JOHANNES BRAHMS ( ) Liebeslieder Waltzes: selection for choir and piano duet

Transcription

1 Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Programme Notes Online Liverpool John Moores University Series Carmina Burana Saturday 12 May pm sponsored by Liverpool John Moores University JOHANNES BRAHMS ( ) Liebeslieder Waltzes: selection for choir and piano duet Rede, Mädchen, allzu liebes, Op.52 No.1 Am Gesteine rauscht die Flut, Op.52 No.2 Wie des Abends schöne Röte, Op.52 No.4 Ein kleiner, hübscher Vogel, Op.52 No.6 Die grüne Hopfenranke, Op.52 No.5 Nagen am Herzen fühl ich, Op.65 No.9 Nein, es ist nicht auszukommen, Op.52 No.11 Wenn so lind dein Auge mir, Op.52 No.8 Am Donaustrande, Op.52 No.9 Brahms usually wrote individual songs, or small groups of songs, often after becoming captivated by a particular poet s work. Sometimes he would later draw these together into a collection, which he would call bouquets of songs. So the 18 Liebeslieder Walzer (Love-Song Waltzes) of represented for Brahms an unusually substantial group of songs written together. Premiered in Vienna on 5 January 1870, the songs are to texts from Polydora by Georg Friedrich Daumer ( ), one of the composer s favourite poets. During his career Brahms would set 54 of Daumer s texts in all; in this collection the overall theme is love, especially the longed-for reciprocation of the poet s ardour. A further set of 15 songs, the Neue Liebeslieder, Op.65, was composed between 1869 and 1874, again to texts from Daumer s Polydora, with the last song to poetry by Goethe.

2 The inspiration behind such a considerable number of songs may in part have been Brahms appreciation of Daumer s poetry, but Op.52 seems to have had a musical precedent, as well: Brahms had recently edited Schubert s 20 Ländler, the number and character of which almost certainly had some bearing on these songs, many of which recall the folk-like Ländler style (the first, Rede, Mädchen, is even marked Im Ländler-Tempo). As for the choice of texts, it seems likely that they were at least partially connected with Brahms ongoing yearning for Clara Schumann, pianist-composer wife of his friend, Robert. Following the lilting opening song comes an outburst of the kind one might almost expect in a Bach Passion, Am Gesteine rauscht die Flut even if the subject-matter is rather different. After the brief and charming fourth song, Wie des Abends schöne Röte, we hear the sixth, Ein kleiner, hübscher Vogel, which is remarkable for its structure: whereas most of the other Op.52 songs are essentially in binary form (in two parts, the second section contrasting with the first), this witty song, marked grazioso (graceful) is a rondo, with a recurrent theme. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is also the longest of the set. Die grüne Hopfenranke, Op.52 No.5, is a minor-key lament for a maiden missing her beloved, whereas No.11 provides a humorous interlude, conveying Daumer s disdain for annoying neighbours. Between these we hear the ninth song from Brahms Neue Liebeslieder, Op.65, Nagen am Herzen fühl ich, in which a woman expresses anguish at love s absence. In contrast, both the eighth and ninth songs of Op.52 exude contentment: in Wenn so lind dein Auge mir the perfectly balanced choral writing reflects the text s tender nature, and in Am Donaustrande Brahms creates a concise three-part structure, the brief central moment of drama calmed by a return to the initial serenity.

3 Joanna Wyld 2018 ARVO PÄRT (b.1935) Songs from Childhood: selection for children s choir and piano Ladybird s Song, No.2 Frogs, No.3 Firefly s Song, No.7 The Book, No.10 Road to School, No.11 Sleeping Beauty, No.12 The Little Motor-Scooter, No.13 The Song of Atom-Boy, No.14 For a composer generally associated with profound and sometimes meditative music, it may be surprising to learn that a formative element of Arvo Pärt s musical experience stems from making music with children. He jokingly explained this with the surprising statement: I went to nursery school every day until the end of secondary school! Pärt went on to clarify: My mother worked at a nursery school in Rakvere, and I always went to visit her after my lessons. The young composer would play the piano for the nursery children, improvising for or accompanying them. This gave him a thorough grounding in music for young people; in nursery rhymes and fairy tales, many of which he still knows by heart. This ability to connect with youth through music was then developed during Pärt s first job, taken in the second half of the 1950s. He was studying at the Tallinn School of Music and then at the Tallinn Conservatory, and made a little money by playing piano accompaniment for the Tallinn Palace of the Pioneers theatre club. Pärt composed a substantial amount of music for texts written by the club s director, Salme Lauren, at whose invitation he had taken up the role. For Lauren s play, Adventure in the Woods, Pärt wrote songs including Firefly s Song, Frogs, and Ladybird s Song.

4 However, much of the music was improvised rather than written down at the time. Pärt recalled of the club s theatrics: I suppose they did their tricks up on stage and I did mine at the piano. Fortunately, from scraps of notation, Pärt has since been able to refine and issue these songs in a completed form. Firefly s Song, Frogs, and Ladybird s Song formed part of Pärt s Tykes Songs of 1960, later issued as Five Children s Songs dedicated to the composer s mother alongside The Doll Has No Name and I Am Already Big. When Pärt worked as sound director at Estonian Radio between 1958 and 1967, he also acted as accompanist to the broadcaster s children s ensemble, which would frequently sing his songs. Pärt also composed songs and incidental music for the children s play The Lost Picture Book, by Erika Tatsch. Both the solo song Sleeping Beauty and the choral number The Book originate from this time. In the case of The Book, however, while its music dates from the late 1950s, the words were updated in 2014, written by one of Estonia s most popular children s poets, Leelo Tungal. As the English translation reveals, this new version of The Book is particularly relevant to a 21st-century audience: Ev ryone knows that computers are fun, No need to say it ain t so. But if a friend for life is what you want, Books are the way to go... By the early 1960s Pärt was becoming an established composer, and amongst numerous commissions came the request to write music for a 1962 film by Heino Pars using animated puppets, entitled The Little Motor-Scooter. The film is about a courageous motor scooter who falls out of a truck carrying toys, and has to brave various hazards to find the children who want to play with him. Pärt wrote for the film an accompanying score and one song, of the same name. During the 1960s Part also worked as a musical designer at the Estonian State Puppet Theatre. Road to

5 School is a bracing song written by Pärt for Dagmar Normet s children s play, Treasure Hunters. In 1970 other puppet-animation commissions followed, including Atom-Boy and Atom-Boy and the Thugs, directed by Elbert Tuganov at the Tallinnfilm studio. The films, and Pärt s song, are about the small atomboy, Aatomik, who learns to govern his great powers in order to help others. Joanna Wyld 2018 CARL ORFF ( ) Carmina Burana Part One Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi No.1 O Fortuna No.2 Fortune plango vulnera Part Two Primo vere No.3 Veris leta facies mundo propinatur No.4 Omnia sol temperat No.5 Ecce gratum et optatum Part Three Uf dem anger No.6 Tanz No.7 Floret silva nobilis No.8 Chramer, gip die varwe mir No.9 Swaz hie gat umbe No.10 Were diu werlt alle min Part Four In taberna No.11 Estuans interius ira vehementi No.12 Olim lacus colueram No.13 Ego sum abbas Cucaniensis No.14 In taberna quando sumus Part Five Cours d amour

6 No.15 Amor volat undique No.16 Dies, nox et omnia No.17 Stetit puella No.18 Circa mea pectora No.19 Si puer cum puellula No.20 Veni, veni, venias No.21 In trutina mentis dubia No.22 Tempus et iocundum No.23 Dulcissime! Part Six Blanziflor et Helena No.24 Ave formosissima Part Seven Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi No.25 O Fortuna Out of the ashes Carl Orff was a child of his time. For three generations under Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner and Richard Strauss, German music had reigned supreme in the western world. But Orff came of age in 1916, when nothing about German culture seemed quite so secure any more. As hyper-inflation, revolution and the aftermath of a catastrophic war brought Germany to the brink of ruin, all those high emotions and lofty artistic ideals started to look not just irrelevant but actually irresponsible. A new generation of German artists had to remake their world from scratch. Well not quite from scratch. Orff was a Bavarian, and Catholic Bavaria has always had a distinctive culture. Its medieval traditions of popular festivals and folk-theatre (like the Oberammergau Passion-Play) remained untainted by progress. And nature was a perennial source of inspiration. A craze for hiking, for folk-music and for vigorous outdoor pursuits seized the younger generation of Germans; and across the border in Salzburg the theatre director Max Reinhardt tried to recreate the

7 spirit of German folk theatre in grand, spectacular open-air performances at the new Salzburg Festival. Back to the future In 1925, meanwhile, Orff abandoned his early experiments in lush, Wagnerian music and helped found a new school for gymnastics and dance in Munich. The music he wrote for the school was bright, rhythmic, and clear he even invented his own range of percussion instruments to perform it. By getting back to the basics of music movement, melody, and simplicity Orff was creating his own music of the future. Which is how, in 1937, an unashamedly modern young German composer came to set an anthology of 13th-century poetry. Carmina Burana means, literally, Songs from Benediktbeuern a collection of medieval minstrels songs found in the library of a Benedictine monastery in the Bavarian Alps. What they were doing there is anyone s guess because a less monk-like collection of ditties is hard to imagine. Written in a mixture of Church Latin and German dialect, the Carmina Burana are a startlingly uninhibited celebration of wine, women and song. They re occasionally serious, often funny, sometimes outrageously racy, but always fresh, vivid and memorable. For Orff, they made a perfect, timeless basis for a riotously entertaining scenic cantata a spectacle for dancers, actors, colourful scenery and even more colourful music. He summed it all up in Carmina Burana s wonderfully Harry Potter-ish subtitle: Cantiones profanae cantoribus et choris cantandae comitantibus instrumentis atque imaginibus magicis: Profane songs for solo singers and singing choirs, with accompanying instruments and magical stage-pictures. Sex, drink and roasted swans Few pieces of modern music need less explanation. Orff s music is all about tunes, about rhythm, and about a rough-cut, down-toearth frankness. Think Brueghel or, in the steamier passages,

8 Hieronymous Bosch. And remember, this is no piece for the prudish. It s about healthy enjoyment of nature, of eating, of drinking, and, of course, sex. After all, as the grandiose opening chorus reminds us, the cruel Empress Fortune (or Fate) is the ruler of the world and her ever-turning wheel swings will swing round again at the end of the cantata. There s no escape, so let s eat, drink, and make very merry indeed. Orff originally scored Carmina Burana for a lavish full orchestra, but in 1956 he stripped it back to basics: two pianos, timpani and a full battery of percussion. This is the version we re playing tonight. It s muscular, it s raw; if anything, it s even more dangerously physical. So surrender to sensation. Thrill to the brilliant sounds of awakening spring in Omnia Sol, pant breathlessly with the boys choir in Tempus est iocundum, and let your heart flutter for the blushing, wavering maiden of In Trutina. And spare a thought for the poor old roast swan in In Taberna turning glumly on the spit as the hungry mouths draw ever closer. Oh well as the chorus puts it, Fortune strikes down king and pauper alike. Anyone for a drumstick? Richard Bratby 2018