This is one of the most imaginative solutions to the construction
of a song recital that I have ever encountered. It comes in a handsomely
packaged and beautifully designed hardback booklet disguised as a
photograph album with the CD inserted at the back. The whole programme
has been constructed by Joseph Middleton, who explains that the idea
was to tell the story of a love affair over a period of a weekend,
described as a mini-opera in four acts with overture and postlude.
It draws upon a wide range of composers to describe the course of
events. Only three - Brahms, Britten and Wolf - are represented by
more than one song, with all the others contributing one song apiece
to the twenty-nine items on this CD. This includes a considerable
number of items which are rare or totally unknown. In order to demonstrate
the sheer range of this panorama, I have listed the composers and
their songs at the end of this review in alphabetical order. In the
course of my discussion I will take the tracks in the order in which
they are presented.
The opening rendition of Britten’s setting of Auden’s
Tell me the truth about love has the right sly and slightly
sleazy atmosphere. This is aided by the almost jazzy accompaniment
by Middleton. Amanda Roocroft rises to the climax in the final verse
with passion. The ‘action’ proper begins with a sequence
entitled
Love at first sight, containing settings by Schumann,
Boulanger, Wolf (
O wär’ dein Haus), Chausson and
Quilter. Lili Boulanger’s treatment of Francis Jammes (1868-1938)
extracted from her lovely cycle
Clairières dans le ciel
is particularly beautiful. The Quilter setting of
Love’s
philosophy would ideally benefit from a larger voice, although
Roocroft is not afraid to give full-throated romantic delivery when
required even when this involves some sacrifice in clarity of diction.
The second sequence, entitled
An encounter, consists of songs
by Loewe, Brahms (
Wir wandelten), Ireland and the pseudonymous
Poldowski. The Loewe is not one of his more famous narrative ballads,
but one of his much more rarely heard individual lyric settings. The
song by Régine Wieniawski, the Belgian daughter of Wieniawski
who settled in England, married a baronet there and composed under
the name of ‘Poldowski’ is a completely unknown quantity.
There appears to be no other recording of her Verlaine song
En
sourdine. It is a real discovery challenging more famous settings
of the same poem by Debussy and Fauré.
The third sequence,
Liebestod, contains the songs by Strauss,
Dunhill, Mompou and Rachmaninov. The Dunhill setting of Yeats’
The cloths of Heaven, is one of the greatest ever treatments
of that poet. Although Roocroft lacks the inner stillness of interpreters
such as Dame Janet Baker she nevertheless manages to convey the sense
of quiet rapture that is needed. When are we going to get a complete
recording of the marvellous cycle
The wind among the reeds
with the full orchestral accompaniment? The Mompou setting is an engaging
- although extended - trifle, no more. The Rachmaninov song,
Midsummer
nights is declaimed by Roocroft with the right sense of dramatic
involvement, while Middleton copes manfully with the virtuoso ‘accompaniment’.
The fourth sequence, entitled rather depressingly
The morning after
the night before, contains the songs by Bridge, Grieg, Wolf (
Geh’,
Geliebter) and Marx. Bridge’s setting of Keats in
Adoration
is a quiet miniature. The Marx
Und gestern hat er mir Rosen gebracht
which rounds out this sequence is a full-blooded romantic outpouring
which challenges for dramatic involvement the extended Wolf song from
the Spanish Songbook which precedes it.
The final sequence,
Deception and betrayal, is the longest
with ten songs: the two remaining songs by Brahms and those by Schubert,
Debussy, Fauré, Schoenberg, Barber, Copland, Weill and Hahn.
Roocroft delivers the Schubert setting
Du liebst mich nicht
with a real sense of inwardness. The early Schoenberg song
Warnung
is another rarity which well merits revival. The dying fall at the
end of the Debussy setting of Pierre Loüys (1870-1925) is most
affectingly done and the Fauré
Fleur jetée conjures
up real warmth. The Copland’s
Heart, we will forget him
(Emily Dickinson) is a beautiful piece. The Weill song
Je ne t’aime
pas - composed during his Parisian exile - is a superb extended
romantic meditation with none of the cabaret overtones that one might
expect. We are also treated to unexpected passages where the poem
is reduced to a spoken line. After this passionate declamation the
delicate Hahn song
Infidélité seems almost perfunctory.
As a postlude we are given an encore in the shape of Britten’s
folksong setting
Early one morning. This is one of Britten’s
most imaginative responses to English folksong, with its lonely piano
accompaniment almost divorced from the vocal line which it ostensibly
supports. Roocroft lends it the sense of desolation and abandonment
which the words imply, although once again one regrets the lack of
clarity in her English diction. The supply of beautiful tone - which
Roocroft furnishes in plenty - need not mean that the vowels need
to be carefully rounded as often as we find here.
Nevertheless this is an imaginatively constructed recital. Some of
the unexpected juxtapositions of style and idiom - not as jarring
as might sometimes be anticipated - provide a real sense of illumination.
The booklet gives full texts and translations into English, as appropriate,
and the design and artwork by Anthony Roocroft is beautifully presented.
We are not given very much detail about the songs themselves, dates
of composition and so on, but then that is clearly not the intention
of the recital which is to illustrate the story of the unhappy love
affair rather than to pick out the more mechanical aspects of the
composers’ art. By the same token we are not given the durations
of the individual songs which make up each of the sequences. I have
supplied the missing details, as far as possible, in the track-listing.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Track-Listing (in alphabetical order)
Samuel BARBER (1910-1981)
Rain has fallen [from Chamber music, Op.10] (1935) [2.22]
Lili BOULANGER (1893-1918)
Vous m’avez regardé avec tout votre âme
[from Clairières dans le ciel] (1914) [1.41]
Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Wir wandelten, Op.96/2 [3.04]
Am Sonntag morgen, Op.49/1 [1.10]
Du sprichst, dass ich mich täuschte, Op.32/6 [2.54]
Frank BRIDGE (1879-1941)
Adoration (1905) [2.53]
Benjamin BRITTEN (1913-1976)
Tell me the truth about love (1936) [5.25]
Early one morning [folksong arrangement] (1959) [3.10]
Ernest CHAUSSON (1855-1899)
Le charme, Op.2/2 [1.38]
Aaron COPLAND (1900-1990)
Heart, we will forget him [from Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson]
(1950) [2.03]
Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
La chevelure [from Chansons de Bilitis] (1901) [3.26]
Thomas DUNHILL (1877-1946)
The cloths of Heaven [from The wind among the reeds,
Op.33] [2.18]
Gabriel FAURÉ (1845-1924)
Fleur jetée, Op.39/2 [1.30]
Edvard GRIEG (1843-1907)
Jeg elsker Dig [from The heart’s melodies, Op.5]
[1.37]
Reynaldo HAHN (1874-1947)
Infidélité (1891) [2.44]
John IRELAND (1879-1962)
The trellis (1920) [3.18]
Carl LOEWE (1796-1869)
Ich kann’s nicht fassen, nicht glauben (1836) [1.11]
Joseph MARX (1822-1964)
Und gestern hat er mir Rosen gebracht (1908) [1.53]
Federico MOMPOU (1893-1987)
Damunt de tu només les flors [from Combat del somni]
[4.09]
‘POLDOWSKI’ [Régine Wieniawski] (1879-1932)
En sourdine [2.41]
Roger QUILTER (1877-1953)
Love’s philosophy, Op.3/1 [1.27]
Sergei RACHMANINOV (1873-1943)
Midsummer nights, Op.14/5 [1.53]
Arnold SCHOENBERG (1874-1951)
Warnung (1899) [2.03]
Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Du liebst mich nicht, D756 [3.34]
Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
Seit ich ihn gesehen [from Frauenliebe und -leben, Op.42]
[2.37]
Richard STRAUSS (1864-1949)
Nachtgesang, Op.29/3 (1895) [2.50]
Kurt WEILL (1900-1950)
Je ne t’aime pas (1934) [4.33]
Hugo WOLF (1860-1903)
O wär’ dein Haus [from Italienisches Liederbuch]
(1896) [1.36]
Geh’, Geliebter, geh’ jetzt! [from Spanisches
Liederbuch] (1888) [3.51]
