McGonagall-Lieder (1997-2001)
Katrien Barts (soprano), Post&Mulder (piano duet), Asko|Schönberg/Oliver Knussen
rec. Musiekgebouw aan ’t IJ, Amsterdam, 10-12 May 2012
CHALLENGE CLASSICS CC72608 [54.31]
The reputation of William McGonagall (1825-1902) as the worst poet
in the English language has hardly encouraged composers to embark
on settings of his “poetic gems”, as he termed them. Indeed,
the only setting that I can recall, that by Matyas Seiber of The
famous Tay whale, was written as a deliberately comic number -
complete with Wagnerian quotations and plentiful use of the Volga
Boat Song - for the Hoffnung concerts. There it was given gloriously
full measure in a recitation by Dame Edith Evans in her best Lady
Bracknell style. Actually Robert Zuidam only sets two of McGonagall’s
poems in this cycle of “Lieder” - his Address to the
New Tay Bridge and The Tay Bridge Disaster. The two poems
are linked, the first commemorating the opening of the “strong
and securely built” bridge in 1875, and the second lamenting
its collapse during a thunderstorm in 1879. McGonagall himself seems
to have been blissfully unaware of the irony.
In his substantial booklet note the composer claims that “bad
poetry can be an excellent source of inspiration for a composer.”
I was sceptical about this claim, but Zuidam makes an arguable case
for treating McGonagall as seriously as McGonagall took himself. The
‘cycle’ opens with an extended prelude for piano duet,
played with proper solemnity by Pauline Post and Nora Mulder. The
music sounds in places like Messiaen at his most splashily ecstatic,
but its connection to McGonagall seems tangential at best, almost
as if a completely different work has been spliced on to the beginning.
When after ten minutes or so the voice finally enters, it is startling
to hear McGonagall’s text declaimed by a coloratura soprano
employing all the devices of the modern avant garde, with wide-ranging
leaps, screams, glissandi and other effects. Were it not for
the fact that the text of the poems were supplied in the booklet,
it would be almost impossible to decipher a word that the resourceful
Katrien Barts sings. She is amazing in the way she manages to encompass
the extremely high range which she is given to negotiate, so perhaps
it would be churlish to complain. It does make one wonder why composers
feel the need to use existing poetic texts at all. Gerard McBurney,
reviewing Thomas Ades’s Powder her face for the sadly
defunct International Opera Collector many years ago, made
the same point eloquently: “It’s not just that those pseudo-Bergian
sevenths and ninths sound strained even in the mouth of someone who
sings like a xylophone; it is that they inevitably mangle the vowels
so that the sense of line keeps disappearing.” Those words are
just as true today as they were when they were written in 1998. The
accompaniment, scored for low strings and piano duet, adds nothing
to the meaning of the incomprehensible delivery of the doggerel verses.
To do him justice, the composer does address these concerns in his
booklet notes. “Woolly, ritualistic formulations, followed by
vigorous, unexpected outbursts. Minute observations and dazzling bombastic
virtuosity, resulting in a hypnotizing anti-lyricism; a limp sense
of meter wanders, seemingly clueless, through an unhinged linguistic
landscape.” He is describing the poetry of McGonagall, but the
same words could also be used to describe the way in which Zuidam’s
music reflects those ideas. After the end of the first poem we are
given over quarter of an hour of purely instrumental music, at first
scored for two pianos and strings and then for two pianos alone. Again
the resources of the avant garde are much in evidence; string
glissandi swoop and swirl about in a disjointed fashion.
When the voice finally re-enters, we are given a sort of stuttering
Gaelic keen which is the score’s sole acknowledgement of the
Scottish milieu of the poems. The fall of the passengers into
the “silvery Tay” is portrayed by the dropping of what
the booklet informs us is “ninety pingpongballs” (who
was counting?), an idea which derives I suppose from Stravinsky’s
Petruchka where the composer asked for a tambourine to be similarly
dropped to depict the breaking of the puppet’s neck; but the
subsequent outraged screams from the singer indicate that we are supposed
to take this very seriously indeed. Quite suddenly we get a chorale
melody to the words “On the last Sabbath day of 1879, which
will be remembered for a very long time” - and we find ourselves
in the same world of parody as Peter Maxwell Davies’s Eight
songs for a mad king, although the word-setting lacks the maniacal
theatricality of that masterpiece. Actually one might conceive that
Maxwell Davies could set McGonagall to good effect - how about
it?
Apart from the sheer incomprehensibility of the diction - hardly the
fault of the singer - the performers throw themselves into the music
with wholehearted dedication and commitment, making the best possible
case for the score. The recording is excellently clear; you can hear
everything. The disc itself is handsomely packaged, with the normal
booklet and jewel box contained in two outer sleeves. As for the music
itself, it is not unapproachable or unenjoyable, but it is all terribly
serious; the spirit of McGonagall has gone missing somewhere.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Not unapproachable or unenjoyable but all terribly serious.
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