On Music
GUREWITSCH, M. ANATOLE
On Music FOLLOWING THE LIEDER BY M. ANATOLE GUREWITSCH o r aii musical forms, the song is not only the earliest and the most spontaneous but for centuries n remained a "popular" genre belonging...
...The recital begins with the Four Serious Songs, Op...
...In Two Songs for Alto with Viola and Piano, Op...
...ate / ictlci nisi the same as "Vi ic hist Ju, incinc konigm" b\ Ui.ihms 01 Scliuin.inn's "Mondn.iclil "I I he histon ol the lied is noi hn car—the greatest gemus ol the form, and the most versatile, came first ?but there are patterns that help gain perspective on its evolution...
...Baldwin's supple accompaniments are all one could wish: sensitive, responsive, deeply attuned to the musical and verbal meanings...
...His songs are little know today ?and are not lieder in the narrow sense—but a group of them have been very handsomely recorded by Peter Sehreier, tenor, with Konrad Ragossmg on guitar lAtelnv 2533 3X...
...Mozart's "Als Luise die Briefe ihres ungetreuen Liebhabers verbrannte" (the cumbersome title is indispensable, setting the stage for the poem's dramatic action: "As Louise burned the letters of her faithless lover") dates to 1787, thus anticipating the pivotal date of 1814 by decades...
...Baker's big, public delivery serves the piece well, and when he is not seduced to sparkle with nightclub-by glitter in the showier parts of the piano accompaniment, Previn plays with appropriate gravity...
...The finest of recent lieder albums —the most imaginatively selected and the most winningly interpreted—is El-ly Ameling and Dalton Baldwin's German Romantic Songs (Philips 9500 350...
...within this tiai t ow i a nee at e t he uai v e pi otot v pes ol sotlk v ei v knowing la...
...the settings are intimate and introspective...
...In the little space of 12 lines, it creates an almost operatic scene...
...Love songs (grave and merry), pastoral vignettes, mood pieces—in all these, Weber cleaves close to the folksong...
...a ptellv c on, en about a 1,'h'jiiJ i: -1 )i, m n. pi efigured the saucy, ironic allegory of Schubert's "Heidenroslein" (set to a Goethe text...
...Some recent albums are illustrative...
...and more...
...The song is a marvel of concentration, and Valente gives it an exemplary reading...
...These qualities mark Valente's entire program...
...the lolk tunc I lv is I'lL'slcv biouglit back lioin his Gl da\s...
...Her accompanist, whose Mozart is coarse, is expert in the Wolf repertoire, making it a splendid success...
...The composers responsible lor the change guile nat ui ally called their pieces l.ictlcr, which means nothing more and nothing less than "songs...
...she miraculously combines artfulness and spontaneity...
...in "Sapphische Ode," her caressing sound intensifies the headiness of the text and setting...
...Mahler and Strauss even set lieder lor voice with lull orchestra, providing a dimension of sheer sensuous opulence entirely beyond what the earlier masters of the lied would have dreamed compatible with its aims of psychological and poetic illumination...
...the country antics of Strauss' "Hat gesagt—bleibt nicht dabei...
...Where Brahms is at his most folklike—as in "Der Jager" or " Vergebliches Standchen"—she cannot shed her sophistication...
...Vet regardless of instrumentation, those objectives remain unchanged and a quick intelligence counts at least as much as vocal beauty in achieving them, lacing singers (and accompanists) with a (axing challenge...
...The English-speaking world, seeing in this new kind of music something unprecedented, borrowed the German term to designate it...
...Her meticulously considered interpretations turn her mastery to the most telling expressive purposes, coloring and shading each song with a piercing specificity, yet she never falls into the trap of mannerism...
...I hen German romanticism, he-ginning with Schubert, transformed the plain and simple song into a vehicle for the most sophisticated artistic statements...
...it shares with the brilliant "In quali eccessi" from Don Giovanni impetuousness of utterance, resolute phrasing and a melting cadence into disappointment and regret...
...then pleasing melodies and aliiacnve accompaniments make quite modest technical and inlet pictive demands, and then sentiment tievet probes dccpci than might have been thought seeuilv in a wcll-bied l.unilv dtdc Sn...
...Carl Matiavon Weber ( PS6-1S26), who composed the first German romantic opera...
...One of these concerns the contrast between the lied as intimate expression and as public declamation—a matter, as it were, of rhetorical style...
...or "Muss i' dcnii...
...the serenity of Schubert's "Nachtviolen...
...the 18 pieces traverse a tremendous range of moods and styles...
...ci hedei "Ut sail cm Kosjien...
...she tramples their inward delicacy...
...Technically, Ameling is above reproach...
...the precarious, decaying sweetness of Brahms' "Schwes-terlein...
...Furthermore, she often displays poor judgment in her selections, and even within the repertoire that suits her best—Brahms, for instance—her unbending nobility and grand address can become monotonous, tiresome, numbing...
...Culled from the work of no less than 11 composers (Schubert to Strauss by way of Mendelssohn, Wolf, Pfitzer, et al...
...The viola is added to heighten the songs' lyricism...
...Per I ivi\cluit: (1S2(I), holds a cardinal place in the musical history of the period...
...She is an outstanding artist, but it should be pointed out that she is not a flawless vocalist—her vibrato grows more pronounced and less controllable with each passing year, and many of her vowels go dark, gliding backwards...
...In nine selections from the Italienisches Liederbuch of Hugo Wolf (1860-1903), the most artful of the liedersmiths after Schubert, she insinuates herself into lush morbidity or, as occasion warrants, flashes temper or rises to ringing outcry...
...Romanze," the tale of a king treacherously thrown into a dungeon and of the courageous girl who undertakes to set him free, is left hanging where subsequent composers, turning to legend and chivalry, would go beyond narrative indecision to craft subtler ambiguities...
...But Baker unfurls the arching phrases with too great spirit...
...Another involves means...
...A reminder that the lied had antecedents in classical music as well comes from Benita Valente's recital disc with Richard Goode at the piano, including selections from Schubert, Brahms, Wolf, and Mozart (Desmar DSM 1010...
...As Schubert showed, this m no way limits the range of what might be expressed...
...she antedates countless more searching allegories...
...Some of these problems surface in the Two Songs...
...I ieder begin (on this point there is general agreement I with Schubert's "Gretchen am Spinn-rade" I IS 14) and conclude (here I am cxpicssing mv own opinion) with Strauss' / our I (nr So/igs (\K>4S) ( I he Germans do not make Mich distinctions, "In Munclien stcht cm llotbrau-haus," that cvcigiccn becih.ill tousei...
...V JL or all that, Brahms is of course a lieder composer to be reckoned with, and Janet Baker, mezzo-soprano, assisted by Andre Previn at the keyboard, gives a remarkable sampling of his range on a new Brahms recording (Angel S-37519...
...91, Baker and Previn (joined by Cecil Aronowitz) fare less well...
...Elsewhere, though, she responds resourcefully and more suitably to the composer's variety: Her smiling "Standchen," excellently supported by Prev-in's deft pianism, flies by elegantly and is over too soon...
...nonetheless, some composers have felt restricted and added further instruments...
...The Schubert set?especially "Nacht und Traume"—attains the same level...
...each consonant and vowel perfectly in place, she can ripple through florid passages unrushed and unruffled or easily sustain a floating legato...
...The Brahms group features some of the composer's best and best-beloved songs...
...Her bell-like soprano, pure projection and eloquent shaping of line all serve the expression, joining word and music together with beautiful singularity of purpose...
...Though tiiauv ol the songs call tor considerable vocal fluency, being embellished wuh mils and turns m die Italian munnet...
...Die Zeit" presents the figure of Time weeping and smiling as she weaves astride an open grave...
...I he disc is ol special interest heie because it otters unusual insight into the background ol the lied...
...121, set to Biblical texts that ponder the vanity and misery of life, the boon of death, and the supremacy of charity...
...The disc is a celebration of poetry and song...
...On a single disc, the richness of the form is spread before us: the idealistic raptures of Schumann's "Widmung...
...the limpid clarity of Reger's "Waldeinsamkeit...
...Dame Janet, adored worldwide for the gorgeousness of her instrument, respected for her intelligence, and bowed to for her stateliness, has been oversold in the popular imagination as the mistress of all music—a kind of female Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau...
...Her soprano tunes with unerring accuracy...
...On Music FOLLOWING THE LIEDER BY M. ANATOLE GUREWITSCH o r aii musical forms, the song is not only the earliest and the most spontaneous but for centuries n remained a "popular" genre belonging more properly to folklore than to art...
...but his imagination in the lied form does not measure up to Schubert's or Wolfs, and despite the performers' devoted attentions, the conclusion of the album seems an anticlimax...
...Schubert and the others who followed took the identical themes and transmuted them to high art...
...The basic unit tor performing lieder is voice and piano...
...the grotesquer-ies of Mahler's "Ablosung im Som-mer...
Vol. 61 • October 1978 • No. 21
