sign in sign up
<<
Home , Elly Ameling, Ian Bostridge, Mstislav Rostropovich, Peter Schreier, The Shepherd on the Rock, Thomas Quasthoff

Friday, November 10, 201 7, 8pm Zellerbach Hall , Wenwen Du,

PROGRAM

Franz sCHubERT (1797 –1828) , op. 89, D. 911 Gute Nacht Die Wetterfahne Gefrorne Tränen Erstarrung Der Lindenbaum Wasserflut Auf dem Flusse Rückblick irrlicht Rast Frühlingstraum Einsamkeit Die Post Der greise Kopf Die Krähe Letzte Hoffnung im Dorfe Der stürmische Morgen Täuschung Der Wegweiser Das Wirtshaus Mut Die Nebensonnen Der Leiermann

Please hold your applause until the end of the program. This program will last approximately 70 minutes and be performed without intermission.

This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsors Michael A. Harrison and Harrison, and the Hon. Marie Bertillion Collins and Mr. Leonard Collins. Major support provided by The Bernard Osher Foundation. Cal Performances’ 2017 –18 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.

25

Solitude Beckons ian bostridge on ’s Winterreise

With a heart filled with endless love for those who what was troubling him, he would only scorned me, I… wandered far away. For many say, “soon you will hear and understand.” and many a year I sang songs. Whenever I tried one day he said to me, “Come over to to sing of love, it turned to pain. And again, when schober’s today, and i will sing you a cycle I tried to sing of pain, it turned to love. of horrifying songs. i am anxious to know —schubert, “My Dream,” what you will say about them. They have manuscript, July 3, 1822 cost me more effort than any of my other songs.” so he sang the entire Winter Jour - interreise—Winter Journey —a cycle ney through to us in a voice full of emo - of 24 songs for voice and piano, was tion. We were utterly dumbfounded by the Wcomposed by Franz schubert to - mournful, gloomy tone of these songs, wards the end of his short life. He died in and schober said that only one, “The Lin - Vienna in 1828 aged only 31. den Tree,” had appealed to him. To this schubert was renowned, even in his own life - schubert replied, “i like these songs more time, as a song composer of matchless fecun - than all the rest, and you will come to like dity and a master of seductive melody; the them as well.” Winter Journey apparently discombobulated his friends. one of the closest of these, Joseph von Another close friend, with whom schubert spaun, remembered 30 years later how the cycle had shared digs some years before, was Johann had been received by the schubert circle: Mayrhofer, government official and poet (schubert set some 47 of his poems to music). For some time schubert appeared very For Mayrhofer, Winter Journey was an expres - upset and melancholy. When i asked him sion of personal trauma:

27 PROGRAM NOTES

He had been long and seriously ill [with ance, but where at the same time the the syphilis he had first contracted to - shuddering bliss of an inexpressible pre- wards the end of 1822], had gone through sentiment is accompanied by the gentle pain disheartening experiences, and life had of the constraining present which hems in shed its rosy color; winter had come for the boundaries of human existence. him. The poet’s irony, rooted in despair, appealed to him: he expressed it in cutting Despite the slightly windy Romantic rheto - tones. ric, the writer has clearly perceived and engaged with what has become the acknowledged, spaun confounded even more dramatically canonical sublimity of the cycle; that transcen - the personal and the aesthetic in his account of dental quality which transmogrifies what could the cycle’s genesis. “There is no doubt in my so easily be mistaken for a self-indulgent parade mind,” he wrote, “that the state of excitement in of disappointed love lyrics. For the initiate, Win - which he wrote his most beautiful songs, and ter Journey is one of the great feasts of the mu - especially his Winter Journey , contributed to his sical calendar: an austere one, but one almost early death.” guaranteed to touch the ineffable as well as the There is something profoundly mythologiz - heart. After the last song, “The Hurdy-Gurdy ing about these accounts, especially spaun’s, Man,” the silence is palpable, the sort of silence which has something of Christ in the Garden that otherwise only a bach Passion can sum - of Gethsemane about it—the dejection, the mon up. friends who miss the point, the sense of a mys - Yet the very notion of the “initiate” will set tery that will only be understood after the death some alarm bells ringing…. Piano-accompa - of its progenitor. As against the persistent leg - nied song is no longer part of everyday domes - end of “poor schubert”—unappreciated, un - tic life, and has lost its one-time supremacy loved, unsuccessful in his own lifetime—it is in the concert hall. , as Americans call worth remembering that he earned well from it—what Germans know as Lieder — is a niche his music, was welcomed into the salons of product, even within the niche that is classical the well-connected (if not the aristocracy), and music; but Winter Journey is incontestably a earned critical plaudits as well as his fair share great work of art which should be as much a of brickbats. schubert was probably the first part of our common experience as the poetry great composer to operate as a freelancer of shakespeare and Dante, the paintings of Van outside the security and restriction of a church Gogh and Pablo Picasso, the novels of the position or noble patronage and, allowing for a brontë sisters or Marcel Proust. it is surely re - certain youthful fecklessness, he did well for markable that the piece lives and makes an im - himself. His music was second only to Rossini’s pact in concert halls all over the world, in for its popularity on Viennese programs; it was cultures remote from the circumstances of its played by most of the great instrumentalists of origins in 1820s Vienna…. the day; and his fees were substantial. Winter Journey itself did not fall still-born from the Y oWN WAY To Winter Journey press. Here is one contemporary review, from was eased by great teaching and by the Theaterzeitung of March 29, 1828: Mpersonal idiosyncrasy. i first came across the music of Franz schubert and the po - schubert’s mind shows a bold sweep etry of Wilhelm Müller (who wrote the words everywhere, whereby he carries everyone of Winter Journey ) at school, aged 12 or 13. our away with him who approaches, and he miracle of a music teacher, Michael spencer, takes them through the immeasurable was always getting us to do magnificently, even depth of the human heart into the far dis - absurdly, ambitious musical projects. As a tance, where premonitions of the infinite singer, and not an instrumentalist, i had always dawn upon them longingly in a rosy radi - felt slightly outside the charmed circle, though

27b PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES we sang plenty enough fantastic music—brit - teenage years. it was one particular recording ten, bach, Tallis, and Richard Rodney ben nett of it—played in our very first German lesson— for starters. When Michael, Mr. spencer, sug - which seized my imagination and my intellect: gested that he (piano) and one of my classmates, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the prince of German Edward osmond (clarinet), perform something , and , his English ac - called “The shepherd on the Rock,” i had no companist. i didn’t yet speak the language, but idea how brilliantly off the wall it was. Going to the sound of it and the drama which piano and his house on a saturday morning to be with the voice—sometimes honeyed, sometimes trem - other musicians and rehearse was one of the bling, sometimes incarnate evil—together con - great excitements of my life. ve yed were utterly new to me. i got my hands on “Der Hirt auf dem Felsen” was one of the as many recordings of Fischer-Dieskau’s song very last pieces schubert composed, written at singing as i could, and i sang along to them, the express request of the great opera diva Anna probably right through my voice change from Milder-Hauptmann, whose voice was a con - treble to tenor: not ideal for my embryonic temporary marvel: “a house,” as one had it; vocal technique, as Fischer-Dieskau was un - “pure metal,” another. The opening and con - mistakably a . cluding verses are by the poet of Winter Journey , Personal idiosyncrasy played its part in my Wilhelm Müller, but nothing could be further Lieder obsession too, as i used the music and from schubert’s great than this daz - the lyrics to work my way through the perils zling confection of virtuoso pastoral. A shep - and pains of adolescence. The other Wilhelm herd stands on a rock singing into the Alpine Müller cycle, the first— Die schöne Müllerin landscape before him. His voice echoes and re - (The beautiful Miller Girl)—was perfect for echoes and he remembers his lover far away. A someone of my very particular Romantic dis - grieving middle section is succeeded by an ex - position. i thought i’d fallen in love with a girl cited and excitable invocation of spring. spring who lived in my street, but my clumsy atten - will come, the shepherd will wander, and he and tions were first unnoticed and then spurned, his girl will be reunited. it’s the very opposite of and in my imagination, maybe in reality, she Winter Journey , as we shall discover. formed a liaison with a sporty type from the somewhere in a box in my attic is a tape of local tennis club. it seemed quite natural to that school performance. i haven’t listened to it tramp the south London streets near her house, for a long time, but i do remember that the fa - singing schubert under my breath, the songs of mous vocal challenges of the piece are unad - rapture and those of the angry reject. After all, dressed by my fragile treble. At the same time, the fair maid of the mill goes off with the macho there was something nice about reclaiming this hunter, not the sensitive singing miller boy. trouser role, this travesty shepherd boy, for an Winter Journey was something i got to know actual boy’s voice. Anyway, i fell in love with the a little later, but i was already primed for it. i music but then promptly forgot it, this first en - heard two great Germans sing it in London— counter with the Lieder tradition. and Hermann Prey—but i some - step up another great teacher, this time a how managed to miss my only opportunity to German master at senior school, Richard stokes, hear Fischer-Dieskau perform it, with Alfred whose deep, urgent, and infectious love of song brendel, at House, Covent infiltrated many, if not most, of his lessons. Garden. i gave my own first public performance imagine 20 or so 14- and 15-year-olds, in vary - of Winterreise to 30 or so friends, teachers, and ing states of vocal health, bellowing schubert’s fellow students at st John’s College, oxford, in “Erl King” or Marlene Dietrich’s “Where Have the President’s Lodgings, in January 1985. All the Flowers Gone?” in the language lab, People always ask me how i remember all the and you get the idea. it was “The Erl King” that words; the answer is to start young. As [these made me fall in love with German song, the words are] published, i shall have been singing , with a passion which dominated my the cycle for 30 years.

28 PROGRAM NOTES

WHAT HAPPENs AFTER a performance of music, of serving the composer—is a crucial Winterreise is a little mysterious but usually part of the balancing act in classical perform - follows a pattern. silence emerges as the last ance. The discipline of classical music—the hurdy-gurdy phrase dissipates into the hall, a score and its demands—creates an objective silence which is often extended and forms space in which the dangers of self-indulgence part of the shared experience of the piece; a can be held at bay. self-expression can move silence performed as much by the audience as it outwards and trace something less solipsistic. is by singer and pianist. A mute, stunned ap - At the same time, this can only be achieved, plause usually follows, which can swell into paradoxically, through utter immersion in the noisier acclaim. work and a merging between the composer’s Acclaim? Acclaim for what? For the com - work and the performer’s personality. Erasure poser? For the music? For the performance? is in the music and the projection of subjectivity applause, and the performers’ acceptance of it, through it. sublimation. but there is no neutral somehow impertinent? it sometimes, indeed way of presenting this music, and it cannot often, feels that way. The normal rules of the be impersonal. The performer has to access song recital are in abeyance. No encores are pre - and transform private aspects of his or her own pared or expected and, however enthusiastically self (just as, i would argue, the composer does). the audience respond, none will be forthcom - What the theorists call “performativity” is ing. There is a sense of seriousness, of having definitively in play, as much as, if not more encountered something above and beyond, than, for the great performers of the popular something ineffable and untouchable. tradition—a billie Holiday, a , or an There can also be a sense of embarrassment Amy Winehouse. or awkwardness between audience and per - schubert was the first performer of this formers, which the applause does its best, work, accompanying himself at the piano. He eventually, to eradicate. A song cycle such as was performing for friends, in a domestic set - Win ter reise is not rooted in aspects of sung or ting, and he was neither a great pianist nor musical performance which tend to create a much of a singer. That nonperformance is, of certain awestruck distance. Virtuosity is con - all the performances that could have ever been, cealed, vocalism does not unduly draw atten - the one we would all like to have experienced. tion to itself—even ironizes itself—and the The thought of it can inform us, and it can feed audience member must almost feel that he or our imaginations. At the same time, it cannot she too is singing, and hence is implicated in the be our model. subjectivity which is being projected. The audi - ence identifies with the persona constructed on THE oTHER MYTH is that which denies the stage, embodied in sound by piano and voice, relevance of the personal to of this but inhabited and projected by the singer. so, music; the feeling that talking about the life of having gone so deeply into difficult places, hav - the creative artist is a vulgar distraction from ing confronted each other across the footlights the thing itself, from Art with a capital A. Many and opened up our vulnerabilities over what, writers on music, and on the other arts, decry at 70 minutes, is a considerable time span, a the practice of biographical criticism and would return to normality can feel unapproachable. claim to eschew it. it has, nonetheless, an insid - End-of-concert rituals can help or they can im - ious capacity to creep back in despite analyses pede. sometimes it feels impossible to do the of the intentional fallacy or declarations of customary things—meet friends, have a drink, the death of the author. is this no more than eat a meal. solitude may beckon. the natural inclination to relish gossip, even rar - efied gossip? THAT NoTioN oF A sHARED EXPosuRE it is undoubtedly true that there is no clear brings me to two myths which need decon - and prescriptive relationship between life and structing. The ideal of humility—of serving the art or art and life. To put it at its most crass,

28b PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES schubert wrote jolly music when he was especially true of Romantic art), can we prop - gloomy and gloomy music when he was jolly. erly assess the more formal aspects. [My writing but the relationship between artistic expression on Winterreise does] not set out to do anything and lived experience works over a broader span. so systematic; it is no more than a small part of it is not just a matter of the mood of the mo - a continuing exploration of the complex and ment, and it also encompasses matters of per - beautiful web of meanings—musical and liter - sonal character or predisposition as well as ary, textual and metatextual—within which this intellectual presuppositions. Art is created in Winter Journey works its spell. history, by living, feeling, thinking human be - —Ian Bostridge ings; we cannot understand it without grappling with its associations to and grounding in worlds of emotion, ideology, or practical constraint. From the book schubert’s Winter Journey by Ian Art is made from the collision between life and Bostridge. © 2015 by Ian Bostridge. Reprinted by form; it does not exist in some sort of idealized arrangement with Knopf, an imprint of The vacuum. only by investigating the personal and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division the political, in their broadest sense (and this is of Penguin Random House LLC.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Ian Bostridge ’s international recital career has appeared with Thomas Adès; schubert with Leif taken him to the salzburg, Edinburgh, Munich, ove Andsnes, , and Anto nio Vienna, Aldeburgh, and schwarzenberg schu - Pappano; britten orchestral cycles with the bertiade festivals and to the main stages of berliner Phil harmoniker and sir ; and the Teatro alla scala, Milan. Wolf with ; bach cantatas He has held artistic residencies at the Vienna with ; Handel arias with Harry Konzerthaus and schwarzenberg schubertiade bicket; britten’s Canticles and both britten’s The (2003 –04), the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in Turn of the Screw (Gramophone Award, 2003) a Carte-blanche series with Thomas Quasthoff and (Grammy Award, 2010); Adès’ (2004 –05), Carnegie Hall in a Perspectives se - The Tem pest (Gramophone Award, 2010); and ries (2005 –06), the (2008), t he Monte verdi’s . Recent recordings include Luxembourg Philharmonie (2010 –11), the Wig - britten songs with Antonio Pappano for War - more Hall (2011 –12), and the Hamburg Laeisz - ner Clas sics, schubert songs with halle (2012 –13). for Live, and shakespeare songs His recordings have won all the major inter - with Antonio Pappano for Warner Classics national record prizes and been nominated for (Grammy Award, 2017). 15 Grammys. They include schubert’s Die schöne bostridge has worked with the berliner Phil - Müllerin with Graham Johnson (Gramophone har moniker and Wiener Philharmoniker; the Award, 1996); Tom Rakewell ( The Rake’s Pro - symphony orchestras of New York, Chicago, gress ) with sir (Grammy boston, Los Angeles, and London; the bbC Award, 1999); and belmonte ( Die Entführung symphony orchestra; and the Royal Con cert - aus dem Serail ) with William Christie. under gebouw orchestra, Amsterdam, under sir his exclusive contract with Warner Classics, simon Rattle, sir , sir Andrew recordings included schubert lieder and schu - Davis, , Antonio Pappano, Riccardo mann lieder (Gramophone Award, 1998); Eng - Muti, , Daniel baren - lish song and Henze lieder with Julius Drake; boim, , and Donald Runnicles. britten’s with Daniel He sang the world premiere of Hans Werner Hard ing; Mozart’s with sir Charles Henze’s Opfergang with the Accademia santa Mack erras; Janá c˘ek’s The Diary of One who Dis- Cecilia in Rome under Antonio Pappano.

2

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

bostridge’s operatic appearances have in - lege. in 2003 he was made an Honorary Doctor cluded Lysander ( A Midsummer Night’s Dream ) of Music by the and for opera Australia and at the Edinburgh in 2010 he was made an honorary fellow of st Festival; Tamino ( Die Zauberflöte ) and Jupiter John’s College oxford. He was made a CbE in ( ) for ; and Peter the 2004 New Year’s Honors. in 2014 he was Quint ( The Turn of the Screw ), Don ottavio Humanitas Professor of Classical Music at the ( ), and Caliban (Adès’ The Tem - . pest ) for the Royal opera. He has sung Nerone Visit www.facebook.com/ianbostridge. (L’Incoronazione di Poppea ) and Tom Rakewell (The Rake’s Progress ) for the bayerische staats - Wenwen Du (piano ) trai ned with Dan Zhaoyi oper, Don ottavio for the Wiener staatsoper, at the shenzhen Arts school and with Lee Kum and Aschen bach ( ) for English sing at the Vancouver Academy of Music. she National opera. attended master courses at the oxford Lieder Performances during the 2013 britten an - Festival, britten-Pears Programme, and Franz niversary celebrations included the War Requi - schubert institute, where master teachers in - em with the London Philharmonic orchestra cluded pianists Julius Drake, imogen Coo per, under Vladimir Jurowski; Les Illuminations and , and singers , with the Royal Concertgebouw orchestra and ian bostridge, and Wolfgang Holzmair. Andris Nelsons; and Curlew River (as the Mad - Wenwen Du has given piano recitals in Eur - woman) in the Netia Jones staging for the Lon - ope, North America, and Asia, most recently don barbi can, which was also seen in New York for the C oast Recital society. she performed and here on the West Coast. in the autumn of with Nikki Chooi and Timothy Chooi for the 2014 he embarked on a European recital tour Coast Recital society and Cecilian Chamber of schu bert’s Winterreise with Thomas Adès series, with Caroline Goulding for the Van - to coincide with the publication of his book couver Recital society, with Anton belov for Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Ob - Müzewest Con certs, with Abigail Levis and session. in 2016 bostridge was awarded the Pol Johan nes Kam mler for the , Roger Duff Cooper Prize for nonfiction writ - and with Julia bullock, Ryan McKinney, and ing for the book, which will be translated into a stage director Yuval sharon for the Los Angeles total of 12 languages. Philharmonic. Recent engagements include his operatic Wenwen Du has recorded for the Canadian de but at La scala, Milan as Peter Quint, an broad casting Corporation, and appeared in live American recital tour of Winterreisse with radio broadcast at All Classical Portland. she Tho mas Adès, and performances of Hans has frequently appeared in concert with ian Zender’s orchestrated version of Winterreise bostridge; their recitals have included the Dal - (co-commis sioned by Cal Performances) in las opera ’s Titus Recital series, the Park Avenue Taipei, Perth, for Musikkollegium Win terthur, Armory, and spivey Hall in the usA, the and at New York’s . Highlights of Van couver Recital society in , and the the 2017 –18 season include berlioz’s Les nuits suseong Artpia and the Cheonan Arts Cen ter d’été with the seattle sym phony and Ludovic in south Korea. Morlot, recital tours to both coasts of America, Later this season, Wenwen Du will be the the title role in Handel’s Jeptha at the opéra guest artistic coach at Tianjin opera for the pre - national de Paris, a residency with the seoul miere of Tang Kang Nian’s opera The Thunder - Philhar monic or chestra, and britten’s War storm , based on the novel by Cao Yu. with the staatskapelle and Antonio Pappano. Management for Ian Bostridge ian bostridge was a fellow in history at Cor - opus 3 Artists pus Christi College, oxford (1992 –95) and in 470 Park Avenue south, Ninth Floor North 2001 was elected an honorary fellow of the col - New York, NY 10016

Opposite: Wenwen Du 30