "Alma Problem" isn't Alma herself so much as the sentimentalized, indiscriminate way the myth distorts real understanding. It's fair enough that Sarah Connolly should be writing an article in the Guardian, since she's singing five of Alma's songs on Sunday. Publicity like that's OK. What's not so good is that taking the image at face value fuels the myth that Alma was somehow more than she was. This impacts on music and art history, so before the myth snowballs even further it might be time to be objective and see past the glitz.
Alma Mahler is popular because she's a style icon. Secession Vienna has become so commercialized that it's instantly recognizable on tea towels, posters, etc. Yet the whole point of the Secession movement was to move away from the commercial establishment. Secession ideas started in Munich ten years before they reached Vienna. In Vienna they hybridized with local taste for rococo kitsch and Johann Strauss. Unfortunate the chocolate coating's now turned to cement. But it sells these days where style is more important than substance. Read Waldemar Januszczak who described Gustav Klimt as "a pygmy seen through a microscope".
Alma herself was acutely aware of creating an image. At an early age she learned to use her beauty as a weapon. She grew up in an atmosphere of iniquity, her father figure her mother's lover. Then she pushed herself towards Alexander Zemlinsky, the ugliest man she could find, dazzling him blind. All her life she set out for men she could enslave. She hated Jews yet married them - a power game? Fancying herself intellectual she picked on talented men, then belittled their work. She loved being Mahler's muse and the status it brought. While he lay dying, she carried on with Gropius. Sure, she told Gropius she would stand by Mahler, but he was sick and old. Her last marriage seemed to work, because Werfel knew his place. In her old age, Alma tried seducing young gay men. Warning lights!
Nowadays we know enough to spot the signs. Manipulative, narcissistic people don't value others because they don't value themselves. Alma used sex but she probably didn't really love. Even Anna, her daughter with Mahler, married young to get away. Growing up in a louche household, Alma was steered inappropriatelty towards roués like Klimt. Was she sexually abused?
All the warning signs are there, from early on. That would explain a lot. Alma always seems more interested in pursuit than in relationships, like an animal always springing free before she's caught. Maybe she couldn't really love without strings because she didn't love herself.
Look at the painting above, Oskar Kokoschka's Tempest, now known as The Bride of the Wind, subject of a shallow BBCTV documentary this week. Crazy swirls all round: The man is stressed, ugly, protecting the woman. But she couldn\t care less. She's blissfully wrapped up in her own dreams.
Then there's Alma's art. Everyone knows that Mahler told her before they married that he wanted a wife, not a competitor. After she was unfaithful, he went overboard to win her back, debasing himself, howling on the floor, in her account. Freud told Mahler that Alma had a father complex, which again gives credence to the sex abuse theory, her absent father and her faithlesss mother. No wonder Mahler compensates, publishing some songs, after revising them, or more likely Zemlinsky's earlier revisons. Fact is, Mahler didn't suppress Alma's art. She continued to take lessons (including with Zemlinsky), Altogether, fewer than 20 songs, some incomplete. Many women have overcome much greater obstacles. It's they who deserve attention.
Alma's songs have been extensively recorded because they're easy. Stick to good singers like Lili Paasikivi and Iris Vermillion, and Ruth Ziesak if you can find hers, and to orchestral versions (none of them by Alma herself). Connolly will be singing new orchestrations by the Matthews brothers. Don't mistake them for the original piano songs, whatever they might have been before Mahler and Zemlinsky tidied them up.
There are lots of misconceptions. Alma disarmed men by leaning close and looking into their eyes. but she did it because she was slightly deaf. The Schindlers didn't have a "glittering social life", though the Mahlers did, for example. Female sexuality wasn't really suppressed, and there were quite a few much more liberated women about. Dehmel wasn't at all out of place in a world where Maeterlinck, Baudelaire, Paul Heyse and Rilke were read. There were plenty of piano songs being written, and still are, that don't show much response to the 20th century. Maybe that in itself makes them popular but it doesn't follow that they're very good. Read HERE what Zemlinsky said - not complimentary.
There have been lots of books about Alma over the years. Her memoirs, letter and diaries provide material for glamour. There are movies and even a soft porn Austrian musical. Would-be feminists in particular should approach with caution because Alma's not an edifying role model, however much some female writers might want to sentimentalize her. One day perhaps a proper biography will be possible, written with genuine background knowledge placing her in true context. Then maybe we'll discover the real Alma, a wounding but wounded soul (what her name means in Latin). Perhaps we'll appreciate her for herself, rather than what others projected onto her. She deserves that respect, which she didn't ever really get. Even when she was famous, she basked in reflected glory. I don't think it's right that a woman should be remembered just for the effect she had on men, however famous they might be. Just don't get fooled by the hype around the songs! Plese see my other posts on Alma, including THIS. We're never going to understand Mahler, or Alma for that matter, if don't keep trying to learn more.
There have been so many Mahler Third's in the last few years, so great expectations for Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall last night. We were all in an uncommonly receptive mood.
What would they find in it? Not so much Mahler as Wagner. Mahler conceived this symphony inspired by the wide open spaces of the Salzkammergut. Obviously, not literal representation, but the idea of struggle and creative freedom is very much a part of Mahler's psyche and thus part of his music. Jurowski's Mahler 3 is very "indoors", replete with every luxury possible. Wagner in Switzerland, safe from Saxons and creditors, swathed in velvet.
The first movement is monumental for a reason. It's a blockbuster as imposing as the mountains, created to set a framework against which all other elements are heard. Hence the importance of analytical thinking, understanding why Mahler's music evolves the way it does. Jurowski, never a great Mahler conductor, dispenses with structure and goes instead for maximum orchestral impact.
Cue for luscious textures, grand sweeping gestures, the ultimate Romantic symphony,. Mahler as Tchaikovsky, perhaps. Jurowski luxuriates in gorgeousness, so this was seductive performance indeed. Although details in Mahler are important, they are always there for a purpose, not merely to fill space. He lived in fin de siècle times but was personally quite ascetic. Without architecture or ideas, Mahler isn't Mahler.
Nice details, especially the sour-noted clarinet that weaves around Petra Lang as she sings O Mensch. It's like a poisonous snake, a valid image in this song that reflects on the sufferings of mankind, thanks to apples, temptation and the Devil. Less successful was the swagger in the Scherzando, whose deliberate bumptiousness wouldn't sit well with an interpretation as civilized as this.
Jurowski dwells on detail to the extent that themes blur rather than take shape. Tempi are drawn out lovingly, but in the process the drama is lost. I don't do stopwatch but someone in the exit said he'd never heard timings so diffuse. Jurowski smiled a lot while conducting, which was a good thing, because this is Mahler's sunniest symphony.
Several times I was thrown, hearing all the right notes but wondering what symphony this might be. Where was it going? Then I realized that the key to this performance wasn't to think about Mahler as we know him now, but in terms of what Alma would have wanted us to hear him. There's a huge difference, but Alma's view is more marketable. While well played, for the most part, this performance could be enjoyed as an indulgence rather than as an insight.
It's not Jurowski's fault. He's never been a great Mahler man (with the wonderful exception of Das klagende Lied in 2007) but he's fallen for the rebranding and repackaging the Mahler year has brought. Sugar-coated Mahler sells. Jurowski's a natural opera man, a Russian specialist par excellence, so he does Mahler in much the same way,. It's lovely to listen to, but isn't necessarily the composer's idiom.
Jurowski was much more in his element with Zemlinsky's Maeterlinck Songs op 13, where highly perfumed sensuality is essential to meaning. This is a wonderful cycle but it's not heard to best advantage with a symphony like Mahler 3. Indeed, part of the problem with this Mahler 3 was that it was infused with Zemlinsky. Contemporaries they were, but extremely different musically. The Maeterlinck Songs need to be showcased on their own terms, so performance is truly committed. Perta Lang has done this repertoire so often, she can sing this well, and sit down and save herself for another hour before the Misterioso movement, but she's so good she deserves star billing, not a warm-up act.
Please see some of Jurowski's earlier Mahler HERE.
And here's Andrew Clark in the Financial Times. "Jurowski’s crisp, clinical control was such that you couldn’t help being diverted by the way he manicured this or that motif – sometimes to Mahler’s benefit, as in the Minuet’s counter-themes. But tempi were so drawn out, with every phrase held up for inspection, polish and communal admiration, that the performance suffocated under its own self-absorption."
The real star of this recital at Kings Place on 27th January, part of the Vienna to Weimar week, was Erik Levi, who compiled the excellent programme. It was erudite and intelligent, an excellent introduction to that era in song. You can replicate the recital with recordings. It's almost impossible to describe the programme fully here, but maybe this will give some background.
Starting with Franz Schreker's Die feurige Männlein put the whole theme of Vienna to Weimar in context. It's a violent, dissonant song about a horseman cloaked in flames who brings havoc and death to the world. Written in 1915, it's fairly obvious what Schreker's getting at. In this Apocalypse the horseman's a miserable troll. Perhaps it was a mercy that Schreker died before the Holocaust. This song relates to Die Gezeichneten, of which I've written HERE.
Hans Gál escaped early to Scotland and livd to be 97. His Five Songs (1917-21) are beautiful. Listen to audio samples HERE.Der Weissenbach is a lovely miniature. I also love Gál's Das Vöglein Schwermut, more lyrical than Zemlinsky's setting. These were Christian Immler's finest moments in the recital. It's him on the sound clip, with Erik Levi on the piano! Very evocative postludes and preludes, in the recital well played by Helmut Deutsch. And Drei Prinzessinnen (Bethge), with a delicate, refined mood of melancholy. Yet the line expands zu den Ufern, wo die Freiheit wohnt. Immler sings the world Freiheit with fullness and feeling, for it's the goal the princesses will never reach.
Hearing these Berthold Goldschmidt songs, Ein Rosenweig and Nebelweben, made me feel Sensucht too, because I used to have a recording of them with Goldschmidt playing. Even if I replace the one I gave away, it won't be quite the same. The CD I had belonged to Goldschmidt himself. It's a long story which I'll save for another time. Goldschmidt led the Matthews brothers in their performing version of Mahler's 10th, but was a fairly self-effacing man, whose music didn't get into the repertoire until fairly late in his life. Incidentally he himself was taught by Franz Schreker, among others.
Hanns Eisler gets a bad press because he's mostly known in the US for being kicked out of Hollywood by the Committee on Un-American Activities in 1947. His political music is extremely important. In many ways it was he who gave Brecht more backbone than Weill did. his political songs tie in with the Brecht belief in direct communication, which is why they're simple and can be sung by untrained voices. and performed in non-concert-hall situations. That's how to reach the masses. But there's a lot more to Eisler.
Here we heard some of Eisler's Galgenlieder, much closer to the sophisticated, exquisitely crafted art songs and chamber pieces that Eisler's reputation really should be based upon. They're literate, whimsical songs. Die beiden Trichter, for example, needs to be read from the page because the visual shape of the poem, as written, is crucial to its meaning. Two funnels pour into a single source til the last drop fades away. The poem's shaped like a triangle, wider at the top, ending with just a "w". As does Eisler's music, ending with a single note. HERE is a link to Eisler's song Cripple Brigade. LOTs of Eisler on this site.
Eisler also wrote quirky little pieces based on snippets from the newspapers, ideas condensed to haiku-like extremes. Not at all populist in the usual sense, but if you like cryptic crosswords, you might like this other aspect of Hanns Eisler.
One of the myths about Erich Korngold popular on the internet is that he was only "forced" into writing for the movies by the Nazis. In fact, he was smart enough to realize long before the Anschluss that film had a future, the "opera" of the New World. Surprisingly, there aren't all that many settings of Shakespeare, so Korngold's Songs of the Clownhave a place in the repertoire. It's interesting to think about Korngold adapting to Anglo culture, writing music for Robin Hood, Elizabeth and Essex and of course adapting Mendelssohn's Midsummer's Nights Dream.
It's also interesting to think of Hanns Eisler writing hits in Hollywood, though he began with uncompromising Kuhle Wampe (watch full download HERE) and continued to write art music for documentaries like Resnais's Night and Fog, one of the best films about the Holocaust.
Prof Levi's programme thus turned to America. Zemlinsky didn't write for film, though he might have done great things given his feel for lushness. But he was interested in American music, meaning jazz. Quite a liberating thing for him, I think, a pity he died relarively young. Like many intellectuals of the time, he was interested in the Harlem Renaissance and the poetry of Langston Hughes. Grollen die Tomtoms, rollen die Tomtoms, grollen, rollen wecken das Blut. This is Hollywood Africa, exotic and louche, but it's fun music anyway. Which is perhaps why there are so many different recordings of Afrikanischer Tanz, and it's sometimes used as an encore. Listen to Michael Volle with James Conlon, definitely quirky and "lowdown".
More "Black America" seen through German eyes/ears in Eisler's Ballad of Nigger Jim. This is closer to the bone because Nigger Jim bucks Jim Crow and gets lynched. Eisler's ending parodies popular song but the message isn't funny. Similarly, Ballade von der Krüppelgarde,(op 18 1929/31) is a march, but the marchers are cripples. led by a Field Marshal who is a crawling torso. They've been maimed in war but no-one cares. So the rhythms are off centre, like the movements of men who can't march in line. It's horrific stuff despite the pretend insouciance. There's a truly biting recording by Ernst Busch (of course). Wir sind die Krüppelgarde, das strärkste Batallion, die alleresrtes Reihe in der Weltrevolution. So what if the sentiments are left wing? It's a very good song. And in any case, things have not changed in this world.
An aside - strange how Weimar people were fascinated by things English/American. Brecht goes on and on about exotic places which really live in his mind. Nigger Jims abound in various forms.
Which leads to Ernst Krenek. After his smash hit Jonny Spielt Auf, with the iconic black musician, Krenek took a sabbatical in the Salzkammergut insteade of capitalizing on his success in Vienna. Krenek travelled light because he wanted to probe deeper into what shaped the Austrian psyche (as opposed to the Viennese).
The Reisebuch aus den Oesterreicheschen Alpen is a panorama of unforgiving mountain landscapes and the harsh lives of peasants before modern utilities. In 1927, they were just finishing the D numbers, and Schubert wasn't quite so ubiquitous as he is now. So Krenek's pilgrimage was also a means of engaging with what made a city boy like Schubert respond to the countryside as he did. Krenek's cycle (to his own poems) isn't High Romantic although it's beautiful. There are songs about rich Bavarians burning down the roads in leathers on motorbikes, and a mention of Hitler, not long after Hitler got out of prison. But then, Schubert set contemporary poetry, too.
Krenek'sReisebuch aus den Oesterreicheschen Alpen is such an important work that it really deserves to be written about in more detail than this, so I'll do something more on it later. Shockingly, there's only one recording, by Wolfgang Holzmair, made in 1998. It's beautiful, the CD cover designed to look like a 1920's photo album. Holzmair passionately champions the cycle and toured with it for several years. He also devised a concert programme where he mixed Krenek's songs with Schubert's. That too, he recorded, but on a small label, almost impossible to find. Since wrfiting this I've found Julius Patzak's even earlier recording, which is wonderful, too.
Please see my other posts on the Kings Place Vienna to Weimar event – lots of links. Also to full movie downloads. There's a lot on this site about the music of this period, one of my special interests.
This week's theme at Kings Place is "Vienna to Weimar" a subject I'm passionately interested in. As usual with Kings Place, top performers are the exception rather than the rule, but there'll be a rare chance to hear the Artis-Quartett Wien on Friday in Berg's famous Lyric Suite and a Zemlinsky String Quartet plus, really interesting, Wellesz and Weigl String Quartets. There's a story behind the Wellesz but let them tell that.
The other big concert for me is the song recital on 27th with Christian Immler, whom I have heard before, but what a wonderful programme. My beloved Eisler! And not the most famous songs, either. If I have time I'll wrote more about this programme because most of it isn't generally familiar, and each of the composers is very different. Lots and lots to talk about. Even the two Goldschmidt songs (Ein Rosenweig and Nebelweben) carry "stories". The Krenek songs come from a cycle I've written lots about over the years. It's one of his best works and should be heard more frequently, but in many ways doesn't really fit into the "Vienna/Weimar" concept though it deals with Schubertian Austria on the verge of Hitler.
There'll also be movies, the new art form of the period. Most of these films are classics, which most people will have seen before, like Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Unfortunately there are many clashes, so if you go to the song concert you'll miss the film of Die Dreigroschenoper. But on the other hand maybe that's not such a loss as the film is softer than the original. There are clips of the film HERE and a commentary.
Ssssh I shouldn't say this if you're buying tickets, but several of the other films have long been available on this site as full downloads, with commentary.
For Berlin : Die Sinfonie der Grosstadt, please see HERE, with a long commentary. At present I'm doing something on black people in France and Germany at the time, There were thousands. A number were fairly successful professional actors, who made movies well into the Nazi period. Not all voluntarily, but still they should be remembered.
There are also films from the Fritz Lang triology about Dr Mabuse. In many ways these are even more fascinating than the more famous Dr Caligari, because the storylines are more complex and Dr Mabuse is a kind of symbol of evil.
Because film was such a new form, there weren't many models to copy, so many films in this era were pioneering. From the start Germans seemed to realize that films could be art as well as short term entertainment. Also on this site you can see Nosferatu, the greatest vampire movie of all, made in 1921/2 when the 1840's were within human memory. Click HERE.
And, of course the very important Kuhle Wampe, with music by Eisler and text by Bertholt Brecht, which is HERE. This is an amazing movie, take time to savour it.
In the early 90's Decca did a series of recordings of Entartete Musik, music suppressed by the Nazi regime. It was an act of great commercial foresight because at the time much of this music wasn't known outside specialist circles. The Decca series, created by Dr Albrecht Dümling, was truly visionary, extremely well curated, and the performances often so good they remain classics even now the genre is pretty much mainstream. This series is the benchmark by which all else is measured. Probably there won't be another series of this breadth and quality.
Franz Schreker's Die Gezeichneten was part of the series, conducted by Lothar Zagrosek and the Berlin Radio Symphony who were behind many of the recordings. Entartete Musik was cherished in East Germany, where there was a performance tradition. On one disc there's Matthias Goerne, barely out of his teens. Worthy as that recording is, it's outclassed by the performance in Salzburg in 2005, when Peter Ruzicka was director. So a visionary performance, unmissable for anyone, interested in the genre or not. This puts Die Gezeichneten firmly in the mainstram repertoire.
The Salzburg production is so good that topping it will be a challenge no one has yet dared attempt. It was conducted by Kent Nagano, and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (where many East Berliners went to). The cast is absolutely top notch : Anne Schwanewilms, Michael Volle, Wolfgang Schöne and Robert Brubaker in what must be the ultimate performance of his career. The director was Nikolaus Lehnhoff.
Lehnhoff's penchant for massive constructions works wonderfully to express the meaning of the opera. The stage at first looks like it's strewn with formidable boulders. Alviano Salvago has built Elysium, a secret world on a remote island off Genoa. These boulders are like the bastions of a frightening fortress, which is what Elysium really is, despite being dedicated to art, love and beauty. There are prisoners here, and unspeakable crimes which don't get revealed until the end. Salvago himself is a fortress. He's a hunchback, "the ugliest man in Genoa", crippled by self-loathing. He's built Elysium as an escape. It's so perfect that it makes everything beautiful. It's used by aristocrats for exquisite orgies, in which Salvago himself doesn't participate despite the magical aura which makes hideousness beautiful.
As the lovely Overture unfolds, Brubaker is carefully putting on elaborate makeup. He's dressed in a flimsy negligee. but his cropped hair and butch features make him look like a caricature drag queen. Immediately, the staging and acting conncet to the idea of psychic dissonance that is so much the soul of this opera. The boulders on stage are formed by a giant statue of a woman, but a statue collapsed and destroyed, only one arm, on hand still raised in a futile gesture to heaven. Most of the action in the opera unfolds on the statue's body, so watch carefully how the body becomes part of the action. Sometimes its rounded curves nurture, sometimes they allow a place to hide, but they remain opaque, inpenetrable, unlike the island's victims. The stage too extends to the walls around the auditorium, arches representing the many secret rooms in the grotto, yet also look sinister, like catacombs. The statue does not foretell the ending. It's clear in the music and text all along that Elysium is an unsustainable delusion in the first place, and Salvago is not deluded. This is important because there are moral and social values in this opera. Elysium is a prototype of an ideal society, corrupted by people who don't have ideals.
Salvago announces he's giving Elysium away to the City of Genoa. An altruistic act, perhaps, but Salvago knows that the girls used in the orgies were kidnapped from the town. Schreker's dwarf is an altogether more complex person than any of Zemlinsky's. Zemlinsky's dwarves fall in love with beauties, but accept their rejection on a relatively straightforward fairy tale level. Schreker's Salavgo (note the name) is so screwed up he doesn't dare look beyond himself and or even conceive of love. Fortress Elysium blocks out vulnerable feelings.
Schreker's drama is more than fairy tale in other ways. Listen to the way Anne Schwanewilms creates Carlotta Nardi, the wayward daughter of the Podestà (Wolfgang Schöne). She's a liberated woman, an artist who doesn't follow rules, the personification of Der ferne Klang, the elusive melody in physical form. She paints souls. Listen to that wonderful passage where she sings about her dream. She sees a "small wretched wanderer" walk into the sunlight, and a miracle happens - he grows larger and larger. "So male ich eure Gestalt, Signor Alviano". Watch Brubaker's face twitch. This is truly masterful acting. He's pouring out a flood of dammed up emotions, too powerful for Salvago to contain. Then she says, she still needs to see "trunkene Auge, darin all die Schoenheit sich gespeigelt".
This line is critical. Can Salvago give her the "drunken eye" that mirrors beauty ? Brubaker pulls his butch black overcoat on again, hiding his soft pink negligee, and for a moment stands alone on the harsh boulders. The scene ends with poignant strings, the film projecting the statue's blind stone eyes.
Salvago's mirror image twin is Graf Vitelozzo Tamare, given a tour de force performance by Michael Volle, another high point in his career he deserves to be very proud of. Tamare is handsome, tall, virile. What body language! Yet listen to the music behind his description of Elysium, and its "Ein künstliche Grotto auf jenem Eiland", the Eiland soaring, swelling lyrically. So it makes sense that Tamare, Alpha male that he is, unlke the other men, the one who discovers love. "There are men who see only the light, and darkness "ist ihrem Fremd". Since he's set eyes on the Carlotta with her mysterious, challenging smile, no longer can he be careless and uncaring, no longer can he be the prankster hero he used to be. Think Tristan. Pity Volle isn't a tenor. Listen to the way Schreker builds echoes of horn calls into the music, as if he did hear the parallels. But it's distinctively Schreker's voice, "Ferne Musik und leise Gesänge" further invoked in the orchestral interlude that follows, where Lehnhoff has Schwanewilms start to seduce Brubaker.
Both Schwanewilms and Brubaker are encased in transparent black chiffon on naked flesh. When Schwanewilms talks off Brubaker's hard, heavy boots it's erotic and yet extremely tender. Watch Brubaker's expressions carefully as he doesn't have much to sing but his reactions are extremely important - thank goodness for close-ups in film! Yet seduction is just a simile for deeper intimacy. Carlotta sings of going out on s a sunny day, feeling sad without knowing why. Salvago realises someone has at last broken down his emotional walls. But that means he has to learn to give tenderness in return, for she, too is "ein gar gebrechliches Spielzug" She pulls off his pink dress, exposing him, but that's it.
The most striking scenes in this production occurs as the interlude is played. Suddenly the auditorium is bathed in blue light, a reference to the light that makes the Grotto magic. The arches around the stage light up, and figures appear, in black capes. These reference the men of Genoa in their black, beetle-like attire and also longer dramatic traditions. Carlotta's sensitivity is up against something too hard and too ingrained in society for her and Salvago to stand up to. Figures like vultures encroach on the stage as the Duke, representing power, persuades Carlotta that Salvago isn't the man for her. Eventually, it's Tamare she succumbs to, not unwillingly.
These groups of elegant but sinister figures, sexually ambiguous, with masks and feathered headresses, are Lehnhoff trademarks, but here wonderfully evoke things that can't rationally be expressed - mystery, evil, death, power, perhap ? They prepare us for the terrible trial scene when Duke Adorno and the Council of Eight denounce Salvago, blaming him for kidnapping and corrupting the girls of Genoa. It's a horrifying moment. Salvago squirms, helpless. The aristocrats who used Elysium are rounding on him for trying to end it. He must take the blame so they won't. And he is to blame, even though he never laid a finger on anyone. His crime was trying to upset the natural order of things where beauty is beauty and ugliness ugliness. Salvago's attempts to end the orgies on the island by giving it to the city are cruelly punished. Perhaps real ugliness is so powerful that dreams like Elysium can't possibly work and Salvagos are destined to fail. And the rescued girls themselves blame him, for it was in his Elysium they were corrupted.
Then in the final interlude, the ground itself opens up, as Elysium is destroyed, revealing lots of children, half naked, some dead, their haunted eyes captured more accusingly on film than you'd ever see in the opera house. It's horrible. In a corner, Carlotta and Tamare lie together as if dead. Then Volle sings. Even if he's killed, it won't change the fact he's had the most blissful moment of his life. "Die Schönheit sei Beute das Starken". In their final confrontation, Tamare tells Salvago in no uncertain terms why he's failed. "Du sahst nur das Dunkle, die Scahtten, Gefahr und Sünde". What's worse, "ein freudlos Leben, ein langsam Seichen, oder ein Tod in Rausch und Verklärung rauscher in brünstg’r Unarmung ein selig Sterben!". A death in rapture and transfiguration? Carlotta found the ecstasy, the "drunken eyes" she dreamed of so she died happy. Definitely, Tristan und Isolde, with a dash of Tannhauser.
But this is Schreker. Tamare recounts a tale about killing a funfair fiddler with his own violin. Carlotta awakes from her swoon and screams at Salvago in revulsion . "Gebt mir Wasser" she cries, "Nein, gebt mir Wein!" Salvago crumples into a ball as the music explodes into conflagration.
Often the more you love something, the harder it is to write about it, because it's sort of disappointing to dash off something superficial. Maybe one day I'll finally get around to setting out the critique of Eisler's Hollywood Liederbuch I've been making notes on for years. But with a new production of Tristan und Isolde coming up at the Royal Opera House it's a good time to be thinking about the ideas in Die Gezeichneten. Get the DVD, because this production was fantastically expensive to mount and was designed for the specifics of the Felsenreitschule and could never be quite the same again. PLEASE see my other posts on Franz Schreker, use the search button or labels on right.
http://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2011/01/zemlinsky-lyric-symphony-1.htmlFor more on Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony, pleas read my most recent analyses HERE and HERE. It's one of my favourites, which I've lived with many years.
Esa Pekka Salonen conducted Zemlinsky;'s Lyric Symphony with the Philharmonia in 2008. Very good, though the soloists didn't come over clearly. Next morning after the concert I was off to Frankfurt and who should be sitting in the same coffee shop at Heathrow ? Members of the Philharmonia, off to their next gig in Köln! It was great to see them and congratulate them on their good work. It wasn't quite in the league of their recent Gurrelieder, but that was so exceptional, it would be hard to top. (see my review below and Mark's too).
Zemlinsky isn't everyone's cup of tea as his music isn't often performed as well as it might be. Last year I listened again to the massive James Conlon Zemlinsky series on EMI, which was reissued as a cheap box set. It was strange how disappointing it sounded, for these were the recordings I learned Zemlinsky from in the first place. Perhaps my tastes have changed after learning more and hearing more. The recordings I've turned to most in recent years have been those by Chailly and the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam. I'd avoided these at first because they were expensive. But cost doesn't equate with value. Budget recordings may be cheap, but in the long term, a good performance lasts longer, whatever the initial cost.
Salonen's Zemlinsky, from this hearing, is promising. He could bear comparison with Chailly, though I suspect Salonen doesn't favour the more "picturesque" aspects of Zemlinsky's work: The Lyric Symphony is the composer's most sophisticated moment. Choosing the right voices is tricky.The soprano part is particularly demanding, though the baritone can get away with straightforward singing (though really good singing transforms the part). The real challenge is interpretation : what is the music about, how do its pieces fit together ? I think Salonen has what it takes to conduct a really interesting Lyric Symphony . Unlike something massive like Gurrelieder, this symphony is not difficult to programme, so perhaps Salonen can develop it in his repertoire.
On Thursday 12th at the South Bank, Esa Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra will be playing Schoenberg's Verklärte NachtandZemlinsky's Lyrische Symphonie. Before that Oliver Knussen will be conducting two of his own song cycles, the wonderful Songs for Sue and Ocean de terre. Claire Booth sings Knussen - this should be very good indeed as she's made the cycles her own, she sings them so well.
Everybody but everybody repeats the usual cliché connecting Mahler's Das Lied von der Erdeand Zemlinsky's LS ((code to save typing the whole name). It's much wiser though, to listen to each piece on its own terms and appreciate how unique each one is. Both are symphonies with song. Zemlinsky sets lines from Tagore about two lovers in ancient India. There's a sort of narrative, though it's not clear, but the parts are a kind of dialogue. Mahler sets Chinese poetry, but his songs don't relate to each other causatively. They are expressions of internal psychological states. Mahler's destination is linear, oriented towards transcendence, even if he refers to the return of Spring. Zemlinsky's piece is more circular, like the wheel of karma. Lots more - just listen, for comparison clouds just how original each piece is.
What the Viennese secession did was break away from the hyperfervid neurosis of High Victorian taste, the claustrophobia that exists even in Wagner. That's why it ushered in more fluid lines in design, painting, literature. Zemlinsky is a lot more than an obtuse proto-Wagnerian. He's the missing link (if there is one) between Mahler and the SecondVienneseSchool. He uses extreme exotic lushness but doesn't swoon. Instead the whole thrust is towards new frontiers, new ideas. Prince and girl know they have to go their separate ways. He sings "Ich halte meine Lampe in die Höhe, um dir uf deinen Weg zu leuchten". I hold my lamp up high to light you on your way. Light, again, but a different kind of light. In a good performance of this symphony you can hear pre-echoes of Berg quite distinctly. Zemlinsky knew what was happening around him.
Oddly enough there are lots of tickets left for the performance on Thursday. Below is a description of the most illuminating recording of the LS ever. Scroll down , enjoy
This is an absolutely fantastic recording of Zemlinsky's Lyrische Symphonie. At one stage I used to have 'em all, but this one is so outstanding it eclipses all else. Eschenbach, Orchestre de Paris, Goerne and Schafer (a dream team).
It's groundbreaking because it's informed by recent discoveries about Zemlinsky and his style. Anthony Beaumont’s is the most perceptive of Zemlinsky scholars. His research into Zemlinsky's ideas and methods resulted in a complete re-edition of the score, revealing its true, lucid beauty.
In the 1920’s, Tagore was wildly popular in progressive circles because his rejection of materialism ran counter to the values of the time. Remember, India was still a colony. Embracing Tagore's spirituality was a kind of liberation. By using Tagore as the basis of this symphony, Zemlinsky is doing more than adopting pseudo-oriental exoticism. He knew what Tagore represented. He's not looking backward, but forward..
This performance shows with penetrating clarity just how imaginative Zemlinsky’s writing was.No muddy meandering here.Eschenbach and his soloists have thought the whole symphony through.This is an interpretation with vivid insights, gained not only from the score itself, but informed by an understanding of the music of his time.
Thus those rich drum rolls that lead into the symphony announce things to come, as drum rolls should be – quite literally a “curtain raiser” for a cosmic adventure. Immediately, refreshingly clear brass introduce the three note figure that recurs in myriad guises through the whole symphony.Then, softly, out of the orchestra, the baritones voice enters, quietly but with intense depth and feeling.“Ich bin friedlos” (a variant of the three note figure).Goerne is just over forty, still not at the peak of his powers, and yet it’s hard to imagine any singer delivering such authority and nuance to these words.The way he curls his voice around the vowels is utterly delicious – Meine Seele schweift in Sensucht, den Saum der dunkeln Weite zu berühten.You don’t need a word of German to enjoy the richness of his tone.
Berühten, becalmed. Yet this music is anything but listless. It reflects the overwhelming “thirst” in the text for distant, unknown horizons and the “Great Beyond”. Goerne sings Ich bin voll Verlangen with eagerness, then shapes the next words “und wachsam” with warm, rounded, sensuality.It’s delicious to hear two different, but valid feelings, in the space of a few seconds. Make no mistake, this music is about seeking, striving for something yet unknown, which grows from a pool of stillness.
A lovely skittish violin solo introduces the second movement.Schäfer’s voice with its pure, light quality expresses youth better than most of the sopranos who’ve sung this part.She may sound almost breathless with excitement, but she’s far too assured a singer to lose the musical line, Mutter, der junge…. the vowels underline each other., opening out. For the first time we hear an almost Bergian leap in the voice, when Zemlinsky decorates the line Zieg mir, wie soll mein Haar…Both the image and the sudden leap will recur later in the symphony.For the moment, Schäfer colours it with warmth, as though blossoming into womanhood before our ears.The music illustrating the exotic procession is one of the rare overtly “oriental” touches Zemlinsky indulges in. In the tumultuous postlude, the full orchestra surges forth, complete with drums and cymbals, yet the echoes of the three note theme gradually assert themselves as the soprano song blends seamlessly into the next baritone entry.There’s no narrative, we never discover how the girl and prince meet, if they do at all.The erotic tension and waves of sound owe much to Wagner, but also to Berg and Schoenberg.Goerne’s singing in the third movement is some of the most beautiful in the whole symphony.It is quite breathtakingly sensitive and nuanced. Du bist mein Eigen, mein Eigen, he repeats, each time with intense, but nuanced feeling.These notes, too, are repeated throughout the symphony .
The fourth movement, expands the symphony into new territory.Again, an exquisite violin solo sets the mood, which deepens with cellos and violas.Schäfer’s voice cleanly rings outSpricht’s du mir Speak to me!The line here is tender, yet also discordant, with frequent sudden leaps in pitch which are decidedly modern.So, too, is the indeterminate tonality, creating at once lushness and unreality.The music seems to hover as if it were the stuff of dreams and unconscious. It’s atmospheric, pure chromatic impressionism. There are murmurs of Spricht’s du mir, and again the painfully beautiful violin, and sinister, dark woodwind.This song is sensual, but it’s no excuse for sentimental indulgence, and the orchestra plays with well judged reticence. .It is, after all, a movement about the silence of intimacy. Nur die Bäume werden im Dunkel flüstern (only the trees will whisper in the dark),
The fanfare with which the fifth movement starts seems to drive away the strange mood that had prevailed before.It may seem relatively conventional music but this is emotionally amorphous territory.When the sixth movement starts, there’s no mistaking the modernism here.Horn and bass clarinet inject a darker, discordant mood.Schäfer’s extensive experience in new music means she copes effortlessly with those sudden tonal swoops while still keeping sensual beauty.She makes “mein gierigen Hände” sound genuinely eager. This is Ewartung, minus the harsh dementia, and all the more complex for that.The mood is rocked by rhythmic melody, as the singer becomes aware Träume lassen sich nicht eingefangen (dreams can’t be made captive). Only then does the voice rise in horror, punctuated by a single, fatal drumstroke.Has it all been an illusion ?It’s not clear, nor on what level, but that’s what makes it so intruiging.Zemlinsky wisely leaves the ideas floating.Instead, he lets the music segue, mysteriously, into the final movement.
This final song is full of interpretative possibilities.The protagonist accepts that the affair is at an end, yet is dignified and positive.Lass es nicht eine Tod sein, sondern Vollendung (let it not be a death, but completeness).Even love is sublimated in creative rebirth. Lass Liebe in Erinn’rung schmelzen und Schmerz in lieder. Let love ache and melt in memory, in song. The dignified calmy with which Goerne sings confirms that the protagonist has reached that “Great Beyond” he sang of in the first movement and has found the horizons he sought..This time, the violin returns, playing a sweet, plaintive melody., while the orchestra echoes the word Vollendung, Vollendung.Then there’s another transition.A warmer note, like a breeze, enters on the strings, and the wavering halftones resolve from minor, gradually, to major.With infinite depth , Goerne sings that last phrase Ich halte meine Lampe in die Höhe, um dir auf deinen Weg zu leuchten. I hold my lamp up high to light your way. .Lovers must part, for life has a higher purpose. “zu leuchten”is sung with such goodwill, that you feel that whoever embarks on the next phase will be going armed with knowledge and faith gained by those who care enough to light them on their way. The postlude is led by a distant woodwind, a reference to the flute that called in the very beginning of this journey.There are echoes, too, ofthe Du bist mein Eigen theme, emphasizing the sense of fulfillment.Gradually the wavering half tones resolve, and the music moves from minor to major, concluding in another shimmering plane of colour. .
Anthony Beaumont, in his analysis of the symphony, said “often the singers are engulfed in a dark forest of orchestral filigree work. In performance, the score requires Mozartian grace and precision. For all its abandon, this music reveals its true beauty and power only in performed with discipline and cool headed restraint”. Eschenbach recognizes its profoundly spiritual qualities, keeping the textures clear, letting them shimmer through unsullied. It’s the very purity of the orchestral playing that sheds light on the dynamics of the scoring. The soloists voices complement each other perfectly, and are in turn complemented by the elegance of the orchestral sound.
