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SWANSONG t On the River D. 943 (Ludwig Rellstab) [8.59] FRANZ SCHUBERT’S SCHWANENGESANG D. 957, AUF DEM STROM D. 943 & DER HIRT AUF DEM FELSEN D. 965 y The Shepherd on the Rock, D. 965 (Wilhelm Müller / Varnhagen von Ense) [11.07] IN ENGLISH VERSIONS BY JEREMY SAMS Total timings: [72.43] Swan Song SOPHIE BEVAN SOPRANO • JULIAN BLISS CLARINET Poems by Ludwig Rellstab ALEC FRANK-GEMMILL HORN • CHRISTOPHER GLYNN PIANO 1 Love Message [2.59] 2 The Warrior’s Foreboding [5.30] www.signumrecords.com 3 Longing for Spring [3.47] 4 Serenade [3.48] 5 My Home [3.28] Schubert’s Late Songs shepherd and a restless sea-voyager – are 6 Far Away [5.20] depicted in longer works, also from 1828, where 7 Leave-taking [4.31] Loneliness and longing fill the songs of Schubert’s a solo instrument partners the voice. Right up last year. Between the completion of Winter until the end, it seems, Schubert was experimenting Poems by Heinrich Heine Journey in October 1827 and his death, aged with new ways to tell stories in song. And 8 Atlas [2.20] 31, in November 1828, he turned to two new storytelling is to the fore in the new translations 9 Her Picture [3.01] poets, Ludwig Rellstab and Heinrich Heine, by Jeremy Sams performed here, which recreate 0 The Fisher Maiden [2.11] with a set of songs apiece. After the composer’s the directness and immediacy of the poetry that q The Town [3.08] death, they were gathered together by the inspired Schubert for English-speaking listeners. w By the Sea [4.30] publisher Tobias Haslinger, who issued them, e Doppelgänger [4.09] along with a little epilogue (and a canny Schubert had been a torch-bearer at Beethoven’s Poem by Johann Gabriel Seidl sense of what would sell), as Franz Schubert’s funeral in 1827 and we can sense, even at r Pigeon Post [3.54] Swansong. If Winter Journey has the richness this distance, how his death both grieved and of a novel told in song, then Swansong is more liberated the younger composer. His most like a collection of short stories. Fourteen public tribute came with a setting of On the very different characters come in and out River, one of a bundle of poems the writer Ludwig SIR JOHN TOMLINSON BASS CHRISTOPHER GLYNN PIANO of focus, with little in common except their Rellstab had sent to Beethoven, who in turn left aloneness. Two other solitary figures – a lovelorn them in his estate to Schubert. It’s a poem of www.signumrecords.com - 3 - farewell – and Schubert didn’t miss the chance Heinrich Heine may have been two years older from the scherzos and finales of Schubert’s A Translator’s Note to pay homage to the composer that Vienna was than Ludwig Rellstab but he belonged to the late instrumental works, which often seem to still mourning, ennobling the song with a solo future, used fewer words, and made them mean recall happiness, even jollity, in the midst of Schubert’s Swansong, though not itself a cycle, horn part that at one point quotes the funeral more. His lyrics are simple and artless on the desolation. The loyal bird, we learn in the is a logical extension of Die Schöne Müllerin and march from the Eroica symphony, and making surface but spiked with wit, cynicism and irony. last line, is called ‘Longing’ but there is no Winterreise. Here again are the brooks and the it the centrepiece of a concert held on the first And Schubert, too, sharpens his style. In Atlas, hint of self-pity in the music and Swansong birds, the jilted suitors leaving town, the lovers anniversary of Beethoven’s death. the wretched Titan of Greek mythology has never closes in generous and companionable mood. looking at or into the beloved’s house. Loss and seemed more human, railing against his fate longing are everywhere. But if Schöne Müllerin Seven other Rellstab settings form the first in music that (as we now see it) touches the Here, perhaps, is Schubert’s antidote to Heine’s is about hope (finding someone to love) and half of Swansong and find Schubert at his most worlds of Wagner and Verdi. The gloom is carried despair, as well as his own. It’s heard in the Winterreise is about despair (leaving someone illustrative and assured. The brook that ripples over into Her Picture, which expresses a depth of song-cantata The Shepherd on the Rock too. A loved), Schwanengesang is about resignation. throughout Love’s Message is depicted as sorrow that makes a stark contrast to the easy clarinet melody sets the scene; we are on top of The beloved is not by your side and one can vividly as a soldier’s shifting moods in the eve-of- charm on display in The Fisher Maiden. Two a mountain with a broken-hearted shepherd. deal with that in different ways. By sending battle scene Warrior’s Foreboding. The propulsive more seascapes (from a composer who never The clarinet mourns alongside him as he messages via rivers, trees or even pigeons. By energy of Longing for Spring builds a tender saw the sea) follow, one hypnotic and obsessive, sings out his pain. But grief finally turns to flight, by self-imposed exile, by dreaming of excitement, punctuated by fleeting moments the other grief-stricken and embittered. And hope, as quickly as a change in the Alpine what might have been and by accepting what of doubt, before finally giving way to the most then Schubert’s bleakest and most traumatic weather. ‘Springtime is coming’ the shepherd never will. The distant or absent beloved is famous tune Schubert ever wrote in Serenade. song, Doppelgänger, looks death in the eye, only sings, ‘and I must be ready to journey again’. present in almost every song, and though there Other songs portray various incarnations of to find it staring back, mocking all human suffering. Schubert always was a shapeshifter, but is no journey involved as in the previous cycles, the archetypal romantic Wanderer, living on never more so than in his last and greatest there is a unity in this collection which shows the margins of society. Defiance and dignity The final, unexpectedly major chord of year. The music seems only more remarkable one where Schubert’s thoughts were. He knew he mingle with a torrent of emotion in My Home. The Doppelgänger is a mystery. If we hear in it a when we notice that the manuscript is dated was going to die and die alone. curse of ‘bittersweet memories’ haunts In the hint of ‘All shall be well’ – a benediction from October 1828. Schubert was by then standing Distance. Most exhilarating of all is the Schubert not present in Heine – then it is on a precipice of his own, cared for by his I’m glad, though, that I translated them in perpetual motion of Goodbye, a riding song, echoed in the hopeful, humble-spirited epilogue brother Ferdinand, battling typhus and tertiary the order in which they were written. For here, where the horse finally trots out of sight after six that follows. Johann Seidl was no Heine, but syphilis, and surely knowing he would not see suddenly, one comes across a major challenge. verses to clear the stage for a very different poet. his poem about a homing pigeon inspired a another spring. A Great Poet, Heinrich Heine, before whom the song that is, in its way, just as much of a mere versifier should genuflect. But of course, miracle as Dopplegänger. The effect is familiar © Christopher Glynn Schubert does nothing of the sort. He draws - 4 - - 5 - from Heine what he needs, just as he does from SWANSONG 2 The Warrior’s Foreboding Yes. Rellstab in this collection and Müller in the Kriegers Ahnung Only you can keep me strong others. And what he gets from Heine one can 1 Love Message Only you can keep me strong hear in the music. Monolithic, massive, Beethoven Liesbesbotschaft In twos and threes My life’s the life I chose and beyond. A glimpse of what might have Beside the fire Ill close my eyes and sleep erelong been but could never have been. Beautiful mill-stream so wild and so free My comrades try to sleep Tomorrow? No-one knows. © Jeremy Sams Send my beloved a message from me Tomorrow ? No-one knows. And when you speak to her later today I’m kept awake by pain and fear Send her my love from a long way away By pain and fear 3 Longing For Spring And longing strong and deep Frühlingssehnsucht Water to the bluebells she grows with such care They look so lovely entwined in her hair I’ve only known one fireside Tenderly whispering leaves in the trees Moisten the roses, the ones she loves best Where I could truly rest Beautiful perfumes borne on the breeze See how she clutches them close to her breast. My best beloved in my arms A delicate message from everywhere Water the roses, the ones she loves best My head upon her breast The wonderful promise of spring in the air Look how she clutches them close to her breast. Wherever you lead me I’ll follow you there Here all I see is swords and spears Wherever you lead me I’ll follow you there Lit by the embers’ gleam When she is lonely she sighs by the stream But where, yes where? I see that life’s a vale of tears Dreaming of me in a secret dream I see that life’s a vale of tears Sweeten her sorrow and sing her your song Beautiful millstream bubbling along And love’s an empty dream Tell her that I will be with her erelong Leading me on with your siren song Yes love’s an empty dream What wonderful place are you hurrying to Then when the evening has turned to red No.