ART SONG WANTED! DEAD OR ALIVE?

Nils Neubert and Robert Brandt

 Art Song recitals are a tough sell these days and one wonders why this perfect marriage of poetry, piano, and voice has fallen out of favor with the musical audiences of today. It seems as if a celebrity singer can fill up Carnegie Hall; but the true artistry of this genre is best enjoyed in an intimate venue.

Frank Daykin and Thomas

New York City has a number of organizations devoted to the survival of the art song and chief among them is The Art Song Preservation Society which is in the middle of its annual festival.  We love their motto--"Where Music Speaks & Words Sing". Headed by singer/pianist/educator/arts administrator Blair Boone-Migura, ASPS provides opportunities for education and performance for both emerging and established composers, singers, and accompanists. They are also involved in community outreach, mentoring, and an internet-radio podcast.

This week there will be daily master classes at 2:00 PM held at Manhattan School of Music; the master teachers are some of the best in the field.  Although not available in the daytime, we are mostly excited about the Friday evening recital of Latin American Art Song.  And anyone free next Saturday at 1:00 can enjoy the finals of the Mary Trueman Art Song Vocal Competition; an added bonus is the opportunity to vote for your favorite competitor.

We have just returned from a delightful recital in which two seasoned recitalists presented both solos and duets of this genre, accompanied by two veteran and legendary collaborative pianists who are both "poets of the piano". This complement allowed for the hearing of rarely heard duets and four-handed piano pieces.

The program opened with tenor Nils Neubert joining forces with baritone Robert Brandt for three duets by Brahms, none of which we have heard before. The sound fell sweetly on the ear with great attention paid to crisp consonants, lovely phrasing, and a perfect balance between the two voices. We do love German lieder with the same affection which Italian holds for us in the area of opera. Furthermore, the composers of 19th c. Germany astutely chose fine poetry to set.

We are pleased to share with our readers that the early 20th c. English songs held no terrors for our 19th c. ears. We heard a selection of songs by Gerald Finzi, Herbert Howells, and John Ireland, all distinguished by their wise choices of text and their astute use of our mother tongue to amplify this text.  Of course, one can never go wrong with Shakespeare, whose iambic pentameter lends itself to musical setting. We wish contemporary composers would choose better text to set!

These songs were given a fine performance by the mellow voiced Mr. Brandt, accompanied by Frank Daykin, who brought out the subtleties of the piano score, especially the sound of the nightingale in Howells' "King David". In Finzi's flirtatious "O Mistress mine", we enjoyed Mr. Brandt's lovely pianissimo in the last verse.  The philosophical "Fear no more the heat o' the sun" from the Bard's Cymbeline, and Ireland's nostalgic "The Salley Gardens" were followed by the frisky "It was a lover and his lass" from As You Like It. Mr. Brandt colored each song according to its text and his English diction was particularly well defined.  Not a word was lost.

Mr. Neubert also had his turn as a soloist and we enjoyed his performance of Quatre Melodies de Claude Debussy, settings of text by Paul Verlaine. Thomas Grubb's piano was the ideal partner; Mr. Grubb is renowned for writing the popular Singing in French, a manual of French Diction and French Vocal Repertoire. "C'est l'extase langoureuse" was given an appropriately languid reading. In "Il pleure dans mon coeur", we enjoyed the rippling piano, quite different from the rolling waves of "La mer est plus belle".

The two singers joined forces for two duets by Gabriel Fauré that were new to us. The lovely French lines involved the two voices echoing one another, not only in the textual lines but on the pleasing sound of "ah". The audience favorite seems to have been the jolly "Tarantelle". Mr. Grubb was truly in his element.

Besides this banquet of vocal music, we were treated to some four-handed piano.  We heard a sonata for four hands by Francis Poulenc--lively and somewhat dissonant. The program closed with Ravel's Ma Mère l'Oye, written in 1908-1910. Mr. Daykin, known for his widely used Encyclopedia of French Art Song: Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc, gave a droll introduction to this work by Ravel, here at his picturesque best in programmatic music written for the children of his friends, who were unable to learn the piece!

We particularly enjoyed "Les entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête" in which Mr. Daykin expressed Belle's beauty in the lyrical part played in the upper register, whilst the rumbling of the Beast was taken by Mr. Grubb at the lower end of the register. Both themes were transmogrified over the course of the movement.

The audience clamored for an encore but there was none.  Still, we left feeling completely fulfilled.

(c) meche kroop

THE ART OF THE ART SONG

Thomas Muraco

Winnie Nieh

As a rule we do not review rehearsals, but tomorrow's performance of ASPS (The Art Song Preservation Society) conflicts with a prior reviewing commitment and we did not want to miss the opportunity of hearing soprano Winnie Nieh singing some of our favorite lieder, with the esteemed Thomas Muraco as her collaborative pianist.

Any afficionado of art song would be delighted by the program and we sincerely wish that all of you will be able to squeeze into Christ and St. Stephen's Episcopal Church on W. 69th St. for the 3:00 recital. From what we witnessed yesterday, the program promises to provide deep aural and emotional satisfaction.

We know Ms. Nieh from her several performances with Utopia Opera and are so glad that she keeps garnering prizes and interesting roles.  She is an emerging artist with a great deal going for her. Her voice is pure, sweet, and well-focused--able to soar above piano or orchestra. Her German is as good as it gets with every word understandable.

In the set of songs by Franz Schubert, we had trouble choosing a favorite, since each one brought out different colors. In "Im Frühling", Schubert switches between major and minor and Ms. Nieh colored her voice appropriately for this bittersweet tale of love and sorrow.

In the contemplative "Nacht und Träume", Mr. Muraco's playing had a spiritual feeling. He emphasized the key change, a subtle but nonetheless jolting modulation--and Ms. Nieh matched him perfectly.

The rhythmic "Der Musensohn" made us want to get up and dance and the tender "Sei mir gegrüsst" brought tears to our eyes.  And if you are unable to feel for the young lady confiding her woes to her mother in "Die Männer sind méchant", you were never a teenager! This song truly allowed Ms. Nieh's acting skills to emerge.

A set of Hugo Wolf songs, with texts by Eduard Mörike, filled us with delight. "Der Knabe und das Immlein" is a real charmer and Mr. Muraco's piano provided the buzzing bee. The humorous play on words in "Elfenlied" provided further pleasures, as did the playful "Mausfallen-Sprüchlein". The two artists excelled in "Nixe Binsefuss" with Mr. Muraco playing what we called "fairy music" when we were small.

That was fine to end on because earlier we were close to weeping again when the pair performed "Das verlassene Mägdlein", one of the saddest songs with which we are familiar. Again, Ms. Nieh's fine acting put the song across just as Wolf intended. The attention to text and music vividly brought the picture to the mind's eye.

Mezzo-soprano Emily d'Angelo, a Metropolitan Opera National Council Award winner, will be performing some of our favorite songs by Brahms and this should bring further delights which we regret we will miss.

The second half of the program will be sung in French with Thomas Grubb taking over as collaborative pianist. Mezzo-soprano Sahoko Sato Timpone will sing selections from Hector Berlioz' Les Nuits d'Eté with text by Théophile Gautier and La Chanson d'Eve by Gabriel Fauré.

Baritone Robert Brandt will perform selections from Maurice Ravel's Deux Epigrammes de Clément Marot and from Histoires Naturelles.

It promises to be a most worthwhile afternoon! ASPS exists to promote the art song repertoire and the artists that perform it. We love their motto--"Where music speaks and words sing".  Most apt.

(c) meche kroop

CHANSON FROM MANNES--AND A SPECIAL TREAT

Faustine de Mones, Jiin Jung, Dorothy Gal, and Brianna Han

Last night at Mannes School of Music we heard An Evening of French Music, performed by Voice Major and Collaborative Piano Students. We are familiar with evenings coached by Christina Stanescu who directs the Collaborative Piano Department at Mannes. The performances are always topnotch. The recital began with a singing of "La Marseillaise"!

Soprano Faustine de Mones is a native speaker of French while soprano Dorothy Gal is not. A native speaker of French might have been able to tell the difference; we could not. We have been listening to Ms. Gal for some time since she has studied at Glenn Morton's French immersion program L'Art du Chant Francais. She just keeps getting better and better.

She sang Debussy's "Beau Soir" with fine diction and lovely phrasing; the warmth of her instrument lent a special flavor to the text. She continued with Duparc's "Chanson Triste" during which we noticed the fine arpeggios of collaborative pianist Brianna Han who has a light touch on the keys, just right for delicate French chansons.

Moving from chanson to aria, the pair performed "Allons, il le faut...Adieu, notre petite table" from Massenet's Manon, an aria filled with regret and misgivings.  No misgivings about the performance however!  Quite lovely, especially when Ms. Gal's singing became more expansive. Additionally, the aria offered her the opportunity to express the feelings by means of dynamic variation.

While Ms. Gal is a rather self-contained artist, Ms. de Mones is quite expressive. She opened with Trois poèmes de Louise de Vilmorin, set by Poulenc. The text is a bit more obscure but we enjoyed the suggestive conclusion of "Le garçon de Liège". Ms. de Mones also chose an aria from Manon--"Je suis encore tout étourdie" from Act I.  In this aria, Manon is still an innocent girl on her way to the convent and our singer succeeded in conveying the excitement of her first trip. This young lady has a lively personality and a winning onstage presence. Jiin Jung was her fine piano partner.

Tenor John Ramseyer (who left before the group photo) has a fine vibrato that lends an interesting texture to his voice. He kept up the long delicate line of Duparc's Phidylé right until the climax on "ton meilleur baiser"when he opened up his voice. We further enjoyed "Adieu, Mignon" from Ambroise Thomas' Mignon, an opera based on Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre, which also inspired settings by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, and Wolf. Mr. Ramseyer conveyed the sensitivity of a tender farewell.

And what was the special treat we alluded to in the title? The famous Thomas Grubb, educator, coach, collaborative pianist, and author of Singing in French: a Manual of French Diction and French Vocal Repertoire, performed L'histoire de Babar le petit elephant; he gave a dramatic reading of the text by Jean de Brunhoff, punctuated and enhanced by Poulenc's piano interludes. If we want to talk about impeccable French, this was it. His delivery was spellbinding.

We didn't always see the connection between the text and the music but definitely preferred the more lyrical interludes when Babar rode on his mother's back, when he was adopted by the old lady, when he remembered his mother, when he hosted his cousins, and when he bid farewell to the old lady. We also liked the dance music for his wedding and the peaceful music at the end when night fell.

Mr. Grubb's illustrious presence can be credited to the Art Song Preservation Society which is aptly named. Artists and audiences alike are well served by their activities.

(c) meche kroop