Program Notes: September 26, 2020

PROGRAM NOTES: SEPTEMBER 26, 2020 Program notes by Robert Markow FRANZ PETER SCHUBERT: FIVE SONGS (1797-1828) An Silvia Im Frühling Das Rosenband So lasst mich scheinen (Lied der Mignon III) Erlkönig No other composer before Schubert had devoted his creative efforts to the art song to the extent Schubert did. His great achievement in Lieder, aside from the obvious beauty of their melodies, lies in the masterly welding of music and poetry into a single artistic expression. In addition to creating a masterful balance between text and music, Schubert also raised the role of the piano from that of mere accompanist to nearly equal partner with the singer. Throughout his songs the piano works closely with the singer through dialogues, commentaries, evocative mood settings and flights of harmonic fancy. The words for “An Sylvia” (To Sylvia) come from Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona (Act IV, Scene 2). In the play, this genial morning serenade extolling Sylvia’s attributes is sung by a small chorus outside her window in the best romantic tradition. “Im Frühling” (In Spring), to a poem of Ernst Schulze, is one of Schubert’s great paeans to spring. Voice and piano interweave closely, each at first to different music. It soon becomes apparent that the two melodies pertain to different time periods ̶ the piano’s opening theme to the past, the vocal melody to the present. In Friedrich Klopstock’s poem “Das Rosenband” (The Rose Garland) Schubert captures the exact moment when love is born. Goethe wrote the poem “So lasst mich scheinen” (Such let me seem) for Mignon’s death scene in the novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. Mignon begs to be allowed to wear her fine white dress to her grave, so that she may join the angels. The song’s tone of quiet resignation, its lyric simplicity, chromatic inflections and harmonic richness all contribute to making it an audience favorite. In “Der Erlkönig” (The Erl King), another Goethe setting, four different characters are all impersonated by a single voice, set against a relentless torrent of notes in the piano. The anxious father rides furiously through the forest at night, his child in his arms. The child alone can hear the sweet but deadly call of the evil Erl King, and calls to his father for protection, but the father can only try to assuage the child’s fears. Alas, these fears have been all too well-founded, as we learn in the fateful last words of the poem, set by Schubert with devastating impact. RICHARD WAGNER: WESENDONCK-LIEDER (1813-1869) Der Engel Stehe still! Im Treibhaus Schmerzen Träume While living in exile in Switzerland, Wagner became acquainted with the wife of the wealthy businessman Otto Wesendonck. In 1857, Wesendonck built a mansion on the outskirts of Zurich and provided Wagner with a cottage on the property. Wagner was working on his opera Tristan und Isolde at the time, that steamy tale of illicit, unquenchable love, and found himself in a situation not unlike the hero of his opera. He even began referring to Wesendonck’s wife Mathilde as “my Isolde.” He also called her “Engel” (Angel), the title of one of the songs. Wagner and Mathilde shared a further interest ̶ poetry. That she indulged in writing her own as well inevitably led to Wagner’s setting some of her work to music, a rare case of this composer using texts other than his own. In general style and atmosphere, the five Wesendonck-Lieder are cut from the same musical cloth as Tristan. “Im Treibhaus” (In the Hothouse) and “Träume” (Dreams) incorporate material found almost note-for-note in the opera: the former is a direct anticipation of the Prelude to Act III, while the latter gives a foretaste of the love duet in Act II. “Schmerzen” (Sorrows), despite its title, is an exuberant expression of the cyclical nature of birth and death, day and night, which are also issues very much at the core of Tristan. FRANCIS POULENC: LA COURTE PAILLE (1899-1963) Le Sommeil Quelle Aventure! La Reine de coeur Ba, Be, Bi, Bo, Bu Les Anges musiciens La Carafon Lune d’Avril The deeply thoughtful and the frivolous existed side by side in the dual musical personality of Francis Poulenc . The traditional Gallic qualities of wit, frivolity, brevity and clarity tend to dominate the piano and instrumental works, while the songs and especially the choral works are generally of a serious and sophisticated nature. Yet the song cycle La Courte Paille is exceptional in this regard, embodying as it does playfulness, whimsy, simple joy and childlike simplicity of expression. These were the last songs Poulenc wrote (in 1960), his final contributions to a genre that numbers nearly 150 items in his catalogue. La Courte Paille (literally “the short straw”; idiomatically “the luck of the draw”), set to texts by Maurice Carème, was composed for Denise Duval to sing to her six-year-old son. The first public performance was given by Colette Herzog and pianist Jacques Février at the Festival de Royaumont in 1960. In these short songs, Poulenc reveals himself a master in conjuring up the world of children in music. RICHARD STRAUSS: FOUR SONGS (1864-1949) Einerlei, Op. 69, No. 3 Die Nacht, Op. 10, No. 3 Ich trage meine Minne, Op. 32, No. 1 Zueignung, Op. 10, No. 1 Richard Strauss is justly acclaimed as one of the great Lieder composers, notable for both the quantity and quality of his output. His very first and very last compositions were songs, and in a career spanning nearly eight decades, he turned out more than two hundred of them. More than half of Strauss’s songs date from the early part of his career when he was also absorbed in writing the famous symphonic poems. The two from Op. 10 were written by a teenager. All four on this program are about love. In “Einerlei” (Sameness), set to a poem by Ludwig Achim von Arnim, a lover compares what remains the same and what is always changing about his lover. “Die Nacht” depicts a lover’s anxiety in the presence of night, which takes away all that is beautiful, including possibly the poet’s beloved. “Ich trage meine Minne” (I bear my love), the poet (Karl Friedrich Henckell) compares the snowy innocence of his beloved with the dark world around them. “Zueignung” (Dedication) is one of Strauss’s most popular songs, a masterpiece of expressive ardor and deep devotion. .

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