La Piau Goes to Washington

Après un rêve, S. Piau, S. Manoff (Naïve, 2011)

Charles T. Downey, French soprano Sandrine Piau makes stunning D.C. debut
Washington Post, February 9

Sandrine Piau made her long overdue Washington debut on Sunday afternoon, and the Phillips Collection, celebrating its 75th anniversary season, got the glory. The French soprano’s excellent program of 19th-century songs, superbly accompanied by pianist Susan Manoff, was the latest sign of the ascendancy of the Phillips concert series, which has become one of the strongest in the city.

Manoff and Piau recorded many of these songs on their 2011 CD, “Après un rêve.” The qualities that set Piau’s voice apart on disc were, if anything, more pronounced live... [Continue reading]

Sandrine Piau (soprano) and Susan Manoff (piano)
Phillips Collection

PREVIOUSLY:
Charles T. Downey, Briefly Noted: Sandrine Piau (Ionarts, November 1, 2011)

Miró Quartet and Sasha Cooke

If You Love for Beauty, S. Cooke, Colburn Orchestra, Y. Gilad (Yarlung, 2012)

Charles T. Downey, Miró Quartet and Sasha Cooke make for beautiful music
Washington Post, May 1

It’s surprising that concerts featuring a string quartet and a singer are not more common. The combination has considerable appeal, as evident again in Wednesday’s performance by the Miró Quartet and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke at the Kennedy Center. Ginastera, Othmar Schoeck and Schoenberg have written for such an ensemble, but for this program Cooke sang works by Schubert, Hugo Wolf and Copland in arrangements for string quartet by the Miró Quartet’s violist, John Largess.

Cooke’s voice continues to grow in warmth and beauty... [Continue reading]

Miró Quartet and Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano
Fortas Chamber Music Concerts
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

PREVIOUSLY:
Sasha Cooke at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in 2008
Sasha Cooke at the Kennedy Center in 2009 with Lera Auerbach

Ionarts-at-Large: Michael Schade, Trumpeteering Song

A review of a Liederabend with Michael Schade (and Russel Braun, on that occasion) was the first time I saw my name beneath a headline in the Washington Post. I was aghast at how offensively lame a headline could be; so banal, it must have taken raw talent to so suck the life out any nine words in a row: “From Schade and Braun, A Rich Mix of Song”. I recoil at the thought of it to this day. I didn’t, however, remember much of the review; only a vaguely unenthused feeling.

Rereading the missive after a Liederabend of just Michael Schade at the Wiener Konzerthaus’ beautifully suited Mozartsaal, I noticed that there was one line, amid much tortured writing, that I could lift without modifying for this review, a decade later: “His instrument is strong, very focused and clean, and almost piercing, and with it he conducts precision operations in music. What I missed was a bit more [of an] inviting, open quality.”

I don’t miss it anymore, because I know not to expect it with Schade. That expectation management works very well towards making a Schade recital more enjoyable. His voice sounds ever like a trumpet and displays finer shades only rarely, and only when he steps off the pedal. Liking it or not is a subjective thing, because it’s an objectively excellent trumpet and it was certainly in fine fettle this Thursday night at the Konzerthaus. It was wasted, granted, on Mozart’s “Die ihr des unermesslichen Weltalls Schöpfer ehrt”. The rightly forgotten work is an agnosticism-spirited Freemason mini-cantata that hints of Beethoven here, of Mozart there, even of proto-Schubert… yet the best thing that can be said about it is that it’s an aria of Sarastrian wisdom paired with the lyricism of a Tamino (so Schade). Schade is not a natural Tamino, however, the text not all that clever, real drama missing completely, and if Mozart spent more than five minutes on the piano part, he was taking it easy that day. Poor pianist/accompanist Justus Zeyen. More fun was the follow-up Mozart Lied “Die Zufriedenheit”… followed in turn by Beethoven’s “Der Wachtelschlag” (more trumpeteering) and two of Beethoven’s finest Song-moments: “Ich liebe dich” (with a creative and effective ritardando before the last stanza, and a fine pianissimo) and the ‘everything-is-happening-at-once’ “Neue Liebe, neues Leben” which was vivaciously performed.

L.v.Beethoven, F.Schubert, Lieder, F.Wunderlich / H.Giesen DG Originals

Haydn songs followed, which retain much charm because of Haydn’s intimate acquaintance with Scottish songs (which he had transcribed by the hundreds). But unfortunately that doesn’t make Anne Hunter’s dreadful poems any better… set by Haydn as a gracious gesture to his host’s wife but not, one hopes, because he saw any literary merit in them. Tellingly, the funnest of the Haydn songs, by far, was the anonymously composed Sailor’s Song. Now Schade didn’t bring a particularly sailor-like demeanor to his rendition, but it wasn’t without dramatic and entertaining qualities as he belted the thing with vigor and whim.

The music of Joseph Marx, “Third Viennese School” as I like to call the largely forgotten 20^th century late-romantic strain of music, is not the deepest among this group, but it certainly contains the most sugar and cream and a wistful ‘memories-of-a-Vienna-past’ kind of pathos (a Vienna that never likely existed outside people’s imagination) that makes them gorgeous and endearing. Schade may have approximated the text all night long, but not Haydn nor these Marx songs cared. Justus Zeyen finally really got to show his qualities in “Sommerlied”, “Maienblüten”, and especially the “Nocturne”. Richard Strauss is a natural pairing for Marx, but the tendency for equating emotion: pain, longing, love et al. with sheer loudness wasn’t my cup of tea… especially not in “Befreit”. The singing protagonist remembers his departed wife and all I thought was: “Don’t yell at her, man. She’s dead, not deaf.”

It was left to the often thorny Hugo Wolf to enchant again; “Der Gärtner”, “Verborgenheit”, and “Bei einer Trauung” are three of the most pleasing Wolf-works, with a grateful beauty-to-gnarly ratio. And the last is genuinely hilarious: riotously written by Eduard Mörike, enhanced by Wolf, and splendidly played up by Schade. Only the Wolf-evergreen “Abschied” isn’t half as funny as it desperately tries to be… or at least it’s over-played and has become tired. Still, it didn’t fail to amuse the completely sold out Mozartsaal.

For the encores, I found another half sentence in that Post review to aptly describe the Mozart (“Komm, liebe Zither” K 367b) and Richard Strauss (“Morgen” and “Zueignung”) that followed: “…and suddenly Schade showed subtleties and pianos and his tone seemed perfectly suited [to the music].” More of that!

Christian Thielemann's Inauguration Concert

The opening of the season of the Dresden Staatskapelle on Sunday, September 1^st, was a celebrated occasion in Saxony’s capital. Aided and abetted by a brilliant marketing campaign that simply said “ANGEKOMMEN” (in its complexity of sentiments insufficiently conveyed by the translation ARRIVED), Christian Thielemann’s inauguration as the new Music Director, anticipated for over a almost three years, finally took place. If the mood was slightly sober first, it was because the day before the Staatskapelle had played a concert in honor of Ulrike Hessler, the Semperoper’s still new Intendant largely responsible for getting Thieleman to Dresden in the first place, whose funeral had taken place that morning, after she had lost her battle with cancer, aged 57.

Thielemann Saga on ionarts Christian Thielemann Leaves the Munich Philharmonic (22.7.09) Thielemann to Leave Munich in 2011 (25.7.09, Deutsche Welle) Thielemann Signs Up With Dresden, Leaves Munich (10.10.09, WETA) Dresden’s Gain is Munich’s Loss: Thielemann Signs With Staatskapelle (11.10.09) A Mahler Cycle And Uncomfortable Silence: The Munich Philharmonic in 2010/11 (14.3.10) Thielemann Links Outside of Ionarts (23.3.10) Lorin Maazel succeeds Christian Thielemann in Munich (24.3.10) A Trophy Wife for the Munich Philharmonic: Maazel Signs His Contract (27.3.10)

The gorgeous, acoustically lucky Semperoper was filled with guests of honor, socialites, and press, and eager Dresdeners who had come to hear a program of two composers connected by their love for Wagner: Hugo Wolf and Anton Bruckner. For the relative rarity of orchestrated Wolf Songs, Thielemann’s accomplice was his much beloved Renée Fleming. And what hidden gems they are! Right away the first song, “Verborgenheit”, makes you wonder why Wolf would be less popular than Richard Strauss. The aural parallels are astonishing, but then the orchestration—in this most satisfying of the five offered songs by the wonderful arch-romantic Joseph Marx—plays a part in that.

Renée Fleming exerted utmost control over her voice, situated far back at the throat, which sounded partly mannered, but mostly tender. It was hard to understand a word of what she sang, that way, and the high notes were no longer as soothing as I remember them, but that didn’t keep one from melting at the beauty of the song, especially it’s last line, “Seine Wonne, seine Pein!”. Thielemann, visibly enjoying himself, fiddled with the Staatskapelle’s dynamics like a boy on the knobs of his parents’ stereo system. A musical boy that is… one who has the interest of his prominent singer at heart. In the voice-free lacunae he swelled and just in time dimmed the band with just a hint of a swoosh of his baton. The Wolf ended, via “Er ist’s”, “Elfenlied”, and “Anakreons Grab”, with a very touching “Mignon”, a virtual drama for orchestra and soprano in the composer’s own orchestration. The encore was the Strauss song, “Befreit”, a personal favorite of Thielemann and Fleming… on this evening a horribly tender, simple and grateful, moody thing of strings and prominent clarinets, with Fleming floating above it all.

A.Bruckner, Symphony No.8, C.T. / Stakap Dresden PROFIL Hänssler

After intermission Thielemann made Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony (Ed.R.Haas+) rise from a pool of great calm and quiet… slowly, gently for the first movement, like a dawn or awakening, but with iron determination. The Dresdner’s added their grand, dark sound to Thielemann’s little dynamic shifts and accentuations, to the continuous tightening and re-gripping of the Adagio (with cymbal crash), to the almost nonchalant, cheeky Scherzo, and a fourth movement that, after a mini-climax near the end, gained a momentum never to be lost, and ended in majestic, organ-like sounding fashion.

The performance was received, by a crowd that very much wanted this to have been a musical moment for the ages, with abundant enthusiasm. The fact that it had been an assembly of four very impressive, but curiously self-contained movements—each and as a whole with room for improvement—went generously or willfully unnoticed. The likelihood of the Bruckner coming together in the necessary way to satisfy the most demanding expectations is high for the stops of Thielemann’s little inauguration tour: Today in Frankfurt, tomorrow in Cologne, on the 8^th in Grafenegg, and then especially on the 9^th, just two, three days after Lorin Maazel’s season opening concerts with the Munich Philharmonic (with the same composers, Wagner and Bruckner!), at Munich’s Philharmonic Hall.

Here’s to hoping that “C.T.” in Dresden is the beginning of an era, not just an episode to end after five or seven years in acrimony and wistful dreams of what might yet still have been.

Read more »

Briefly Noted: Marlis Petersen Eternally Feminine

Das Ewig-Weibliche (Goethe-Lieder), M. Petersen, J. Springer (released on March 13, 2012) HMC 902904 | 58'52"

About the time that this disc was released in the United States, I listened to a live recital by the artists, soprano Marlis Petersen and pianist Jendrik Springer, from the Mozart-Saal of the Wiener Konzerthaus, through the Web site of Austrian radio (Österreichischer Rundfunk). Countless composers have set Goethe's words to song, and Petersen and Springer get top marks here for not selecting any of the expected choices, the songs that get performed all the time. This is true even for some of the most familiar poetry: Gretchen's spinning song is presented in the setting of Richard Wagner, and Mignon's Kennst du das Land in that of Alphons Diepenbrock (1862-1921). Six settings of the poem Wandrers Nachtlied II ("Ein Gleiches") -- which Goethe wrote on the wall of a Thuringian hunting-lodge near Ilmenau on a visit to the Kickelhahn -- punctuate the recital, and apart from the first, by Robert Schumann, none is particularly familiar.

Beyond those few obvious choices, the texts are hardly familiar either, words spoken by or about several Goethe characters: in addition to Gretchen and Mignon, Stella from the 1775 play Stella, Klärchen from Egmont, Suleika from Marianne von Millemer, Philine (also from Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre), and Helena in Faust. The composers represented include, besides the expected ones like Robert Schumann, Hugo Wolf, Franz Schubert, and Franz Liszt, names like Ernst Krenek, Walter Braunfels, Wilhelm Kempff, Hans Sommer, Charles Ives, Nicolay Medtner, and Manfred Trojahn. Petersen came onto many American listeners' radar when she served as a whirlwind replacement for Natalie Dessay as Ophélie in Hamlet at the Metropolitan Opera in 2010, but she deserves your attention on her own artistic merits. It is not a voice of infinite warmth and largesse, noteworthy more for its clarity and piercing qualities than being the sort of voice you just want to wrap yourself up in, paired here with the sensitive accompanying of Jendrik Springer.

A faultless sense of intonation and a certain adventurousness make her a natural fit for the challenging music of Manfred Trojahn, which Petersen has championed a number of times. His substantial monologue on the Helen of Troy texts from Faust, composed in 2008 and recorded here for the first time, is a fine contribution to this body of music. It makes a good pairing with the Stella monologue by Krenek that opens the disc, also receiving its first recording along with the Braunfels song Der Trommel gerühret and two of the Wandrers Nachtlied songs. Marlis Petersen will give a version of this recital at Carnegie Hall on October 26, an event unfortunately not being replicated by Vocal Arts D.C. At least not yet.

Eric Owens Goes to Hell and Back

Mozart, Requiem Mass, C. Brewer, E. Owens (et al.)

Charles T. Downey, Vocal Arts D.C.: Eric Owens at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (Washington Post, December 12, 2011)

Sometimes the omnipresent December holiday rigmarole can feel like a depressing taste of the tortures of Hades. By coincidence, that was exactly what Eric Owens offered on the first half of his Vocal Arts D.C. recital Friday night at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. The American bass-baritone canceled this concert in September because of illness, but the bracing program of German and French songs, with not a single carol or jingle among them, turned out to be worth the wait.

A somber group of Hugo Wolf songs set the mood, with bleak harmony supporting the broad, resonant tone of Owens’s voice. When the instrument is opened up, it has a booming, tenebrous quality at the bottom and a commanding roar at the top, displayed in three lieder by Robert Schumann. In “Mein Herz ist schwer,” set to words adapted from a poem by Lord Byron, Owens cried out for comfort in song, but none was to be found in the grim “Der Schatzgraber,” with a driving ostinato obsessively dug out in the keyboard part by the sensitive pianist Craig Rutenberg. [Continue reading]

SEE ALSO:
James Bash, Recital shows Eric Owens at the height of his singing prowess (Oregon Music News, December 1)

Hugo Wolf Quartett

See my review of the Hugo Wolf Quartett in today's Washington Post:

Charles T. Downey, Hugo Wolf Quartett at Dumbarton Church
Washington Post, October 17, 2011

Live in Lockenhausen (Haydn quartets), Hugo Wolf Quartett

The Hugo Wolf Quartett came to play serious music, and they did so with severity of concentration and devotion to the craftsmanship of sound, devoid of theatrical contortion and hair-flipping. In the first concert of the season Saturday at Dumbarton Church in Georgetown, the mostly Austrian members of the string quartet (the second violinist was born in Switzerland) put all of their performance’s considerable drama and engagement into the music, rather than into their gestures and facial expressions.

Unlike some other string quartets, these four musicians did not feel the need to scrape every last ounce of sound from the strings. Beginning with a glowing rendition of Schubert’s one-movement “Quartettsatz” in C minor, D. 703, they played with a mellow amber tone that was carefully balanced and rarified. The cello did not growl, the viola did not bark and the violins did not wail over the top of the ensemble. The intensity of the performance came from the fleet tempo and the rise and fall of expressive phrasing.

[Continue reading]

SEE ALSO:
Stephen Brookes, Hugo Wolf Quartet at the National Gallery of Art (Washington Post, February 5, 2008)

Christopher Maltman and Goethe

Read my review published today in the Washington Post:

Charles T. Downey, Christopher Maltman and Graham Johnson at the Austrian Embassy
Washington Post, April 29, 2010

Baritone Christopher Maltman, a Vocal Arts Society regular, returned for another concert on Tuesday night at the Austrian Embassy. Unlike his last recital here -- exactly three years earlier, to the day -- he performed songs that were all in German and all set to poems by Goethe. The architect of this brilliant and expertly executed program, accompanying pianist Graham Johnson, also wrote the informative program notes.

These 20-some texts, taken from throughout Goethe's life and organized according to biographical period, were served up in musical versions -- and generally not the ones you might expect -- by Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, Loewe and, especially, Schubert. Some songs exploited the guileless and simple side of Maltman's voice, one step above dramatic recitation, as in Schubert's setting of the folk ballad "Heidenröslein." Others displayed his ability to differentiate many voices, as in the same composer's "Szene aus Faust," incarnating a malicious spirit, the terrified Gretchen, and a choir intoning the Latin sequence of the Requiem Mass. [Continue reading]

Christopher Maltman, baritone
Vocal Arts Society
Embassy of Austria

Lieder by:
Beethoven | Brahms | Loewe | Schubert | Schumann | Wolf

SEE ALSO:
Alex Baker, Christopher Maltman at the Austrian Embassy (Wellsung, April 27)

Martin Bruns and the Traces of Hafiz

This review is an Ionarts exclusive.

Martin Bruns: Busoni Songs Schubert, Schiller-Lieder

The Bill and Mary Meyer Concert Series at the Freer Gallery of Art programs concerts that reflect the nature of the museum's collection, which combines Asian and Near Eastern art with European art, like the work of James Whistler, influenced by those traditions. Some of these concerts that focus exclusively on non-European music are not of much interest to me, but Wednesday night's program, devoted to European and American composers' songs on the poetry of the Persian poet Shams ud-din Muhammed, known by the pseudonym Hāfez (Hafiz), certainly was. The cause of the 14th-century poet from Shiraz, in what is now southern Iran, was advanced in Europe by Goethe, who admired him so warmly that he proclaimed Hafiz his "twin" (whence the nature of the Hafiz-Goethe memorial in Weimar). Goethe even used the Persian poet's collection of poetry, the Divan, as the model for his own work titled West-Eastern Divan. Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said borrowed the name for their orchestra project bringing together young Israeli and Palestinian musicians.

Locating songs on (mostly German) poetry by Goethe and others who translated, adapted, or were influenced by Hafiz's poetry -- mainly Friedrich Rückert, Georg Friedrich Daumer, and Hans Bethge -- Swiss baritone Martin Bruns put together a beautiful and intellectually stimulating program of songs called Hafiz in the West: Songs of Love and Life. He will hopefully record it soon, adding it to his discography devoted to recitals of unexpected composers (Busoni) or of songs arranged by poet (Schiller) -- see also his book on songs that set the poetry of Petrarch. A thorough essay in the program, quite unnecessarily rehashed by Bruns from the stage, introduced the listener to Hafiz's poetry and his favored form, the ghazal. (As we learned from the concert organizer, the plan to have a recitation of Hafiz's poetry in the original Persian, a sophisticated art form of its own, turned out to be too difficult.) The poetry's most common subjects are love and drinking, an intellectual form of partying reminiscent of the ancient Symposium (which, after all, comes from the Greek word to drink with or together).

Bruns has a large voice, and even though he was evidently not fully healthy, repeatedly stepping off stage to drink water and clear his throat, he sang with stentorian power, perhaps tilting too much toward the nasal at the top. His interpretative approach had a disappointing sameness from song to song, however, not providing enough differentiation of tone and emotion to make this a truly memorable performance. A mellifluous legato was welcome in Schubert's Du bist die Ruh, and the voice was scaled down for songs like Schubert's Geheimes versus dramatic, overwrought ones like Granville Bantock's Alá yá! Send the Cup Round. The program was divided into carefully crafted sets, organized around a single composer, a detail destroyed by the audience insisting on applauding after each and every song, making the arc of intended meaning impossible to appreciate.

Some of the evening's best discoveries were in a set of Goethe songs by Hugo Wolf, all on poems from West-Eastern Divan, in which the narrative characters were more clearly etched by Bruns and where the orchestral scope of the piano, played bombastically and even a bit wildly by Jan Philip Schulze, was most needed. A somber, heavy-voiced Brahms set preceded it, seeming to show Brahms as Brahms, even if the inspiration was Persian erotic poetry. Best of all was a practically unknown set of songs by Viktor Ullmann, Liederbuch des Hafis, op. 30, set to poetry by Bethge and composed in Prague shortly before Ullmann was sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Ullmann has already come in for praise in our pages, and James Conlon is doing a lot to raise awareness of his music. This set of songs should be on every bass and/or baritone's repertory list, songs that are a sort of boozy mixture of Persian mysticism and the Czech cabaret. Two Hafiz settings by Alan Hovhaness, one of which served as an encore, in much less surely pronounced English, are also well worth your attention.

On Sunday (March 1, 2 pm) the next free concert at the Freer Gallery of Art will combine the traditional instruments of the Music from China ensemble with the saxophones of the PRISM Quartet.

Ionarts at Large: Notes from the ARD International Music Competition (Day 11)

While the violas celebrate (or cry), now that they’ve got their contest all done with, won their merits, or got their thanks-for-trying certificates, the string quartets come into even greater focus, stealing the limelight off the poor bassoons. The string quartet semi-finals were a two-concert, six-hour music marathon between 11AM until about 8PM. Mozart for everyone, as well as Hugo Wolf’s Italian Serenade and the ARD Competition commissioned piece by Rodion Shchedrin: Lyric Scenes for String Quartet.

There’s a potential bright side to hearing a work like Shchedrin’s six times in short succession: one of the interpreters may, and if only accidentally, hit upon worthy music in it. Not unlike Sergey Malov did with Atar Arad’s Tikvah (the Britten-Lachrymae aspect of which I had completely missed). When just the notes are played, the admirably short Shchedrin piece is a happier affair than Tikvah. Unfortunately, six different attempts at the music seemed to suggest that more than the notes simply wasn’t there. It remained a vaguely pensive, casual, and perfectly harmless work. Which, admittedly, is more than what can be said about most such commissioned pieces.

The Swiss-German Amaryllis Quartett was the first to go at it, and they extracted no sense from it, nor – like all but two quartets – did they observe the dynamic markings very carefully. Quadruple- and triple-pianissimos were less than hushed, pianissimo passages – plucked and bowed alike – were no softer than mezzopiano or mezzoforte. The work, easy to read, has its challenges for the players, but even with the artificial contrasts of fff and ppp­ it’s a bit on the monotonous side. But there was Mozart, too – the E-flat Quartet K428. A breathy opening, the first violin not always easy on the ears, and the same calm approach for the two first movements. Their transparency and separation of voices was too much and bordered on thinness – with a pianist I’d speak of a “Dresden China” approach to the music. An impression that didn’t have to be much revised after the more tempestuous (and mistake prone) last movement. A neat and nippy Italian Serenade brought their 2008 ARD competition experience to a close.

If the Amaryllis’ Wolf was “neat”, Heaves & Pomerray (b.k.a. Heath Quartet) made it a barnstorming, hootin’ piece of fun-house music that sounded more like born out of the Le Jazz period in the 1920s, not written in 1887 alongside Strauss’ dour Violin Sonata, Rheinberger’s marvelous but utterly conventional op.149 Suite for organ, violin, and cello, or Dvořák’s Second Piano Quintet. The Wild West was swinging a-heavily in this, and it was good raucous fun: on its own merits deserving of a finale berth as far as I’m concerned, although that was sadly and curiously not to be.

Admittedly, their Mozart K464 (A-major) wasn't so deserving: Neither of extraordinary delicacy nor with any other interpretative angle that defined the performance, this was less than inspired. At least the third movement wasn’t too garrulous – and those bouncing, “drumming” accompanying lines (largely with the cello, but also traded to the viola, then the second violin, before returning to the cello) simply are one of the great moments in Mozart. Out of the Shchedrin, the Brits could make little more sense than the Amaryllis, though they played it with greater precision..

Notes from the ARD Intl. Music Competition: Day 2: Viola Competition, Round 1 (2) (September 2) Day 3: Viola Competition, Round 1 (3) (September 3) Day 4: Viola Competition, Round 1 (4) (September 4) Day 5: String Quartet Competition, Round 1 (1) (September 5) Day 6: String QuartetCompetition, Round 1 (2) (September 6) Day 7: String QuartetCompetition, Round 1 (3) (September 7) Day 8: String QuartetCompetition, Round 2 (1) and Viola, Semi-Finals (September 8) Day 9: String QuartetCompetition, Round 2 (2) (September 9) Day 10: Viola, Final (September 10) Day 11: String Quartet, Semi-Finals (September 11) Day 12: Clarinet, Final (September 12) Days 13 & 14: String Quartet & Bassoon Finals (September 13 & 14)

The A­fiara Quartet squeaked into finale just so, but the first price for most fashionable appearance they’d have locked up already, if there was such a category. Their Wolf was now more modern, pre-Bergian almost, and Shchedrin still didn’t reveal a secret masterpiece. They offered a more compact, straight-faced sound here as well as in the Mozart, which paid dividends in K428. The revealing notes I scribbled down during their performance: “1^st movement: OK. 2^nd movement: faultless, unexciting. 3^rd movement: OK. Finale: not a day for Mozart, today.”

Except for the Heath’s Wolf, none of the first batch's performances were top flight, and some of it less than first class, too. Happily things improved considerably when the afternoon session of string quartets got under way at about 5PM. The Gémeaux Quartett opened with Mozart’s “Hoffmeister” Quartet K499 (now that’s Hoffmeister, I can believe in). Also very stylish, these four German/Swiss players made their Mozart an athletic, even Olympian sport. The second violin (Sylvia Zucker) could have made more out of the music she was dealt in the opening movement, rather than content herself with little more than harmonic background chirping. Playing Mozart like late Beethoven and succeeding in showing the music from its inherently enjoyable side is maybe too difficult a task for most quartets.

Better a bold intonation issue, than a timid intonation issue, I say… and that might have been the Gémeaux’ motto, too, in the (bold indeed) second movement. Dancing in front of her colleagues like the pied piper in ballerina slippers, the chipper-playing first violin Anne Schoenholtz made the others follow her happily. The tight-enough ensemble and the discipline worked reasonably well in this firm, lean, occasionally muscular, occasionally mechanical performance. A steely Mozart never to love, but one to make an impression with.

Shchedrin was better from the rest only in that the voices were more finely attuned to each other, that first violin dared to make a might sound when called for, and because they nailed the very last phrase: one half bar of 32^nd notes with a decaying sound from mp to ppp played sul ponticello. Small victories. The Italian Serenade, a work that fortunately refused to get old upon hearing so many times, sounded fresh – in both meanings of the word: I loved the inflections and slides that gave this Wolf something between a Viennese wine-induced slur and a strong air of a North-Texan, chicle chewing saloon girl eying her potential ‘visitors’. (If La Fanciulla del West sounded half as authentically western, it might actually be a fine opera.) The Gémeaux didn’t go down that road all the way (unlike the Heath), though. They still observed great detail, flirting with precision for its own sake and thereby reigning some of the ‘total-flair’ aspect back in. Not necessarily a bad decision, but not a necessary one, either.

Apollon Musagete had their great and slightly lesser moments in this contest already. Now, amid the disappointing level of Mozart playing in this semi-finale, their “Dissonance” Quartet K465 (C-major) was a relative triumph. K465 is an astounding work not only for the premonitions-of-Webern opening, but its genial nature throughout. And lo-and-behold, the four Poles were the first to present Mozart that sounded genial, too. Small mistakes didn’t matter – they were negligible in light of the music of which they were part. After four moonlit Mozartean quartet-scapes, finally some sunshine! I suspect the success was due to a quartet actually sitting down for some music-making, instead of string-quartet-competition-playing. Velvet gloves in the second movement and nearly as amiable final movements only underscored how dissatisfying all the previous Mozart – including the better-than-the-rest’s Gémeaux’ – had been.

They didn’t stop here, either: Shchedrin finally had four players who at least tried to dutifully observe the dynamic markings, and first violinist Pawel Zalejski played those 32^nd note runs as if they had been etched into metal plates. Not that that revealed sudden greatness, but at least it made the act of reading along more satisfying. Then Hugo Wolf’s Serenade became a new piece of music, again. Instead of the anachronistic Saloon & Blues-interpretation, they gave us the Vienna Coffee-house version. Vienna is, after all, an eastern European city – and Apollon Musagetes made that plenty clear. The earnestness with which second violinist Bartosz Zachlod had fun was downright adorable. The performance made old gentlemen in the audience stomp their feet and howl (! - presumably because it was Hugo Wolf) with excitement. Just like the Gémeaux, unequivocal candidates for the finale in which they will appear on September 13^th.

Last for the day was again the Verus String Quartet who opted for sandwiching their Mozart between Wolf and Shchedrin. Despite my admiration for their playing so far, I imagined the possibility of these four young Japanese musicians driving Wolf's Serenade against the wall in a buttoned-up reading. Turns out that they played it more or less as I feared, but that the result didn’t sound like anything I might have been afraid of. Sure it was a rather unsmiling, un-infectious Serenade, and it was played straight faced, as absolute music. But it was beautiful absolute music now, with a nocturnal air about it.

Shchedrin’s Lyric Scenes (all scenes, no story), had more nice touches than all but the Polish performances, too. Not as accurate as the latter, but again played as absolute music which might have been as good a plan as any, rather than searching for extra-musical meaning not present. Their excellent sound raised the question here, as well as in any of their other performances: What instruments does this youngest of the participating quartets play on?

Without wanting to take away from their due credit for playing so well, their instruments must be well above average for such a consistent, uncommonly beautiful sound. A sound they put to very fine use in their Mozart K387 “Spring”. This was polished without that driven zeal or the all-too-skimpy sound already heard, displaying an exactness without that heightened, even aggressive, pressure with which Mozart had been treated so far. There may not have been anything overtly “Mozartesque” about the Verus' reading (which also means an absence of clichés), nor did they chose the casual style of the Apollon Musagetes, but there was plenty of their civilized, mature sound and groomed playing that simply has its own, very rewarding merits. Although this isn’t at all my aesthetic credo, hearing this I had to admit: Beauty is – sometimes – an end in itself. How good to be hearing them in Beethoven and Bartók again, so soon.

Recommended recordings of the string quartets played in the semi final:

Mozart, Quartet No.18, K464 - "Drum", Quatuor Mosaïques Mozart, Quartet No.19, K465 - "Dissonance", Klenke Quartet

Mozart, Quartet No.20, K499 - "Hoffmeister", Klenke Quartett Mozart, Quartet No.16, K428, Quatuor Mosaïques

Mozart, Quartet No.14, K387 - "Spring", Quatuor Mosaïques Wolf et al., Italian Serenade, Takács Quartet (ArkivCD)

The Art of the Lied: Schubert & Wolf Songs

F.Schubert, An den Mond, D.Henschel / H.Deutsch HMU 901822

Every label usually has an ‘in-house’ tenor or baritone Lieder singer. While EMI fares best with its tenor Ian Bostridge, baritones dominate the Lieder domain of some of the other major labels. Decca brings Matthias Goerne into the fray; for Deutsche Gramophone the estimable and real baritone Thomas Quasthoff has stepped into the oversized footsteps of the tenor-baritone Fischer-Dieskau. For RCA, it is Christian Gerhaher who sings in the lower register. Harmonia Mundi luxuriates in having both a tenor and a baritone of the highest caliber to unleash on Schubert, Beethoven, Wolf & Co. Wolfgang Güra is far and away my favorite tenor these days; a voice that is completely natural and unstrained, round and comforting. He brings all the tonal qualities of a baritone to the register of a tenor. The baritone is Dietrich Henschel. His voice can occasionally, even by experienced ears, be mistaken for Fischer-Dieskau’s. It hasn’t a very dark timber, and he is an intelligent singer who defines the text with nuance. He is, however, not quite as obsessed with detail and every expressive nook and cranny as Bostridge can sometimes be (and when so, is at his least pleasurable). I’ve enjoyed Henschel’s Beethoven disc, even if Adelaïde (one of the most beautiful songs ever composed) in particular is a realm that is still occupied by Fischer-Dieskau’s timeless interpretation. And An die ferne Geliebte was given a recent and very fine outing courtesy of Goerne and Brendel.

H.Wolf, Mörike Lieder, W.Güra / J.Schultsz HMU 901882

It is his year-old Schubert recital, An den Mond (To the Moon), that particularly enchants me. From the opening Der Wanderer and den Mond, Henschel sets an example of fine, clear singing with perfect diction, pronunciation, absence of theatrics and operatic touches that so often wreak havoc with Lieder, Mélodies, and Art Song. One song after another is a highlight -– an excellent Sehnsucht following on the first song’s heels, the felt Im Freien after that; 19 delights in all, dedicated to nature, night, restlessness, and solitude. As always with Schubert, the quality of the poem underlying his songs has little to do with the quality of the result: indeed, the often modest poetic achievements of his roommate Johann Mayrhoffer end up being songs of a quality on par with or exceeding those that are set to Goethe or Schlegel. Lebensmut is strong and forceful and virtually forces you to (try to) sing along. When you think it could not get better, Der Schiffer tops all those efforts once more. Listen to the piano whipping the waves mercilessly beneath Henschel's supple voice! Or thundering through what turns out to be one of Schubert's most gripping songs, Totengräbers Heimwehe. Speaking of the piano, Helmut Deutsch shines in the pre- and postludes - partakes as much as Henschel in the interpretation of songs. Even the slower tempi of his are marbled with a pulse that never allows any of the music to sag or drag.

Werner Güra has received highest praise when he recorded the nearly perfect Lieder CD Schöne Wiege Meiner Leiden, a disc where the selection of the songs (Brahms and Mr. & Ms. Schumann), the presentation (including letters between the three composers), and the execution (with a perfect contribution by pianist Christoph Berner on a superbly balanced 1877 Friedrich Ehrbar piano) answered to about everything one could wish such a CD to bring with it. His latest release is dedicated to 23 of Wolf’s Mörike songs. Wolf’s songs demand that the listener be into the art of the Lied in the first place (at least more so than the “Schöne Wiege…” selection) to fully enjoy it, but those who are will find Güra at the top of his game, again. Never harsh, never shrill, and never strained he manages the (difficult enough) sine qua non of such a recital. But beyond the absence of the negative, he adds a bewildering array of positively positive elements into his traversal of beauties such as the touching heartache of Gebet, the surging, threatened and gloomy Denk’ es, o Seele, the wild and stormy Der Feuerreiter, and the humorous Storchenbotschaft (Stork-tidings: “I guess you’ve paid my girl a visit? […] / But wait! Why have two of you come? / It can’t, I hope, be a case of twins? / –At that the storks burst out chattering / They nod and curtsey and fly away”).

Jan Schultsz offers sensitive and musical accompaniment, always underscoring the lyricism of Wolf, never neglecting the bubbles and the nimble moments.

No harm in celebrating the 80th birthday of the greatest Lieder singer there ever was; Fischer-Dieskau, whether we consider his legacy impressive but controversial or simply unequalled. But better yet is it to know that between the singers mentioned above and the two singers on the marvelous discs discussed here, we are not bound to run out of future greatness in that field of classical music.