This distinctive, attractive and wide-ranging recital consists of
twenty-five
songs by twenty-one composers. Some of these are little known and date
from
c.1680 to c.1950. A too boring chronological order is subtly avoided for
reasons
given below. Seven different languages are employed with English
book-ending
the programme.
It quite surprised me how many songs there are from which Chen Reiss and
Charles
Spencer could choose as they planned this performance on the subject of
roses
and/or nightingales. More to the point, how many poems there are on the
subject
from all eras. As Franz Binder comments in a brief booklet essay the
conjoined
themes bring to mind the “murmuring forests of German Romanticism,
fairy
tales and poems that tell of love, of its longing and pain”, so I
shouldn’t
be too surprised, really, should I.
Reiss has divided the sequence into five sections:
1. ‘Eros’, is normally interpreted as ‘desire’
hence
a song like Purcell’s
Sweeter than Roses, which from a kiss
leads
to ‘victorious love’.
2. ‘Elysium’ can be thought of as ‘deep joy’, and
as
Paradise hence, for example, the song
Le marriage des roses by
César
Franck with the words “do you know how roses wed”.
3. Solitude; in this section we have Bellini’s setting of an
anonymous
poem
Vanne, o Rosa fortunate: “a lovely rose, we are
touched
by the same destiny/we are bound to meet in death”.
4. Humour - exemplified by Schubert’s happy
Heidenröslein,
a poem by Goethe, as the picked rose, pricks the picker!
5. Finally, Myth. In Sherwin’s famous song we know that the
Nightingale
never did sing in Berkeley Square at least the RSPB seems to say so (!)
but
it’s nice to think it might have.
I really like Chen Reiss’s voice. For my taste she lacks, I am
pleased
to say, that powerfully operatic touch. This is a true recital voice.
There
is a vibrato but it is under control and sometimes not employed at all.
The
pitches are crystal clear and she is very expressive with the text and has
an
even tone quality right across her range. She is a soprano but exploits
the
lower textures effectively if need be. She is also versatile and has been
clearly
willing to extend her personal repertoire.
Charles Spencer is the most attentive of accompanists allowing the singer
to
explore the melodic lines as she wishes and being sensitive to every
nuance.
Out of all of these contrasted songs and their various stylistic demands,
which
have especially struck me? Reiss clearly sings with a smile in
Schumann’s
Die Rose, die Lilie from
Dichterliebe, possibly
because,
sadly, women don’t have many chances to perform it. I had forgotten
what
a heart-rendingly gorgeous song
Meine Rose is from the same
composer’s
cycle called
Sechs Gedichte und Requiem. She negotiates
Krenek’s
contorted and emotional setting of Karl Krause’s poem
Die
Nachtigall
- the longest on the disc - with consummate ease. It’s interesting
to
compare it with Berg’s setting of a poem with the same title but by
Theodor
Storm, which is surprisingly less intense.
There are just so many delicious, miniature gems here. I just love the
tearful
melancholy
La Rosa y el sauce by the Argentinian Carlos Guatavino.
It’s
good to have such delightful French songs as those by Hahn and a composer
new
to me I’m ashamed to say, Pauline Viardot. Her
Les deux roses
is
a track to play regularly. It’s good to have a rare song by
Meyerbeer
and such a light and happy example as
Die Rosenblätter.
There’s
also a rare song composed in a folksy style by Weber on a similar subject
to
that set by Schubert,
Ich Sah ein Röschen.
The song by Saint-Saëns,
Le rossignol et la Rose comes from
his
incidental music to the play
Parysatis and is a vocalise which
consists
of the monosyllable ‘Ah’. This allows the composer and the
singer
to indulge in some delightfully virtuoso bird-calls. Another pleasure is
the
Israeli composer Mordechai Zeir’s song
Schnei Shoshanim based
on
a real happening in a restaurant - I say no more.
This very well filled disc has all the texts supplied and nicely
translated
with a brief note on each song and its composer. More detailed notes can
be
found on the Onyx website.
Gary Higginson
Track listing
Henry PURCELL (1659-1695)
Sweeter than Roses [3.22]
Reynaldo HAHN (1874-1947)
Le Rossignol de lilas [2.10]
Richard STRAUSS (1864-1949)
Rote Rosen [2.21];
Das Rosenband [2.49]
Edvard GRIEG (1843-1907)
Die verschwiegone Nachtigall Op. 48 no. 4 [2.13]
Zur Rosenzeit [2.30]
Ernest KRENEK (1900-1991)
Die Nachtigall Op. 68 [7.00]
César FRANCK (1822-1890)
Roses et papillons [2.20]
Le marriage des roses [2.20]
Pauline VIARDOT (1821-1910)
Les deux roses [2.50]
Johannes BRAHMS (
1833-1897)
Ach die Nachtigal [2.45]
Vincenzo BELLINI (
1801-1835)
Vianne, o rosa fortunate [2.18]
Carlos GUASTAVINO (1912-2000)
La rosa y el sauce [2.27]
Gustav MAHLER (1860-1911)
Ablöung im
Sommer
[1.55]
Giacomo MEYERBEER (1791-1864)
Die Rosenblätter [1.24]
Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Heidenröslein [1.57]
Carl Maria von WEBER (1786-1826)
Ich sah ein Röschen am Wege stehn [2.05]
Camille SAINT-
SAËNS (1835-1921)
Le Rossignol et la Rose [3.17]
Gabriel FAURÉ (1845-1924)
Les Roses d’Ispahan [3.12]
Mordechai ZEIRA (1905-1968)
Schnei Shoshanim (Two Roses) [5.17]
Nikolai RIMSKY-
KORSAKOV (1844-1908)
A nightingale sings to the rose Op. 2 no. 2 (2.48]
Manning SHERWIN (1902-1974)
A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square (arr. Gerlitz) [3.50]
