ENGAGING HEART AND MIND

 Roberta Mameli

We love a gorgeous unamplified human voice and we love learning things. Both these wishes were granted last night at Bohemian Hall when Aspect Chamber Music presented a program entitled The Ghosts of Hamlet. First we heard a stimulating illustrated lecture by the engaging John Brewer, Professor of History and Literature, Emeritus; then we heard a most gratifying concert of Baroque music performed by Le Concert de l'Hostel Dieu featuring stunning soprano Roberta Mameli.

To those of us who know the story of Hamlet as a 1601 Shakespearean play and as an 1868 grand opera in five acts by the French composer Ambroise Thomas,  (based on a French adaptation of the Shakespeare work by Alexandre Dumas, père, and Paul Meurice ) the lecture was a revelation. The origin of the Hamlet story was Gesta Danorum, a history of the Danish people written at the beginning of the 12th century by Saxo Grammaticus. The story concerns a King of Denmark treacherously murdered by his brother who then marries the King's widow. The King's son feigns madness and the usurper tries to reveal him. The son uncovers a spy and brutally murders him along with a bunch of nobles and the usurper, then manages to become King himself.

From this raw and bloody material, Shakespeare fashioned a play filled with ambiguity, subtlety, and exploration of character. A century later, one Apostolo Zeno created a dramma per musica for Venice, one that derives directly from the source and departs significantly from Shakespeare's iteration,  giving much more importance to the female characters.

And thus we have a great deal of music of the Italian Baroque based upon Zeno's rendering of the Danish "history" which may or may not be legend. Amongst a slew of composers who wrote operas entitled Ambleto, the only composers of the group with whom we are familiar are Scarlatti who wrote his opera for Roma in 1715 and Handel who wrote another Ambleto  for London in 1712.

Performing excerpts from several of these operas was a most talented chamber group Le Concert de l'Hostel Dieu, the members of which were unfortunately not mentioned in the program; but there were three violinists, a cellist, and a theorboist who doubled on lute, all conducted by Franck-Emmanuel Comte who played an instrument that sounded like a harpsichord but was very small. Dear Reader, forgive our ignorance but we are not specialists in the field of Baroque music.

Performing the arias was the glorious Roman soprano Roberta Mameli whose penetrating and flexible instrument was well under her control as she negotiated all manner of Baroque fioritura whilst conveying a panoply of emotions. We enjoyed the performance the most when the violins were silent and she was accompanied only by the cello and the theorbo. The texture was divine. One could tell how much she enjoys singing these works and if we ever got the chance to hear her perform a Monteverdi opera or a Händel one, we would be in seventh heaven.

Some of the other Italian composers who were unknown to us were Francesco Gasparini, Giuseppe Carcani, and Carlo Francesco Pollarolo.  Johann Joseph Fux also composed something instrumental for Vienna and Johann Adolf Hasse for Paris, although we are not sure whether their works were related to Hamlet.

Which brings us to a small quibble. We would have loved projected titles since we were unwilling to tear ourselves away from the compelling performance to follow the program, not to mention the fact that the lighting was insufficient for reading it.

However, let us end on a high note, so to speak. The most welcome encore was an aria "Lascia ch'io pianga la mia sorte" from Händel's 1711 opera Rinaldo. The composer had used that melody a number of times with different text before it achieved fame in Rinaldo. It achieved further fame when used in the film Farinelli. We were thrilled to hear something familiar to close this excellent program.

© meche kroop

MUSE OR MONSTER

 Rebecca Ringle Kamarei and Bryan Wagorn

The fascinating evening presented last night at the Italian Academy by Aspect Chamber Music examined the life and art song output of Alma Mahler, wife of composer and conductor Gustav Mahler. The worthwhile approach of Aspect Chamber Music is to include not only performance but also  information and imagery, making the evening stimulating as well as interesting.

We were not unaware of the "scandalous" exploits of this captivating woman but brief illustrated talks by musicologist Nicholas Chong contributed a great deal to our understanding and appreciation. We are familiar with sapiosexuality but we don't know the term for someone attracted to artistic gifts. Alma had a constant stream of lovers and husbands, all of whom were famous in their fields and considerably older than she. Both she and Gustav had acquaintance with Sigmund Freud who no doubt pointed out that the early loss of her gifted father just might have been responsible.

The saddest part of her story is that Gustav insisted she abandon her musical gifts and so we were left with just a small output, all of which deserves a wider hearing. How fortunate we are that we got to hear four of the five songs from her Fünf Lieder. Her settings of texts by Richard Dehmel, Otto Julius Bierbaum,  and Heinrich Heine were filled with invention and eroticism. Raised on rhyme and scan, we related best to the Heine text "Ich wandle unter Blumen".

The songs were brought to life by the elegant mezzo-soprano Rebecca Ringle Kamarei whose precision with German was that of un eingeboren. Consonants were crisp and every word was given meaning.  Add to that her rich timbre, meaningful phrasing, and elegant stature. It was not lost on us that her hairstyle and gown suggested the turn of the 20th century.

Her fine performance was accompanied by pianist Bryan Wagorn who was an equal partner throughout. We were impressed by Alma's writing of the piano part which shuttled between commenting on the text and contrasting with it. Mr. Wagorn's sensitivity mirrored Ms. Kamarei's.  These songs definitely merit further hearing.

We cannot recall whether we liked Gustav's songs as much upon first hearing as we do now.  Perhaps they seemed strange at first but the familiarity we acquired makes us respond more instantly than we did to Alma's songs.  We never tire of his settings of folk songs with their likable melodies and danceable rhythms.  "Rheinlegendchen" is just plain fun whereas "Ich atmet' einen linden Duft" makes the most of Rückert's sensual text. Both artists gave a nuanced performance.

The evening was rounded out by other interesting works.  There was a surprise introduction when pianist Adam Golka captivated our ear with a deeply felt performance of Chopin's familiar "Nocturne in E-flat Major". This had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the program but Chopin is always welcome and Mr. Golka's sensitive touch and depth of feeling set him apart and  elevated this familiar work to a higher status.  We loved the expressive rubato, the dynamic variety, and the clearly articulated runs.

Three Pieces for cello and piano by Alexander Zemlinsky (who taught Alma when she was a young woman) were delightful in their variety and contrast. Mr. Golka was joined by cellist Brook Speltz and the two bounced melodies off one another.  The first piece was lyrical and melodic but incorporated a fiery section. The second piece was tender and melancholic and at times suggested gypsy music.  The third piece was a spirited tarantella during which it was difficult to sit still.

We were not nearly as enchanted by the final work on the program, Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Piano Trio, Op.1 in which Mr. Golka and Mr. Speltz were joined by violinist Adam Barnett-Hart. It is indeed astonishing that this child prodigy, so admired by all the musical figures of that period, could produce such an accomplished work, but it was not to our taste. It was filled with 20th c. angst and scarcely seems to have come from the pen of a 13-year-old. The motifs were fragmented and angular and we were unable to find a structure to latch onto.

We find the opera he wrote when he was 20 years old,  Die tote Stadt, more accessible and the film scores he wrote in Hollywood after fleeing the Nazis even more so.

In sum it was a fine evening and we left feeling entertained and enlightened, having been transported to the early 20th c. world of music.

© meche kroop