NOTTURNO THE TIMELESS MUSIC OF SCHUBERT

Transcription

1 NOTTURNO THE TIMELESS MUSIC OF SCHUBERT

2 Franz Schubert Impromptu in G-flat major, D899 No Roger Woodward piano 2 Ständchen (Serenade): Leise flehen meine Lieder (Gently My Songs Entreat You) from Schwanengesang (Swansong), D957, arr. Michael Hurst 3 52 Yvonne Kenny soprano, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Vladimir Kamirski conductor 3 Sanctus from German Mass, D Choir of Trinity College Melbourne, Jonathan Bradley organ, Michael Leighton Jones director 4 Die liebe Farbe (The Beloved Colour) from Die schöne Müllerin (The Fair Maid of the Mill), D795, guitar arrangement by Karin Schaupp 3 55 Genevieve Lacey recorder, Karin Schaupp guitar 5 Lullaby, D Roger Woodward piano 6 Ave Maria (Hail Mary) from Ellens Gesänge (Ellen s Songs), D839, arr. Michael Hurst 3 55 Yvonne Kenny soprano, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Vladimir Kamirski conductor 7 Notturno in E-flat major, D Macquarie Trio (Kathryn Selby piano, Nicholas Milton violin, Michael Goldschlager cello) 8 Du bist die Ruh (You Are Repose), D776, orch. Max Reger 4 30 Michael Lewis baritone, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, David Porcelijn conductor 9 Gretchen am Spinnrade (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel), D118, guitar arrangement by Napoléon Coste 3 41 Genevieve Lacey recorder, Karin Schaupp guitar 2 3

3 0 Der Leiermann (The Organ-Grinder) from Winterreise (Winter s Journey), D Ronald Dowd tenor, John Winther piano! Die Forelle (The Trout) after Franz Schubert, transcribed Franz Liszt (second version 1846) 3 48 Stephanie McCallum Die Blumensprache (The Language of Flowers), D Marilyn Richardson soprano, Geoffrey Parsons piano Ständchen (Serenade): Leise flehen meine Lieder (Gently My Songs Entreat You) from Schwanengesang (Swansong), D957, guitar arrangement by Karin Schaupp 3 49 Genevieve Lacey recorder, Karin Schaupp guitar $ Romance from Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern (Rosamunde, Princess of Cyprus), D Yvonne Kenny soprano, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Vladimir Kamirski conductor % An die Musik (To Music), D Lauris Elms mezzo-soprano, John Winther piano ^ Impromptu in A-flat major, D899 No Roger Woodward piano Total Playing Time Notturno: An evening with Franz Schubert Vienna. A winter s evening. A young composer and his friends gather for music, conversation, food and wine. It is 21 January 1821, the composer is Schubert, and the evening is the first known Schubertiad. Schubert sang and played a lot of splendid songs, the music lasted until after 10 o clock, and the punch and partying went till three in the morning. The Schubertiads continued to be held sporadically through Schubert s lifetime sometimes weekly, sometimes not for months on end, sometimes in other cities when Schubert travelled, sometimes in the absence of the composer. Convivial company aside, the essential ingredient was the music of Schubert and for at least one participant, the painter Leopold Kupelweiser, this was sufficient: alone in Rome, claiming there is no music to be heard here at all, he treated himself to a Schubertiad now and again. All that was needed, says Schubert biographer Christopher Gibbs, was a desire to immerse oneself in Schubert s music, and to that end you hold in your hand your own Schubertiad : an hour or so with Schubert at his most intimate and his most endearing. The music played at these evenings was the music for which Schubert was best known in his lifetime: songs and short piano pieces, with the occasional chamber work, such as the serene Notturno (Night Piece), an abandoned slow movement for a piano trio. Today we know and love the symphonies, among them the Unfinished and the Great C Major ambitious, public works of often heavenly length. But our favourite Schubert is still the miniaturist, the Schubert who can capture an emotion and tell a story in just a few minutes. The impromptu had arrived in Vienna from Bohemia some time around 1820, its distinguishing features being brevity and an extemporary style. The genre must have appealed to Schubert s flair for improvisation, although it was his publisher who labelled his Opus 90 Impromptus. No. 3 (in G-flat major) has the character of a nocturne a musical meditation, a song without words from the master songwriter. No. 4 (in A-flat major) is more obviously extemporary, its passionate and yearning middle section framed by rippling figurations that tumble through the range of the piano. The impromptus were works of Schubert s maturity, but from the outset his instinct for characterful piano figuration informed the remarkable accompaniments of his songs. One of the earliest and the most miraculous was his setting of Gretchen am Spinnrade (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel) from Goethe s Faust. Underpinning Gretchen s heavy heart and shattered peace is the sinuous monotony of her spinning wheel: its humming, its clicking, and 4 5

4 the impulse from the pedal, pausing only at the height of her despair. Its heart-stirring impression and the originality of the accompaniment captured imaginations in the private and semi-public concerts where it was sung, and when it was published (his Opus 2) it quickly sold five or six hundred copies. Some of these were in an arrangement for voice and guitar not by Schubert, but the initiative of an enterprising publisher. The guitar rivalled the piano in amateur music-making and many of Schubert s songs were released with alternative versions for guitar accompaniment. The fortunes of the recorder during this time are hazy, although it seems to have appeared again, in amateur circles as the csakan, a recorder-like flute disguised as a walking stick. But in its Baroque heyday the recorder embodied a tradition of speaking in tones. What better instrument, then, for conveying the poetry of Schubert s songs, without the words? As recorder virtuoso Genevieve Lacey writes, working with a text is a foreign and illuminating experience for an instrumentalist a chance to be immersed in the stories of the songs: the young man in Die liebe Farbe (The Beloved Colour) who discovers to his dismay that the huntsman is the reason for his beloved s fondness for green; and the irresistible eloquence of the ardent lover s Serenade in Ständchen from Schwanengesang (Swan Song), a song that Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau describes as framed in mandolin music. And although an orchestra would have been unheard of in the domestic Schubertiads, we are treated to the same song in orchestral guise with its lyric of tender pleading: Trembling, I await you! Come, make me happy! In Schubert s time the transformation was more likely to go the other way. Although the play Rosamunde, Princess of Cyprus was an unqualified flop, Schubert s incidental music was unanimously acclaimed and he promptly capitalised on its success by publishing the bucolic Romance ( The full moon shines on the mountain peaks how badly I have missed you! ) in an arrangement for voice and piano. In this form it has became popular in lieder recitals, and is only rarely heard in its original colours. Transcription and transformation signalled a work s popularity. Die Forelle (The Trout) had rapidly become one of the most frequently requested songs at the Schubertiads, and even before it was published Schubert had used it as the theme for the variations in his Trout Piano Quintet (D667). When, after Schubert s death, Liszt made piano transcriptions of his songs, Die Forelle, with its fleeting and silvery accompaniment, was among the first. Die Forelle may appeal to the virtuoso, but the early Lullaby heard here in transcription is a reminder that the piano can sing as well as All of my life his music has been perhaps nearer to my heart than any other that crystal stream welling and welling for ever. ETHEL SMYTH (ENGLISH COMPOSER AND WRITER, ) 6 7

5 sparkle. One of several of Schubert s Wiegenlieder, or cradle songs, its lulling simplicity inspired Richard Strauss to borrow the melody for his opera Ariadne auf Naxos. Liszt was one of the first major composers to champion Schubert in the 19th century, and his transcriptions show a fidelity to the meaning and the lyricism of the songs. Liszt was also among the first to arrange Schubert songs for voice and orchestra. While some may have regarded Schubert s piano parts as a sketch for orchestral elaboration, Reger s orchestrations show a remarkable restraint, preserving the clarity of the original in the process of transformation. As a result, we lose none of the purity and otherworldly serenity of Rückert s hymn to ideal love Du bist die Ruh (You Are Repose). Rivalling Die Forelle for popularity in Schubert s lifetime and in ours is Ave Maria, from Walter Scott s Lady of the Lake. It is a hymn in the guise of a song a maiden s prayer for safety in the wilderness and its devoutness surprised Schubert s friends, as he reported to his parents: it seems to touch all hearts, and inspire a feeling of devotion. I believe the reason is that I never force myself to be devout, and never compose hymns or prayers or anything of the sort except when the mood takes me; but then it is usually the right and true devotion. True devotion was a sore point for Schubert: he had loathed the religious drill of home and boarding school, and he was opposed to the dogmatism and formality of the Catholic Church. Perhaps, then, he was attracted by a commission for Hymns for the celebration of the holy sacrifice of the mass using German texts. Intended for congregational singing, and therefore extremely simple, the so-called German Mass was quickly circulated, although it was not admitted for church use or even published under Schubert s name until the second half of the 19th century. In fact, much of Schubert s music went unpublished during his lifetime. Symphonies, chamber music, piano sonatas, operas and more than two-thirds of his 600 songs were still in manuscript in some cases unknown when he died in As this wealth of music gradually came to light during the course of the 19th century, it was as if Schubert was working invisibly. Die Blumensprache (The Language of Flowers) was one of these posthumous works an early song in which the singer s flowers speak of heart s desire, yearning and sorrow. But Schubert didn t say it with flowers, he said it with song. As Schumann wrote: what a diary is to others, in which their momentary emotions and so forth are recorded, so to Schubert was music paper, to which he entrusted all his moods. Schubert corrected the proofs of his last, mournful song cycle Winterreise (Winter s Journey) during the few lucid moments granted him on his deathbed. Indeed, some of his friends believed Winterreise had been, literally, the death of him. Those who heard the first, private, performance of what Schubert called a bunch of ghastly songs were left deeply moved and full of admiration. Of the 24 songs, Der Leiermann (The Organ- Grinder) is perhaps the bleakest. As in Gretchen and Die Forelle, the genius is in the characterisation of the accompaniment. The village organ-grinder, his fingers numb with cold, stands barefoot on the ice: ignored and rejected. Shall I go with you? asks the singer at the end. Will you grind your hurdy-gurdy to my songs? In its tragedy and irony it is almost a self-portrait of the ill and impoverished Schubert. And it is profoundly introverted music. As Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau asks: Should one perform Winterreise in public at all? Should one offer such an intimate diary of a human soul to an audience whose interests are so varied? Perhaps the answer can be found in the immortal song An die Musik (To Music): Beloved art, in how many a bleak hour, When I am enmeshed in life s wild coils, Have you kindled my heart to the warmth of love, And borne me away to a better world! Often a sigh, escaping from your harp, A sweet, celestial chord Has revealed to me a heaven of happier times, Beloved art, for this I thank you! Even when the songs were ghastly, Schubert was happiest singing and playing in the company of his friends. For them the Schubertiads were feasts of music and cultivated company, and some were reminded nostalgically of the merry-making and late-night parties of their student years. The sentiments of An die Musik embrace the spirit of the Schubertiad: at least for an hour or so, music can indeed bear us away to a better world. Yvonne Frindle 8 9

6 Executive Producers Robert Patterson, Lyle Chan Mastering Thomas Grubb Editorial and Production Manager Hilary Shrubb Publications Editor Natalie Shea Cover and Booklet Design Imagecorp Pty Ltd Cover Photo Corbis/APL ABC Classics thanks Peter Maddigan, Emma Alessi, Robin Frost and Natalie Waller. My songs beckon softly Through the night to you; Down in the silent grove, Dearest, come to me! This compilation 2006 Australian Broadcasting Corporation Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Universal Music Group, under exclusive licence. Made in Australia. All rights of the owner of copyright reserved. Any copying, renting, lending, diffusion, public performance or broadcast of this record without the authority of the copyright owner is prohibited. LUDWIG RELLSTAB (FROM STÄNDCHEN) 10 11