ALSO on Signumclassics

102Booklet 22/5/07 22:58 Page 1 ALSO on signumclassics SIGCD038 Songs of Angels SIGCD050 Gaudete SIGCD074 The Messiah: Music from Magdalen College (1480-1560) Tenebrae Handel arr. Mozart Choir of Magdalen College Oxford directed by Nigel Short Royal Philharmonic Orchestra directed by Bill Ives Sir Charles Mackerras SIGCD079 The Hymns Album SIGCD092 Choral Images Huddersfield Choral Society Sir Michael Tippett Joseph Cullen - conductor The BBC Singers Available through most record stores and at www.signumrecords.com For more information call +44 (0) 20 8997 4000 102Booklet 22/5/07 22:58 Page 3 Choral Arrangements by Clytus Gottwald Pieces from Sieben frühe Lieder Alban Berg 15. Die Nachtigall [2.33] 1. Die zwei blauen Augen Gustav Mahler [5.24] 16. Im zimmer [1.03] 2. Soupir Maurice Ravel [3.43] 17. Traumgerkrönt [2.39] 3. Des pas sur la neige Claude Debussy [3.33] Trois Fragments du Miroir de Jésus André Caplet 18. Présentation [2.54] Zwei Studien zu Tristan & Isolde Richard Wagner 19. Agonie au Jardin [1.47] 4. Im Treibhaus [6.08] 20. Résurrection [2.51] 5. Traume [4.17] 21. Oh! mi babbino caro Giacomo Puccini [2.51] Vier Lieder Hugo Wolf 6. Und willst du deinen Liebsten sterben sehen [1.40] 22. Soupir Claude Debussy [2.39] 7. Das verlaßene Mägdlein [3.01] 23. Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen Gustav Mahler [5.29] 8. Auf ein altes Bild [2.19] 9. Der Gärtner [1.41] Total [68.23] 10. Les Angélus Claude Debussy [2.48] Vier frühe Lieder Anton Webern 11. Tief von fern [1.14] The Rodolfus Choir 12. Heiter [1.15] Directed by Ralph Allwood 13. Der Tod [0.59] 14. Sommerabend [3.04] www.signumrecords.com 102Booklet 22/5/07 22:58 Page 5 Choral Arrangements basis for his First Symphony, which was completed generation, yet, while taking on board the in 1888. Die zwei blauen Augen is the fourth and harmonic developments of the mid-late nineteenth by Clytus Gottwald last song in this cycle; the music of this song was century, he nonetheless remained firmly rooted in the source of much of the material of the the song-writing tradition of Schubert and Following a notable career as a choral director, they relied heavily upon the financial assistance Symphony’s third movement (famous for its ironic Schumann. Relatively few of his songs exist in composer and musicologist, Clytus Gottwald (b.1925) of a number of well-heeled admirers. One such treatment of Frère Jaques in the style of a funeral orchestral versions, especially compared to his has, in the last 25 years, turned his attention to was Otto Wesendonck, a retired silk merchant, march), in particular the F major middle section, contemporary Mahler, for example. The four complex and masterly choral arrangements of who provided Wagner with generous support from which is based on the latter half of the song. By somewhat contrasting songs set here were not works from the late nineteenth and early twentieth 1852, and, in April 1857, furnished the Wagners contrast, Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen was conceived as a cycle by Wolf (though all but the century, of which many are included in this with a small house near to the villa into which he always conceived as an orchestral song, and is first are from his 1888 collection of Mörike settings), programme. His approach to the choral medium and his wife Mathilde were shortly to move. one of five settings of Ruckert written in 1901-2. but nonetheless represent him at the peak of his is a highly symphonic one. In most of the Around this time a love affair began to develop Mahler’s reading of the poem instils in it a art, and provide the scope for imaginative choral arrangements performed here the choir is divided between Wagner and Mathilde Wesendonck, which compelling sense of isolation and longing (without readings. In Und willst du deinen Liebsten sterben up into no less than sixteen parts, spread across was eventually to find its artistic expression in Mahler’s music to guide us we might be tempted sehen, the richness of Wolf’s chordal accompaniment the spectrum of voices, and Gottwald’s careful Tristan und Isolde. In the meantime she sent him to read the poem as somewhat self-satisfied!) is brought out with increased counterpoint in blending and balancing of the different voice- a set of five poems which she had written, which which, in the original orchestration is beautifully Gottwald’s 16-part setting, which reflects well the types result in a highly subtle, yet varied palate. Wagner set to music in 1857-8. Of these five conveyed through fairly small orchestral forces. fairly abstract tone of the poem. The word-painting Wesendonck Lieder, two found their way into the This beautiful simplicity of scoring lends itself is more direct in Das verlaßene Mägdlein, where Richard Wagner (1813-1883) is well-known as one completed opera: Im Treibhaus provided material particularly well to choral adaptation; the finished the crowing of the cock is almost more successfully of the most important figures in the history of for the opening scene of Act III, while Träume was result is breathtakingly effective. depicted by the upper voices of the choir than the opera, which he believed to be the ultimate form of the starting point for the love duet in Act II. piano in the original solo song. Auf ein altes Bild artistic expression. Indeed, he wrote comparatively The reputation of the composer Hugo Wolf (1860- is a poetic reflection on a late medieval painting few works of any substance which were not in If, for Wagner, music found its ultimate expression 1903) rests almost exclusively on his gifts as a of the Virgin and Child; here Gottwald has some way associated with one of his ‘Music in the context of Music Drama, Gustav Mahler song-writer; indeed, he was arguably the most intensified the symbolism of Wolf’s chordal, hymn- Dramas’. As their title suggests, the two ‘Studies (1860-1911) is remembered primarily as a important composer of lieder in the latter half of like piano accompaniment by choosing a 12th for Tristan und Isolde’ performed here in symphonist - though his legacy of orchestral lieder the nineteenth century. His understanding and century Latin hymn celebrating the Virgin and arrangement are no exception. Having fled is also substantial. Indeed, the song cycle Lieder interpretation of poetry, and the imagination and Child, to which Wolf’s accompaniment is set, while Dresden after the Revolution in 1849, Wagner and eines fahrenden Gesellen, originally written in sensitivity of his piano accompaniments, are the sopranos and altos sing the song melody. his wife arrived in Zurich, where, for some years, 1883-5 and orchestrated in the 1890s, formed the perhaps unrivalled amongst composers of his Likewise, in the final song, Der Gärtner, Gottwald - 4 - - 5 - 102Booklet 22/5/07 22:58 Page 7 has provided a reading of the poem which draws written in the same year, of which his own setting Anton Webern (1883-1945) and Alban Berg (1885- Sommerabend, the pastoral-sounding 6/8 metre attention to the impossibility of the love of the of Soupir is also included in arrangement on this 1935) are best known as the two pupils of Arnold holds sway, though the simplicity of expression of gardener for the princess who rides past on her disc. Both composers responded to Mallarmé’s words Schoenberg whose twelve-tone compositions, the solo voice and piano in Webern’s original song horse, both through his own poetry, to which he in a fairly adventurous way. For Debussy this along with those of their teacher, came to define is replaced in the choral arrangement by a richer sets Wolf’s cantering accompaniment, but also resulted in the alternation of unusually dissonant the Second Viennese School. The songs presented sense of reverie and longing. through the slow-moving tenor line, which harmonies with the use of sparse textures (in the here, however, are all youthful works, particularly symbolises, in Gottwald’s words, ‘the barrier, which original there are several phrases sung by solo so in the case of Webern, who was still in his teens The three songs by Alban Berg which are rigidly and insurmountably separates the worlds voice alone without accompaniment). Des pas sur when he wrote the earliest of his Eight early songs presented here, however, are taken from Seven of master and servant’. la neige was originally composed in 1909, not as (1901-4), of which four are performed here in Youthful Songs, written between 1905-8, which a song but as a piano piece, published a year later arrangement. All four originals are brief and Berg selected and orchestrated in 1932. These Of the three works by Claude Debussy (1862- in the first book of Préludes. In this arrangement, concise utterances, though beautiful; one might songs, a little more substantial than Webern’s, 1918) performed here, only two were originally Clytus Gottwald has chosen words by Rilke and be tempted to feel that Gottwald’s choral are rooted in a chromatic late-romantic tonal songs for voice and piano. Les Angélus dates from Mallarmé which seem to suit both the idea and the arrangements make them altogether weightier language. In 1910 Schoenberg commented that 1891 - relatively late in his oeuvre of chansons, notes of Debussy’s music. pieces. While in Tief von fern, the chordal the young Berg had initially seemed ‘unable to though before his most groundbreaking orchestral simplicity of Webern’s original piano accompaniment compose anything other than songs’.

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