WOLF, STRAUSS, RACHMANINOFF, IVES,WEILL
DAWN UPSHAW soprano
MARGO GARRETT piano
Hugo Wolf
Goethe-Lieder
1. No. 29 Anakreons Grab
2. No. 26 Die Sprode
3. No. 27 Die Bekehrte
4. No. 24 Blumengruss
5. No. 7 Mignon Ill
6. No. 25 Gleich und Gleich
7. No. 28 Fruhling ubers Jahr
8. No. 50 Ganymed
Richard Strauss (1864 -1949)
Drei Lieder der Ophelia, Op. 67a
9. No. 1 Wie erkenn ich mein Treulieb vor andern nun?
10. No. 2 Guten Morgen,'s ist Sankt
Valentinstag
11. No. 3 Sie trugen ihn auf der Bahre
bloss
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 -1943)
Six Songs, Op. 38
12. No. 1 In My Garden at Night
13. No. 2To Her
14. No. 3 Daisies
15. No. 4 The Pied Piper
16. No. 5 A Dream
17. No. 6 "A-oo"
Charles Ives (1874 -1954)
18. Berceuse
19. The World's Highway
Kurt Weill (1900 -1950)
20. Berlin im Licht-Song
21. Je ne t'aime pas
The song recital recorded here brings together five composers of vastly different persuasions. There is Ives, the inspired maverick, the first composer who captured the "feel" of America in music; Weill, who began life composing important "classical" scores and spent the last ten years of his life writing for movies and Broadway; Rachmaninoff, whose four great piano concert! are known the world over; Strauss, Germany's last all-around genius; and Hugo Wolf, the only one among the five who devoted himself to the song (or rather Lied, we would say in his case) to the exclusion of almost everything else.
Wolf is also the initiator and founder of a school of intensely poetry-oriented song writing. His vocal line includes minute textual inflections, while the piano part, far from being mere accompaniment, interprets and illuminates every nuance of the poetic vision. The singer recites a poem while singing a song. This innovation provides the unifying element in our recital. Almost every song reveals the commitment of the composer to his poem, to the general meaning no less than to the significant detail.
music of the past and resounding with the new music of the future (Wagner), he managed to write a great number of songs of exquisite beauty, non-egotistic anchorite that he was.
Wolf's Goethe songs place him in the pantheon of the immortals. The expansive Ganymed is one of the great songs of all ages; the same holds true for the diminutive Anakreons Grab, which makes a complete, rich and beautifully rounded-out musical statement within the smallest possible space. The piano part of Ganymed suggests an orchestra, and Wolf did indeed orchestrate this song without, we feel, improving on it.
Self-effacement was Hugo Wolf's singular virtue. In his Goethe songs, which he wrote in 1888-89 in a frenzied outburst of creative fury, the poetry is held to be the ruling divinity. As he lived in a world saturated with the glorious
Some poems of this series reflect young Goethe's bucolic or anacreontic phase (such as Die Sprode and Die Bekehrte, which complement each other). Ganymed ("storm and stress") depicts a kind of Liebestod (the poet --or the poet's soul -- melts into the essence of the godhead above). There is a cryptic element about the Mignon poems, all taken from Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. The 19th century gave much thought to Mignon, Goethe's mysterious non-sexual nymphet, and elevated her into myth. Mignon III might be well-nigh untranslatable, but the general drift is clear: death is greeted as the harbinger of a better and purer life.
Within his translucent, delicate settings, Wolf
achieves great rhythmic (declamatory) independence of the voice, which is supported by subtle harmonic progression; new images and ideas, as they appear in the poem, are illuminated by modulation. Wolfs harmonic progressions are beautifully prepared and controlled (there is an element of late classicism or neo-classicism in his music) and always meaningful. Thus Goethe's poetry is deepened, with its latent dramatic content convincingly realized.
In 1918 Richard Strauss completed a cycle of bawdy, punning and nasty songs, using poems by the noted Berlin critic Alfred Kerr. These poems subjected Strauss' own publishers, the house of Bote and Bock, to ridicule and accused them of mercantilism and dishonesty. When Strauss offered these poems under the heading Kramerspiegel to these selfsame publishers, they refused to accept them. As Strauss was under the legal obligation to provide some songs, he "dashed off" (to use the words of his biographer Del Mar) the three Ophelia songs and coupled them with three Lieder des Unmuts (songs of anger) from Goethe's Westostlicher Diwan. Although "dashed off," the Ophelia songs are nonetheless (to quote Del Mar again) "unforgettable". They occupy a special place in Strauss' oeuvre. Although Strauss was a master in depicting female hysteria (as in Salome and Elektra), he had always
considered insanity to be outside his ken; there is indeed not a single "mad scene" in any one of his 15 operas.
The songs were all taken from act 4, scene 5 of Hamlet. For unexplained reasons Strauss did not use the exemplary Schlegel translation, but an inferior and awkward translation by Simrock. For his first two songs Strauss contrived open or inconclusive endings; only the last of the three songs offers familiar Straussian musical turns and reaches a convincing conclusion. The Ophelia songs are "role" or character songs, wherein the composer impersonates a figure not himself; many brilliant "role" songs can be found in the cycles of the earlier romantic composers.
On this program the Rachmaninoff songs are the most advanced examples of the song conceived as musically enhanced poetry. The great piano virtuoso has gone into hiding: the piano part is subdued and completely subservient to the poetic idea. Knowledge of these songs, we feel, is essential for our evaluation of Rachmaninoff's stature as a composer.
These songs are sad, expressing fin-de-siecle misery; they are also sad in a general Slavic way. We might remember that they were written in Russia in 1916. The war went badly in that year, signs of impending catastrophe
abounded, and Rachmaninoff realized that he might have to become an exile if he wanted to flourish as a composer. These songs are his unconscious farewell to his homeland, and they surely were his farewell to song-writing; no songs came from the composer's pen after he left Russia in 1917.
The poets represented in this cycle (Blok, Bel'iy, Severianin, Bryusov, Sologub and Bal'mont) are generally referred to as symbolists, but the poems Rachmaninoff chose use none other than conventional symbols hallowed by centuries of tradition, such as weeping willows for tears, flowers for young girls, etc. Most of the songs express frustrated longing; in fact, the cycle ends with a long held-out moan (which also furnishes the title of the last poem). Characteristically, a song would move from a melancholic beginning up to a point of frenzy and ecstasy and then sink back into resignation.
Rachmaninoff used beautiful sounds in the French impressionistic manner only in the song called A Dream. His sophisticated textures and his abhorrence of banality lets one suspect that he might have had some acquaintance with Schoenberg's early compositions. Daisies alone might be called (with reservations) a "happy" song; the piano part is an independent little composition and can be heard, played by Rachmaninoff, on an old-player roll. To this listener the most
haunting of the songs is no. 4, The Pied Piper, a serenade or rather a seducing song with Mephistophelian undertones of creeping cynicism and despair. This is a "role" song in the same manner as Strauss' Ophelia songs.
Charles Ives wrote well over a hundred songs, most of them before the onset of the great war. Many of his songs were published long after they had been written, and therefore they are not easy to date; yet we know for certain that Berceuse and The World's Highway were written around 1905. In terms of Ives' artistic development dates matter very little: he was the same always, wistfully embracing tradition and enthusiastically given to experiment.
Berceuse proves that Ives liked beautiful chords and sensuous harmonic progressions as much as any post-Brahmsian Germanic composer. The World's Highway, a complete little masterpiece, begins like a spiritual and changes into a dance; then the boulders on the highway spoil the fun, sending the traveler back home. The text of Berceuse is by the composer; the text of The World's Highway is by his wife, Harmony Twichell Ives.
Kurt Oppens
Although Kurt Weill was one of the most promising young composers of the German Weimar Republic (founded in 1919), by 1933
he had left Germany forever. The initial, enormous success of many of his early works was followed soon by intense hostility. This was caused by complex social and political forces, culminating with the Nazi seizure of power in 1933.
Berlin im Licht-Song was composed in 1928, the same year as the Threepenny Opera, while the strange song, Jene t'aime pas, was written in France in 1934, just after Weill fled
Germany. (The title "I Don't Love You" could be one of Anna Russell's parodies, were the song not so serious.) A year and a half later he came to New York and began to get involved with music for Broadway and Hollywood, to which he would begin to devote himself exclusively in a few years. According to The New Grove, he felt "the entire European tradition of composed music had reached its historically appointed end".
Tracks 1-9 translation from The Fischer-Dieskau Book of Lieder, published by Limelight Editions, New York Tracks 20-21 translation by Robert Cowart
Hugo Wolf
Selections
from Poems
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1. Anacreon's Grave
Here, where the rose blooms, where vine round laurel twines, Where the turtle dove calls, where cricket doth delight, What grave is here, that it with life all gods
Should plant and ornament with beauty? Here rests Anacreon.
Spring, summer, autumn that happy poet has enjoyed; From winter, at the last, has this mound protected him.
2. The Coy One
On a pure Spring morning
Went a shepherdess singing, Young and beautiful and without sorrow, Ringing through the forest fields. So, la, la, la, la ..
Thyrsis offered her three lambs
For a little kiss
Roguish looks were exchanged, But she sang and laughed and ran away. So, la, la, la, la ...
And another offered her ribbons, Another his heart, And she urged them on, As with the lambs, in jest. Only singing so, la, la ...
Gregor Benko
3. The Convert
In the sunset gleam
Quietly I walked the path. Damon sat playing his flute, Making the cliffs resound, So la la!
And he drew me down to him, Kissed me so gently, so sweetly. And I said, "Play again." And the good lad played, So la la!
My peace is now lost, My joy is flown, And in my years I hear Still only that old So la la!
4. Flower Greeting
May the bouquet I have plucked
Greet you many thousands of times! I have bent oftenAh, at least a thousand times, And pressed it to my heart
Something like a hundred thousand!
5. So Let Me Seem (Mignon's Song)
So let me seem, until I am; strip not my white robe from me! from the lovely earth I hasten down into that sure house.
There in brief repose I'll rest, then my fresh eyes will open, my pure raiment then I'll leave, with girdle, rosary, behind.
And those forms who are in heaven ask not who is man or woman, and no robes, no folds enclose the transfigured body.
True, I lived free of sorrow, toil, yet I feel deep pain enough. Too early I grew old with grief –make me forever young again!
6. The Ones Alike
A little flower bell sprouted forth Early in lovely blossom; There came a bee and nibbled enjoyingly. They must have been made for each other!
7. Perennial Spring
Already the flower-bed breaks loose to the sky,
tiny bells waver, white as snow; saffron sends forth a vehement glow; an emeraldine budding, a budding blood red, primroses parading so impudent, the wily violet hidden with care; and as for all else that is astir, no more ... Spring is alive, and at work.
But what in the garden most richly blooms, that is my loved one's feelings so dear. Here burn her glances for me without cease, stirring to song, enlivening speech; an ever-open, blossoming heart, in grave matters kindly, innocent in jest. Though summer brings, rose and lily, vainly shall summer compete with my love.
8. Ganymede
How in the morning radiance
You glow upon me from all sides, Spring, beloved!
With love's thousandfold bliss
To my heart thrusts itself
Your eternal ardour's Sacred feeling, Beauty unending!
Might I clasp you
In these arms!
Ah, at your breast
I lie, languish,
And your flowers, your grass Thrust themselves to my heart.
You cool the burning Thirst of my bosom.
Sweet morning wind! The nightingale calls me Lovingly from the misty vale.
I come, I come! Whither? Ah, whither?
Upwards! Upwards the striving, The clouds float Down, the clouds Bow down to yearning love. To me! To me!
In your lap Upwards! Embracing embraced! Upwards to your bosom. All-loving Father!
Richard Strauss
Drei Lieder der Ophelia, Op. 67a (William Shakespeare)
9. How Should I Your True -- Love Know
How should I your truelove know From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff, And his sandal shoon.
He is dead and gone, lady, He is dead and gone; At his head a grass-green turf
At his heels a stone.
White his shroud as the mountain snow, Larded with sweet flowers; Which bewept to the grave did go With true-love showers.
10. Tomorrow Is Saint Valentine's Day
Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day, All in the morning betime.
And I a maid at your window, To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes, And dupp'd the chamber-door; Let in the maid, that out a maid Never departed more.
By Gis and by Saint Charity, Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do't, if they come to't; By cock, they are to blame. Quoth she, before you tumbled me, You promis'd me to wed. So would I ha'done, by yonder sun, An thou hadst not come to my bed.
11. They Bore Him Bare-Faced on the Bier
They bore him barefaced on the bier;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny; And in his grave rain'd many a tear, Fare you well, my dove!
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy, And will he not come again? No, no, he is dead: Go to thy death-bed: He never will come again.
He is gone, he is gone, And we cast away moan: God ha'mercy on his soul!
And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi'ye.
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Six Songs, Op. 38
12. In My Garden at Night
In my garden at night mourns the weeping willow; disconsolate willow. Early in the morning when the sun first begins to shine, the tender willow weeps incessantly, curling down to me, consoling me.
13. To Her. ·
The grass is dressed in pearls. Bittersweet greetings are heard, such tender greetings. Dearest one, where are you? Dearest one! The evening's light is clear and red; with hands outstretched I wait for you. In the pale river of Lethe I am washing away. Dearest one, where are you?
14. Daisies
His beard was white as snow, All flaxen was his poll;
O, look how many daisies are blooming here and there. They bloom with three-edged petals like white silk sings. They have summer's power! They have happiness in abundance! There are hosts of them! It's ready, Earth's dew-drop drink for the flowers, giving juice to the stem ... O maidens, stairs of daisies, I love you.
15. The Pied Piper
I play on the pipe to make the soul happy. I walk along the quiet river where sheep quietly doze in the gently rippling field. Sleep, sheep and goats, where slender poplars stand in the field of red clover. A small cottage is hiding there, where a darling young girl dreams that I give her my soul. And the tender call I whistle comes in like a bright object through the garden and field. And in the forest beneath the dark oaks she will wait in delirious languor at the hour when the earth sleeps. I meet the precious guest and even until morning I kiss her, until a passionate heart is satisfied. Faith then is exchanged with a ring. I set her free to the sheep in the garden where the slender poplars grow.
16. A Dream
In the world there is nothing more desired than a dream. It has magic and silence; on its lips is no sadness, no laughter; in its eyes many secret comforts. It has two wide wings and is light, as light as midnight mist. I do not understand how it carries me away, nor where or by what means its wings don't move, its shoulder doesn't move.
on a mountainous slope. But where are you? There's no echo, no answer. The colourful flower among others is fading, and laughter deep within entices me. In rain I call: “A-oo," I cry.
Charles Ives 18. Berceuse
O'er the mountain towards the west, As the Children go to rest, Faintly comes a sound, A song of nature hovers round.
‘Tis the beauty of the night; Sleep thee well 'til morning light.
19. The World's Highway (H. Twichell)
For long I wander'd happily Far out on the world's highway.
My heart was brave for each new thing and I loved the faraway.
I watch'd the gay bright people dance. We laughed, for the road was good. But Oh! I passed where the way was rough. I saw it stained with blood.
17. "A-oo"
Your tender laughter was fairy-tale-like and fickle. It called with a pipe-like ring as in a dream. And here, garlanded with poetry, I crown you. We go, we flee, we two together on a mountainous slope. But where are you?
I wander'd on 'til I tired grew, Far on the world's highway. My heart was sad for what I saw. I feared the faraway.
So one day, O sweetest day, I came to a garden small.
A voice my heart knew called me in. I answered its blessed call.
I left my wand'ring far and wide, The freedom and faraway. But my garden blooms with sweet content That's not on the world's highway.
Kurt Weill 20. Berlin-in-the-Light Song
And for taking a stroll
The sunshine suffices, But to see the City of Berlin We need more than sun. It's no secluded little spot, It's quite a considerable town, And in order to see well all that is there, A person needs some watts. So what? So what?
What kind of city is it then?
Come now, give some light, So one can see, If there's anything there. Come, make some light, And don't talk now. Just make some light, And let's have a look, If it's anything at all: Berlin in the light.
21. I Don't Love You
Take your hand away, I don't love you. Because you wanted it so, You are only a friend. For others are made The recesses of your arms And your dear kiss, Your sleeping head. Don't speak to me
When it is evening, Too intimately, And in a low voice. Don't give me,
Above all, your handkerchief: It holds too strongly The perfume I love. Tell me of your loves, I do not love you. Which hour was Your most intoxicating? I don't love you ... And if he loved you well, Or if he was ungrateful ... When you tell it to me, Don't be charming, I don't love you ...
I haven't wept, I haven't suffered, That was only a dream, Folly, nothing more. It will suffice me
That your eyes are clear.
With no regrets for the evening, And with no melancholy. It will suffice me to see Your happiness, And to see your smile. Tell me how He took your heart. Tell me even the things one cannot tell. No, rather be silent ... I am kneeling ... The fire has gone out, The door is closed ... I do not love you, Ask me nothing, I'm weeping ... that's all ... I don't love you, I don't love you, Oh my beloved! ... Take your hand away I do not love you.
Produced and Engineered by Craig D. Dory Recorded at the Strand Theatre, Lakewood, New Jersey
Mastering: Bill Kipper, Masterdisk Corp.
