A great musical tradition gone missing
Why are song recitals so rare in Seattle? We are missing a large and beautiful repertory. Plus: a test for readers.
BSU
A couple of months ago, I attended a chamber music concert in the newly refurbished and re-opened Alice Tully Hall, the Meany-sized concert venue at New York’s Lincoln Center. The concert, one of the first in the re-opened hall, was part of a series dedicated to the music of two mid-twentieth century geniuses, Prokofiev and Britten. The new hall came across very well, and the concert itself was excellent, not least for the superb playing of the Belcea Quartet whose concert in last year’s Meany Hall string quartet series created a deep impression.
But I was left pondering by a comment from Alex Ross, in a New Yorker article published to mark this new phase in Alice Tully’s history. Talking of its previous programs, he said: “When Alice Tully opened, in September 1969, it served up such meat-and –potatoes fare as Schumann’s Dichterliebe, and Schubert’s Quintet in C.” “Meat-and- potatoes”! Schumann’s beautiful song cycle for voice and piano about a poet’s love?
Well, evidently I’ve been going to the wrong places for musical sustenance. In my years of concert-going in this and other countries, it has struck me as rare to encounter public performances of the large and beautiful repertory of classical art songs by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Hugo Wolf, and Richard Strauss. And in some cities, including Seattle, this music does not seem to be performed at all.
Schubert wrote more than 600 songs, including two magnificent narrative cycles: “Die Schoene Muellerin” (The Miller’s Beautiful Daughter), and the profoundly melancholy “Die Winterreise” (“A Journey in Winter”). It’s arguable that Schumann’s very finest work lies in the field of song; as well as the “Dichterliebe” cycle, there are two wonderful but grossly neglected cycles to poems by Heine and Eichendorf, a touching cycle on “A Woman’s Life and Loves” as well as many brilliant individual songs.
Brahms was a prolific song writer. As for Hugo Wolf, apart from two never-performed operas and some early chamber music, his output consisted almost entirely of songs. And they are songs of extraordinary and haunting intensity, unique in the classical music repertory. People who do not know, for example, his setting of “Kennst du das Land” (“Do you know the country where lemons bloom....”), a setting of Mignon’s song in Goethe’s Faust, a heart-achingly beautiful song of yearning for warmth, natural beauty, love and security, are depriving themselves of a major musical experience.
There are fine song repertories in French (Debussy, Fauré, Ravel, Poulenc) and Russian (Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Rachmaninov). There is a particularly distinguished English-language inheritance of art song, with many fine examples from Benjamin Britten, Vaughan Williams, Roger Quilter, and Gerard Finzi, and in the US Charles Ives, Ned Rorem, and Leonard Bernstein. Indeed, in the case of Britten, some would argue that as with Schumann his songs represent the very best of his work. His cycle “Winter Words,” to poems by Thomas Hardy, is exceptionally fine.
In Seattle, we do well for symphony, early music, opera, and ballet. We do well for chamber music and reasonably well for solo recitals. But so far as I know we scarcely score at all in the field of the art song, at least since the Ladies Musical Club stopped presenting such song recitals many years ago. True, we sometimes have little-publicized faculty and student recitals at the University of Washington. Occasionally some great opera singer will tour with a recital, as Deborah Voigt did at Benaroya in 2007 when her program included American art songs and an interesting cycle by Respighi. Such events can be effective, but generally they do not work well for the more intimate repertory. I do not recall any art song concerts in any other Seattle venue. Nor do I recall ever hearing a Schubert song — or indeed any song at all — on Classic King FM.
There are some barriers between the classical song repertory and the wider musical public. Many classical art-songs have a particularly intimate relationship between words and music, with the sound and rhythms of the words very subtly reflected in the accompaniment. They do not translate well. Nor generally speaking do art songs project very extrovertly — they draw the listener in, but do not throw themselves at an audience. Such barriers are overcome in other fields. Much early music, particularly renaissance polyphony, is highly subtle and lacking extroversion. The language issue is overcome in opera by surtitles (has anyone thought of trying them in song recitals?).
I should be happy to know that I have misrepresented the situation, and that there is more art song available in Seattle and its “Great Nearby” than I have realized. So I ask readers to send in their experiences and perceptions. I would particularly like to know when (and where) readers last heard live performances in Seattle or the region of Schumann’s “Dichterliebe” cycle, of Schubert’s “Schoene Muellerin” cycle, or Britten’s “Winter Words.”
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Comments:
Posted Sat, May 16, 8:12 a.m. Inappropriate
I believe the Ladies Musical Club is still presenting member concerts at half a dozen or more venues in the Seattle each month, most of which include a singer of art song. You might want to check out their website for future concerts.
Posted Sat, May 23, 2:57 p.m. Inappropriate
I'm really glad to see you calling attention to the lack of song recitals here in Seattle. I have been studying and performing art songs seriously for about 15 years now, first in Boston, and then after I moved here in 1998, and this quarter I've been teaching a class at the Lifetime Learning Center on the song cycles of Franz Schubert (using recordings), and I've thought about this question myself.
Part of the problem is that voice students with professional aspirations know that they need to make their careers in opera and/or musical theater; songs are something for studio exercises and a juried recital required for graduation. If they want a viable audience for their recitals, they have to have made a name in a theatrical setting first.
And there are a number of aspects of classical vocal recitals that can be challenging to audiences: the relatively static visuals (an hour of watching a person stand next to a piano), the fact that the songs are often in foreign languages (when I do recitals I project translations as supertitles, but that is an emerging technology and most recitals rely upon printed translations that the audience members are expected to follow during performance or read in advance), and the fact that, unlike with instrumental chamber music, classical radio stations have determined that their audiences view them as background music, and vocal music is not good background music, so people don't have the same chance to hear Schubert's "Die Forelle" as they have to hear his "Trout Quintet" and decide that they'd like to commit an hour to listening that kind of music live.
It may be that art song is most effective in the kind of intimate setting for which it was originally developed. I have found that friends who don't feel moved to come to recitals that I give in a church are happy to come hear them in my home--the kind of setting where the first great German lieder were heard. As an audience member, sitting in the middle of Benaroya Hall to hear Renee Fleming was a very different feeling from hearing Ann Murray in London's little jewel of a recital venue, Wigmore Hall.
Regarding your question about when I last heard a major song cycle in this area, I can't speak to having actually heard it, but a few years ago tenor Michael Schade presented the complete "Die Schone Mullerin" for the Vancouver Recital Society. Vancouver presents several internationally known vocal artists in recital each year (this year they had Cecilia Bartoli and Angelika Kirkschlager) but often they are on weeknights and it has just never been practical for me to go to one. (Their website is http://www.vanrecital.com/home/index.cfm) I have traveled to Spokane twice to hear Thomas Hampson give recitals in connection with the renovation of the Fox Theater by the Spokane Symphony.
And, for what it's worth, audiences may be down in general for song recitals. Through the LIEDER-L online mailing list, I have exchanged some emails with a resident of the Washington, DC, area who developed a recital series that included international artists for that city. He notes a decided drop in audience levels this past year and is concerned about the future of the program.
Posted Sun, May 24, 7:54 a.m. Inappropriate
Thank you, Suemezzo, for this information. The Ladies Music Club no longer promotes concerts by visiting artists, but it does present concerts of songs and solo instrumental pieces by its own members. It has one such this evening (Sunday 24 May) at the University House in Issaquah, where the program is to include songs by Brahms, Schubert and Mahler. On June 6, in Seattle's Bethany Lutheran Church, they hve the final of their annual competition in which three sopranos are finalists. That evening at 5.00 p m, the winners will give a short concert. Thank you, too, bmill07, for your very interesting comments.The Vancouver Recital Society's 16 concerts next season include two vocal recitals - by Renee Fleming on 1 December 2009, and Gerald Finley on 6 May 2010. Tom Luce.
Posted Sun, May 24, 10:53 p.m. Inappropriate
One of the most encouraging ideas for reviving art song is the New York Festival of Song, which mixes witty commentary, several singers in a program, eclectic repertoire that can cross over traditional genre boundaries, and an interesting theme for each program, such as Songs Between the Wars. It's not a "recital"; it's a show. NYFOS was founded in 1988 by Michael Barrett and Steven Blier, two marvelous pianists and showmen. Someone should really bring these shows to Seattle, as already happens in San Francisco and Minneapolis among other cities. And it would make excellent sense for NYFOS to come and collaborate with the Seattle Opera Young Artists Program, coaching the young singers to be complete artists by also learning how to put over a song. The website is www.nyfos.org
Posted Tue, May 26, 4:57 p.m. Inappropriate
Thanks to David Brewster for mentioning the NY Festival of Song; I was unaware of this. However this seems oriented toward opera, where we are well represented in Seattle. The problem is with solo singing outside of opera. Vancouver is doing a whole lot more in this direction, with both concerts and radio. This could and should happen here.
You've mentioned KING-FM, which seems frightfully unwilling to broadcast vocal music except at the Christmas season. Why? No CD's? So much beautiful material goes simply unheard. Even a few years ago, this was not the case - I recall hearing a live performance of Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras #5 on KING. No more.
And it does seem strange that the UW concert schedule contains series for chamber music and piano, but not for voice. Especially in a university setting, where foreign languages are studied, this seems downright perverse.
How long since Thomas Hampson, a native son of Washington, sang here? Amidst all the other Mahler, when did the Seattle Symphony last perform "Das Lied von der Erde" or the "Des knaben Wunderhorn" songs? How many younger people here have never heard a live performance of a Schubert song cycle? How much Monteverdi do we hear, outside of operas? What about songs by Faure and Ravel? Not to mention songs by American writers.
It is regrettable that, despite the best efforts of vocal performers and teachers, this repertory remains so woefully neglected in our area. Frankly it should not be a hard sell, once concert organizers sense what an opportunity this represents.
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