ÜBERWÄLTIGEND!

 Ammiel Bushakevitz and Konstantin Krimmel

(Photo by Joseph Sinnott)

We have just spent a week with two extraordinary artists, leaving us almost lost in a world of German Romanticism,--not everyone's cup of tea but very much the beverage of choice of the lieder lovers who packed Butenweiser Hall at The 92nd Street Y. Mastering the three song cycles of Franz Schubert (and yes, they were mastered) and performing them all in one week must have made enormous demands on the artists; giving undivided attention makes a demand on the usually restless New York audience as well. One only heard the quiet rustling of the pages of the translation booklet.

For our part, we neither followed along the translation nor did we take notes. This exception to our usual concert reviewing led to our complete immersion in the experience, as contrasted with the very first time we heard these Schubert song cycles in the same venue sung by a very famous baritone. At that time we were new to lieder and had to read the translation. It was a fine starter for us,  and can be considered responsible for initiating a lifetime of interest in art song and a wish to learn German. We have come a long way!

Although primarily focused on the subtleties of interpretation, the refinements of technique in both baritone Konstantin Krimmel and collaborative pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz were not lost on us. Herr Krimmel can tell a story with such variety of vocal coloration, subtlety of phrasing, and depth of feeling that one can focus on the storytelling with the means of achievement only affecting us on a subtle level. With even a minimal knowledge of German one knew exactly the nature of the story he was telling. Bushakevitz evinced such total command of his instrument  that the accompaniment revealed the setting as well as the unconscious feelings of the poet narrator.

Our favorite of the three evenings was the darkest-- Winterreise. We call this "50 Shades of Black". It is the chronicle of a man's descent into madness after a romantic rejection. Perhaps the poet Wilhelm Müller meant the work to be taken a bit ironically but Schubert put his pen to paper with emotional intensity and psychological validity. In perfect Schubertian partnership, piano and vocal line augment each other. In the same fashion, Krimmel and Bushakevitz complemented each other in limning both the natural elements of a countryside winter and the mental decompensation of the hero.

So, we view the cycle as a matchless work of art involving poet, composer, singer and pianist. We members of the audience can in no way feel detached but we take this journey together. If we do not feel shaken to the core as "Die Leiermann" fades to a close, then the artists have not succeeded. This perfect partnership had the hero depersonalizing and derealizing in succession, hallucinating the two suns, shivering in the cold, fantasizing that crows and signposts were to be taken personally. There are only a few bars of momentary and false hopes, one when the piano gives us the hoofbeats of the horse drawing the postal coach which just might contain a letter from the lost beloved--but doesn't. And once again when the hero awakens from a sweet dream; but depression rapidly overtakes him as Schubert switches readily from major to minor, as he so often does. One cannot believe how artistry can create so many versions of despair. Fifty shades of black indeed!!

Our second favorite was Die schöne Müllerin which tells a somewhat different story but one no less tragic. The arc of the story follows our young hero who sets out to make his place in the world, finds a job with a miller, falls in love with the miller's daughter, mistakes her interest, despairs over her fickleness, and intends to drown himself in the same brook that powers the millwheel. The story offers the singer a wider latitude of emotional expression from gaiety to misery and offers the pianist an opportunity to limn rushing water and turning mill wheels. Schubert was a master at creating imagery by means of melody and rhythm and our pair of artists picked up on every subtlety with consummate technique and intense emotionality.

The final evening was Schwanengesang which was not published until after Schubert's tragic early death. This work is filled with variety but doesn't tell a story. Several songs stood out, probably because we have heard them so often in concert. Ludwig Rellstab's "Liebesbotschaft" and "Abschied" begin the collection on a rather cheerful note and his famous "Ständchen" touches our heart with its tender importuning.. After some rather sad songs, Johann Gabriel Seidl's "Die Taubenpost" lifts our spirits with its cheerful message and lilting rhythm. Heinrich Heine contributed two seaside texts of contrasting mood, the cheerful "Das Fischermädchen" and the painful "Am Meer". The final two songs are also settings of Heine and they are songs of torment with "Der Doppelgänger" expressing the torment of lost love and "Der Atlas" expressing the torment of the futility of existence.

Rather than letting the audience leave in a state of depression, our generous artists offered the soothing balm of a Ralph Vaughn Williams song that was lovely but seemed trivial after the depths attained in the cycle. We cannot leave you Dear Reader without reiterating our deeply held belief that one of the major failures of  contemporary art song is the use of boring contemporary text that neither rhymes nor scans. Hearing three evenings of crispy enunciated German that does rhyme and scan left us feeling fulfilled. We would prefer to feel sadly fulfilled by music that still haunts us days later than to hear something contemporary that we will forget within an hour. Schubert's melodies are repeating over and over in our mind's ear and we are even cherishing the sorrow we felt for the unhappy protagonists. We live in the Age of Cool and how refreshing and meaningful it is to recognize that sorrow is part of a deeply felt life.

We will not close without mentioning something that puzzled us in  Die Schöne Müllerin, mainly because we had never before heard embellishments of the vocal line, and we have heard this cycle more times than we can count, sung by both famous artists and by students. We were obliged to consult with a couple pianist friends of ours who informed us that it is not incorrect. We don't care whether it is "correct". It was just something unexpected that we will have to hear again before we decide whether we like it or not.

In any case, we feel so grateful to have spent a week with two artists engaged in legitimate artistic exploration without grandstanding. This is a week we will not soon forget!

© meche kroop

A WINTER'S JOURNEY

Gerald Finley (photo by Sim Canetty-Clarke)

"Neither snow nor rain...." prevented illustrious Canadian baritone Gerald Finley nor incomparable collaborative pianist Julius Drake from performing Schubert's heartbreaking Winterreise at Zankel Hall last night.  The same could be said for the intrepid audience which braved snow, slush, ice and rain to attend the final performance of the artists' North American tour.  We have no way of knowing what the first stop was like but the tour ended on a perfect note, so to speak.

The work is one of our favorite song-cycles. This journey into madness with text by Wilhelm Müller, published in 1824, is typical of 19th c. romantic angst; it begins with a young man's disappointment which grows into despair, denial and ultimately depression and longing for death. Schubert elevated it into an iconic work of art in 1827 and died, sadly, a year later.  The music reflects the composer's own feelings about impending disability and death, aware as he was of the trajectory of syphilis.

Mr. Finley and Mr. Drake formed a perfect artistic partnership in their exploration of this heart-rending music.  Both voice and piano expressed the many colors of grief--sadness, nostalgia, regret, false hopes, illusory dreams, and resignation.  Some of the songs are so melodic and well-known that they are still playing in our head.  Many of them are strophic and challenge the singer and pianist to invest each verse with variety; this the artists accomplished successfully.  We loved the quietude of "Der Lindenbaum", the violent contrasts in "Frühlingstraum", the alienation limned by "Der Wegweiser", the energy of "Die Post" and the mysticism of "Der Leiermann".

But the sensitivity of the artists contributed to our better hearing of the lesser known songs in the cycle as well.  Mr. Drake's light touch at the piano was particularly effective in recreating images from nature, of which there are plenty--wind, snow, crows circling, horses hooves, leaves rustling.  We could even feel the trembling of the last leaf left on the tree.

Take note that the cycle is available on recording for those of you who never made it to the recital.  And there is also a youtube video of the artists discussing this work.

© meche kroop

IMAGINE

Tobias Greenhalgh and Steven Blier

"Imagine" is the name of the John Lennon song that baritone Tobias Greenhalgh chose as an encore to his Masters of Music graduation recital yesterday--in a duet with his brother John and with the beloved Steven Blier at the piano.  Now here is something to imagine:  several rows of high school students on a long day trip from Massachusetts, sitting in rapt attention during the entire recital and joining the rest of us in a prolonged standing ovation at the end.

Now, to understand why the attention was so rapt, we must begin at the beginning when Mr. Greenhalgh opened with selections from Schubert's Winterreise.  This work is always good to hear, but in the right hands (and heart) it becomes astonishing in its ability to move us.  J.J. Penna provided the hands at the piano and did not miss a nuance.  Indeed we heard things we'd never noticed before, including the heartbeat of the hero and the cries of the crow.  The heart of course is that of the singer and it was evident that Mr. G. reached deep within to pull up and wring the juice out of every emotion in the songs.  His alienation, his self-pity, his nostalgia, his illusory dreams, his false hopes, his attempts to put on a happy face--all these were plumbed by this gifted young artist.  His technique was superb but went unnoticed as it was used to serve the music and the text. At a certain point, we just take the phrasing, the diction, the control of dynamics and the musicality for granted.

Accompanied by Mr. Blier, Mr. G. did just fine in Norwegian, French, Italian and Spanish in the second half of the program with some selections by Grieg, Debussy, Respighi and Gardel.  But it was in Billy Bigelow's Soliloquy from Rodgers' and Hammerstein's Carousel that Mr. G. truly distinguished himself.  He made sense of every emotion a prospective father might feel.  At the end of the recital we were left eager to hear Mr. G. perform the entire Winterreise and also wanting to hear him do more Broadway type music.  We sense the influence here of Mr. Blier!  In our opinion, it's all opera if it's good.

© meche kroop

A WINTER'S JOURNEY

Wilhelm Muller

Franz Schubert

In a near-magical synchronicity, our non-wintry winter here in New York became wintry just in time for Schubert&Co's presentation of Schubert's heart-breaking 1828 song cycle Winterreise.  The full moon last night was icing on the cake.  Walking along Central Park South by moonlight on the way to Central Presbyterian Church did much to establish the mood for the completely satisfying recital to follow.

We do not know whether the poet Wilhelm Müller experienced such terrible romantic disappointment in his life but he died young, a year before Schubert set his poetry to music.   Neither do we know whether Schubert experienced such grief.  We wonder whether it is the artists' imagination that allows them to plumb the very depths of the human soul.  We certainly hope that baritone Michael Kelly and collaborative pianist Jonathan Ware have never descended to such emotional depths and that they never will!

A better partnership could not be imagined.  Mr. Kelly's satin instrument and fine technique were utilized and augmented by astonishing interpretive skills in a way that made them all subservient to the intense inner journey that he seemed to undergo--a tragic descent from romantic disappointment into psychotic depression, complete with hallucinations.  There was no doubt in our minds that the crows were heard, the many suns seen.  Perfect German diction allowed any listener with even a meager knowledge of German to understand what was transpiring.

This is an interesting contrast with Müller's other collection of poetry set by Schubert and entitled Die Schöne Müllerin.  In that cycle, the hero describes an elaborate story of leaving home, finding work as an apprentice miller, falling in love with the miller's daughter, being supplanted in her affection by a hunter, and seeking death in the waters of his beloved brook.  In the case of Winterreise, the poet begins his journey following the romantic rejection; the outer journey through an icy landscape is symbolic of the inner journey he makes through his frozen internal landscape.

Schubert shows us a baker's dozen varieties of despair in this cycle and each one is different in tone.  Often there are changes of mood within the same song, achieved with changes of key, mode and rhythm.  The intensity of Mr. Kelly's performance was equaled by the intensity and subtlety of Mr. Ware's pianism.  The two artists seemed to breathe together.

This inspired teamwork never called attention to itself but existed solely to serve the music.  It was an astonishing evening and merited the prolonged standing ovation at the conclusion.  Our tears dried and the lump in our throat vanished but the catharsis lasted all night.  Bravissimi!

(c) meche kroop