Roderick Williams Milton Court Artist-In-Residence
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Roderick Williams Milton Court Artist-in-Residence We celebrate one of our most engaging musicians as a singer, composer and dramatic collaborator. Tue 19 Feb An Italian Songbook Tue 26 Feb Roderick Williams in recital Wolf’s Italian Songbook Tuesday 19 February 2019 7.30pm, Milton Court Concert Hall Wolf Italienisches Liederbuch A new, staged English version created by Jeremy Sams and Christopher Glynn There will be no interval Rowan Pierce soprano Katie Bray mezzo-soprano Nicky Spence tenor Roderick Williams baritone James Newby baritone Christopher Glynn piano Jeremy Sams & Louise Shephard directors Part of Roderick Williams: Milton Court Artist-in-Residence Part of Barbican Presents 2018–19 Unfortunately the advertised mezzo-soprano, Kathryn Rudge, has had to withdraw from this performance. We are very grateful to Katie Bray for taking her place at short notice. The City of London Corporation is the founder and principal funder of the Barbican Centre 2 Welcome Welcome A warm welcome to the latest concert in familiar with the traditional cycle the Roderick Williams’s Milton Court residency. opportunity to hear it afresh. Last November it was as a composer that he was featured, in a concert marking the Joining Roderick on-stage is a stellar line- centenary of Armistice Day. As a singer, up of British talent – soprano Rowan Pierce, Roderick is as renowned on the concert mezzo Katie Bray, tenor Nicky Spence and stage as he is in the opera house, so it’s fellow baritone James Newby, along with fitting that tonight he is presenting Wolf’s Christopher Glynn at the piano. Italian Songbook in a new translation and staging devised by Jeremy Sams and It promises to be a wonderful evening. Christopher Glynn. And don’t forget that Roderick returns a week today for more song – programming The 46 songs that make up the Italian Schumann’s Frauenliebe und -leben with Songbook celebrate life and love in their works by Clara Schumann, Brahms and many incarnations, and in this updating Howells and bringing things right up to the songs are reordered, giving anyone date with songs by Sally Beamish and Rhian Samuel. Huw Humphreys, Head of Music, Barbican Programme produced by Harriet Smith; printed by Trade Winds Colour Printers Ltd; advertising by Cabbell (tel 020 3603 7930) Please turn off watch alarms, phones, pagers etc during the performance. Taking photographs, capturing images or using recording devices during a performance is strictly prohibited. Please remember that to use our induction loop you should switch your hearing aid to T setting on entering the hall. If your hearing aid is not correctly set to T it may cause high-pitched feedback which can spoil the enjoyment of your fellow audience members. We appreciate that it’s not always possible to prevent coughing during a performance. But, for the sake of other audience members and the artists, if you feel the need to cough or sneeze, please stifle it with a handkerchief. If anything limits your enjoyment please let us know during your visit. Additional feedback can be given online. 3 Jeremy Sams muses on a lifetime’s immersion in the songs of Hugo Wolf For texts, see page 6 used to sing and play together. It was clear to me that South Croydon was a musical Mecca. I had, I now realise, an eccentric childhood. More accurately, I just thought that’s what the The sound of German Lieder, sung, played world was – a place where people sang songs on the piano or on gramophone records was in foreign languages to each other. And Wolf’s the soundtrack of my youth. Schubert firstly, Italian Songbook became the guidebook to my Wolf mostly, and then everything in between. newfound passion (in retrospect, I feel slightly sorry for the object of my attentions). The songs I should explain. My father Eric was a Lieder within the book seemed to be entirely about us – buff who, from my earliest memory, was playing, by which of course I mean me. They became my singing and writing about Hugo Wolf, his greatest script, my diary, my love letters. I wanted her to love. He published the first guide to the songs warn me when she was going to look at her cutest. – still, in my completely impartial (!) view, to be I even (forgive me) wished her house were made bettered. And as soon as I could, I would be of glass. All the petty jealousies, the difficulties picking out the voice part while he played – later I with parents, the mood swings , the rows, followed was the young accompanist and he the tremulous by making up, were chronicled in Wolf’s book. tenor. These songs were of course in German. No So I played the songs, she sang them, and we problem, he taught me German from Lieder texts. sort of, in our adolescent way, lived them. Soon I was fluent in brooks and linnets … and in no time at all the whole language fell into place. Later, at college, and later still when I Because, of course, I needed to know what the earned my living at the piano, these songs words meant – or more precisely what the music were often in my repertoire. But they had meant. The same, meanwhile, was happening for become just that – repertoire. The problems Fauré and Duparc. We had days when we only were not so much the emotional ones of spoke in French or German. As I said, eccentric. young lovers, but more the technical ones I prefer to take my own son to the football. of ensemble, Fingersatz, and programme- building. The working life of a musician can One thing I did learn, without even noticing, was easily drown out the lived life of a poem. the fact that when there is a voice – or more precisely a story – from Schubert onwards, Then, in my late twenties, I ran away to join the music describes and depicts the emotions of theatre. And I didn’t think of a Lied or a mélodie the words. That when song is involved (and for years and years. Plays, musicals and opera this holds for all song) words are no longer just became my world – in various capacities. And words, and music is no longer just music. My Story became, and remains, my god. And dad used to call this ‘tonal analogues’ – I think art-songs, I had been taught, were not about a snappier term is needed. But this insight has stories but feelings. Unlike opera, which it’s never yet let me down, whether I am dealing acceptable to translate, and which is only about with Lieder, opera, musicals or pop songs. story. It is only in the last few years, well over 50 since I first fell in love with Lieder, that I have And proof was forthcoming. My first girlfriend returned to work on them. It was tonight’s pianist, was a sweet soprano living up the road. Her best Christopher Glynn, who wooed me back to a friend round the corner was also a soprano, place that, in truth, I had never left. As I worked her brother a baritone. When I was 14 or 15 we on translations for him (of Schubert and Brahms) 4 Programme note it was my time in the theatre that convinced me been shuffled – our order of the songs may rattle that every song is not just a story, but actually the purists. (The famous opening and closing a scene. And it has been thinking of poetry as songs no longer fulfil those functions) But we theatre that has given me the key to translating it. are after fresh ears – hence new translations. So this, tonight, is our latest collaboration, and We think of these characters as timeless. Modern our most ambitious yet. And it’s unashamedly dress, but telling tales which go back to medieval theatrical. My way in was via my dad’s Wolf book times, while still being horribly familiar to all – in which he points out that this cycle (of 46 songs) of us today. In one significant way, however, is almost set in a village. Everyone knows everyone they are not us. They are Italian. Which, then else, gossip is rife, tongues wag, people are as now, has specific implications. Firstly a always saying ‘I hear that …’ or ‘they say that …’. ready and unembarrassed access to passion. It’s a community, for us represented by a Così fan Then – and this is vital – a Catholic worldview. tutte style set-up. Four singers, SATB, plus a Don There is much talk of heaven, God and worship Alfonso figure, who manipulates, encourages, throughout the cycle. These are not in any way teaches, but ultimately stays detached. We’ve metaphors or allegories. Religion is real and conceived the piece in three acts, as it were. The literal. And lastly … present in a large number first could be called ‘Aspects of Love’ if that title of the songs are mothers and fathers. Parents hadn’t been snaffled. The second is about loving overprotective of their offspring, mothers by from a distance. In the third the young lovers turns worshipped and cursed, children living with are deep in it, sometimes up to their necks. Don their parents but longing to burst free. Come to Alfonso observes as they tie themselves into and think of it, that is increasingly true in the UK! out of amorous knots. In the end, four lovers ascend to heaven in glory – with one man left Programme note © Jeremy Sams out for ever. To further this scheme the pack has 5 Hugo Wolf (1860–1903) 5 The Italian Songbook I hate to wake you up, I know it’s late But please don’t fall asleep, please listen clearly.