SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Brahms Choral Works: The Collegiate Chorale, American Symphony Orchestra, James Bagwell (Conductor), Carnegie Hall, New York City, 13.10.2010 (SSM)

Brahms:
Alto Rhapsody,  Op.53
Stephanie Blythe: Mezzo–soprano

A German Requiem, Op.45
Erin Morley: Soprano
Eric Owens: Baritone

It was quite a publicity coup for the Collegiate Chorale to have obtained the services of two soloists whose names have been in the news for several weeks now: Stephanie Blythe and Eric Owens. Both received positive reviews for their respective roles as Fricka and Alberich in the current Metropolitan Opera production of  Das Rheingold. One assumes that tonight’s switch to Brahms must have felt to them like a vacation from the arduous singing and acting in the Wagner opera. Here they were due to be soloists for only a relatively brief time. Ms. Blythe took center stage for under fifteen minutes and Mr. Owens for half of the Requiem’s ten-minute third movement (with an additional minute or two in the sixth movement). The third soloist, Erin Morley, should be commended firstly for her sensitive and heartfelt coloratura singing but also for her patience: she waited on stage forty minutes during the Requiem for her seven-minute performance of Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit.

The program opened with Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody, a piece not often played because it requires an orchestra, a chorus and a soloist for its brief ten to fifteen minutes. Brahms wrote this as a birthday gift, not for Clara Schumann but for her daughter Julie: Brahms was known to be enamored not only of Clara but of her daughter as well. The music opens with the words “Who is that apart?” and continues with “The wasteland engulfs him,” and then “Who drank hatred of man out of the fullness of love?” If the text of this work was indeed meant to seduce, we may now better understand why Brahms never married.

The introduction is a somber adagio in C minor played by the cellos and double basses with tremolos from the muted violins and violas, and it sounds more tragic than the Requiem which was written several years earlier. The music gets slightly more upbeat when it changes to a 6/4 poco andante, but then continues in a miry mix of aria, arioso and recitatives. At the heart of this work is the entrance of the chorus, as the music modulates to C Major and returns to its original tempo. This last section never fails to surprise and stir, and Ms. Blythe, who has brilliantly recorded this music, obviously has it close to her heart. One knew from the first notes of her opening recitative, sung softly yet surely heard by those sitting in the rear balcony, that this was going to be a top-notch performance. There is often a tendency here for the soloist to be overly dramatic, trying to pour out emotion rather than letting the music do that. In some performances one senses the singer is in competition with the accompanying male chorus, but this was not the case here. Ms Blythe didn’t need to be center stage. She had already captivated the audience.

Without an intermission, the concert continued with A German Requiem. From a programming point of view the combination of the Requiem and the Alto Rhapsody may not offer the most variety, as the two works are seemingly cut from the same cloth. Within the Requiem itself, Mr. Bagwell might have attempted to stick more closely to the marked tempi: there were moments, particularly in the middle movements, when the momentum flagged. The sixth and seventh movements were more successful, starting with the change from andante to vivace in the heavily punctuated middle of the sixth movement. At one point the music resolves with what sounds like the final note, a joyous C Major chord, but after a brief pause one realizes it leads into a short fugue. This last part of the sixth movement is so upbeat that it seems miles away from a dirge. The final movement is somewhat anticlimactic, concluding the Requiem on a gentle pp. Brahms had written and performed sections of this work as he finished composing them; the sense of finality we hear in some of the movements’ codas may have in point of fact been, in earlier performances, actual endings of the work.

At its premiere in 1868, the Requiem confounded the musicians and ultimately failed in this earliest version. Its complex and dense orchestration and use of counterpoint made it difficult for the instrumentalists to play it successfully. There were no such problems with Mr. Bagwell, his chorus and his orchestra in this night’s performance.

Stan Metzger