DAVID CURRY - TENOR
Notes on the
Music
No one would
doubt the influence of the undisputed of masters of the German Lied Schubert,
Schumann, Brahms and Hugo Wolf. A
form that musically combines the closest integration of word and music would be
a suitable description of the term. So
prominent has the medium been that composers from many different countries and
traditions have used the term for their narrative song collections.
The tradition of
German Lieder was well established before the Romantic giants however.
Haydn composed a volume of Lieder on English texts (including
Shakespeare) displaying a complete mastery of piano, as well as vocal,
techniques. Mozart also contributed
to the Lieder repertoire with his beautiful settings of French and Italian
poems.
Beethoven's work
in this genre is altogether more varied. Song-cycles
such as An die ferne Geliebte ('To the Distant Beloved'), which we
are to hear tonight, show such masterly combination of vocal line and
descriptive accompaniment that it has been refereed to by one writer as a
'duet-sonata' for voice and piano. The
six songs in the cycle (1816) are settings of texts by Jeitteles, and describe a
lover's longings set amidst the idyllic beauty of a country scene.
Schubert,
recognised as the greatest master of the Lied, composed more than six hundred
songs. His wonderful gift of melody
(infusing his settings of both the short lyric as well as the full song-cycle)
so inspired Brahms, that he rightly said of him "There is not a song of
Schubert's from which one cannot learn something."
Die acne
Mullerin ('The Fair Maid of the Mill') was composed in
1823 and 1824 when Schubert was twenty-seven.
The text of the twenty poems in the cycle is by Wilhelm Muller who also
wrote the poems for the later cycle - Die Winterreise ('Journey in
Winter'). Again the poems are set
within a tranquil, if idealistic and romantic, countryside setting.
The theme is the tragic impact on an innocent youth of a first, and
unrequited, love.
The song Wohin?
('Where To?') tells of the youth's fascination with a mountain stream.
("Where will you lead, 0 stream. Your
murmuring has quite bemused my senses. ")
Am Feierabend ('After
a Day's Work') plays with the theme "If only 1 could ride like the wind,
the lovely maid might see how faithfully 1 would seek to serve her."
Meitt (Mine')
spells a note of assurance - even conquest.
"Mill-stream cease your babbling!
One rhyme alone shall sound today: The one 1 love, the maid of the mill,
is mine! "
Finally, Trockne
Bli.,men (Dry Flowers') is perhaps the best known of the set. (Schubert
wrote a fascinating set of variations for flute and piano on this exquisite
melody.) The young man sings of his unrequited love in dramatic beauty:
"Tears, alas, cannot bring back the green of May.
Nor can they make a dead love bloom again." But finally he is
reassured. "When she passes my
grave and thinks in her heart 'he was faithful to me', then all you flowers
spring up. May has come and winter
has passed!"
The English
Song
With a notable
tradition of eighteenth century song writing in Germany, it is not surprising
that this led directly to the substantial repertory of serious romantic song in
the nineteenth and early twentieth century in that country.
The tradition in England is very different.
It's inheritance owes more in the nineteenth century drawing-room ballad
where, unfortunately, it has been said that many of poetical texts of the age
rose little beyond the banal. However,
there are major exceptions such as the output of Alfred Lord Tennyson,
Shakespeare, Milton, Masefield and Kipling, all of whose work has been
profitable source for many fine British composers.
A.E. Houseman's slim volume A Shropshire Lad has provided
inspiration for song-cycles and other pieces by such as Somervell, Butterworth,
Vaughn Williams, Moeran and Herbert Howells.
Collectors of folk-song have also long been active in many parts of England, and Vaughn Williams and Britten amongst many twentieth century song composers, show influence of this activity in their work. The beautifully varied and often evocative work of major names in the English song repertory such as Parry, Quitler, Warlock, Elgar, Ireland, Delius etc. have long become a source of delight and musical challenge to singers. To generations of audiences, these miniature masterpieces of our musical heritage continue to otter intense fascination and pleasure.
These notes were prepared by Peter Case of South Holland Concerts