SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Schumann:Thomas Hampson (Baritone), Wolfram Rieger (Piano), Wigmore Hall, London 15.12.2007 (AO)


What a rare treasure Hampson presented to the Wigmore Hall audience tonight !  This wasn’t the Dichterliebe we all know, but the original 1840 version, 20 Lieder und Gesänge aus dem Lyrischen Intermezzo im Buch der Lieder.  Hampson has long supported and worked with music researchers such as Renate Hilmar-Voit, who prepared the important critical edition of Mahler’s Wunderhorn songs. As late as 1846, Schumann was referring to his "cycle of 20 songs", but surprisingly, it's still not clear how they took on the form we know today through the researchers have been tracing the trail of the songs from composer through various publishers. The research revealed printing errors, changes in notation and dynamic markings, longer postludes and even a lower-lying tessitura which was later altered to fit the treble voice of the piano part.

Most interestingly, the addition of four extra songs and a Prolog change the overall balance.  Since Dichterliebe has created discussion about what makes a work a cohesive “cycle”, so this ur-version could stimulate much thought.

The four “extra” songs are fairly well-known, like Mein Wagen rollet langsam, but hearing them embedded in this context enhances how we appreciate op 48.  As Hampson suggests, clues may lie in reading Heine’s original as a whole as Schumann most certainly did.  This version, for example, preserves Heine’s two pillars as frames, Prolog,  at the beginning, and Die alten, bösen Lieder, at the end.  In Prolog, a knight has a wild affair with a fairy, but in the last line, he whisked back to reality, and his “düstern Poetenstübchen” (grubby little garret). At the end the poet resolves to bury “the old, hateful songs” and throw them in the sea, but again, in the last line, reveals that the songs are his most precious dreams. That Prolog remains text, not song, is interesting.  This anchors songs like Im wunderschönen Mai which hover elusively, without resolution, morphing into the next poem and song.  It’s a deliberate Schumann device, for he does it again, morphing the “dream” songs, Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet  flowing into Allnächtlich, im Traume, significantly before returning to the fairytale of Aus alte Märchen and the bitter, final attempt to be rid of songs, and dreams, forever.

Schumann whittled Heine’s 66 songs down to 20, culling even gems like Auf Flüglen des Gesänge, so his structure must have meant something to him.  So how do the “extra” songs fit in ? These are Dein Angesicht so lieb und schon and Lehn deine Wang' an meine Wang between Wenn ich deine Augen seh'n and Ich will meine Seele tauchen.  Then Es leuchtet meine Liebe and Mein Wagen rolllet langsam between Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen and Ich hab im Traum geweinet. The “new” architecture is signifigant but I’ll leave that to readers to figure out. There’ll be lots of different answers, and that’s part of the fun ! I found the transition into Ich will meine Seele tauchen specially glorious after the melancholy that went before.

There are also interesting changes in notation and dynamic markings, which aren’t huge, but piquant.  In Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen, Hampson notes that the whole ambiance changes, particularly in the piano part which he describes as “patently unprettified with many dissonances that may jar on first hearing but quickly serve to establish the semantic reference”.  On first hearing, too, there seems to be more deliberation in the pace at several other points, both in the voice and piano part.

Nature is kinder to pianists than to singers, as voices eventually show strain, but pianists get better with age !  Rieger’s prominence in this set may reflect the more unusual piano part, but Hampson’s voice certainly still has richness and depth.  Moreover, what he demonstrated here was that artistry is far more important than voice alone.  When he sang the beautiful, vibrating vowels in the phrase “Durch blumige Taler, die zaubrisch im Sonnenglanze blühn”, the sensual languor came over so vividly, you sensed  the magic he’s referring to.  In the context of the song (Mein Wagen rollet) these words are insignificant, but in the wider context of this group of songs the “zaubrisch” reference takes on far greater importance. Hampson is a supreme artist, wise enough to understand its critical purpose in the shape and meaning of the whole.

Starting the recital with Schumann’s Kerner Lieder was also musically well judged. Kerner was a doctor, but also a mystic who dabbled in parapsychology and spiritualism in an era before psychology when such things were vaguely scientific.  Thus Kerner’s dream and ghost themes prepare us for the deeper levels of the 20 Lieder.   In!, Hampson navigated the treacherous tessitura of the young nun’s voice very well, by enunciating slowly rather than forcing his voice too high.  Attention then shifts to the man who’s watching the nun, shattered to hear he’s lost her.  Strangely, since there was so much emphasis on the cohesion of the 20 Lieder, less attention was paid to the underlying relationships in the Kerner Lieder where the same music is used for different texts  creating an interesting inner structure.

At the end there was more evidence of just how great an artist Hampson is.  He’s the sort of legendary figure whom audiences wouldn’t begrudge three encores any time, but here he defied convention yet again. After a luscious Du bist wie ein Blume, he announced with simple dignity and grace that he’d end at that point.  He loves the Wigmore Hall and its audience loves him, too.  After an excellent recital, he didn’t need to prove anything more.  He’s “that” good !


Anne Ozorio