572367bk Meyerbeer:557541bk Kelemen 3+3 24/11/10 4:52 PM Page 1 Sivan Rotem Jonathan Zak Sivan Rotem is considered one of Israel’s leading singers. Jonathan Zak was born in Israel and graduated from The Born in Buenos Aires, she started her training as a violinist. Juilliard School of Music in New York. He has appeared as MEYERBEER Rotem holds degrees in English and Literature from Haifa soloist with all of Israel’s major orchestras and has University and in voice from the Music Academy at Tel performed extensively in Israel, Europe, the United States Aviv University. She furthered her vocal studies with Ellen and South America. In 1969 he was one of the founders of Songs Faull in the United States. She made her professional début the Yuval Trio, which has appeared throughout the world with the Israel Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta and has and recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, CBS Master- sung with all of Israel’s leading orchestras. Her American works and others. Jonathan Zak has often recorded for Sivan Rotem, Soprano opera début was as Violetta in La traviata with the Seattle Israel radio and various radio stations in Europe. He Opera conducted by Gerard Schwarz. She has sung leading performs regularly with pianist Irena Friedland as a Piano- rôles with the New Israeli Opera and appeared as a soloist Duo team, with two acclaimed CDs for Romeo Records. Jonathan Zak, Piano with the Symphony Orchestras of Jerusalem, Los Angeles, He has served on the jury of several international music San Diego, San Jose, Utah, Uzbekistan, Slovak Radio, competitions, including the Arthur Rubinstein Piano Ukraine Philharmonic and Vancouver. Rotem has given Competition in Tel-Aviv, the ARD Chamber Music solo recitals in the Palace of Versailles, San Francisco, Competition in Munich, the Schubert and Twentieth Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, and Prague and performed at the Century Music Competition in Graz, and the International Savonlinna Opera Festival in Finland. Harp Competition in Jerusalem. He is currently full professor (Emeritus) at the Buchman-Mehta Music School of Tel-Aviv University, where he teaches chamber music and vocal accompaniment. Photo: Lisa Kohler Photo: Michael Cohen C M Y K 5 8.572367 6 8.572367 !"#$%"&'()*+*,&**,-!!"!./&'(0*1*2*3($4$((#.5//5/6((.-!#(7)((789*(# Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864) Giacomo Meyerbeer was born into a wealthy German- tine), journalist (Henri Blaze de Bury), and schoolteacher ‘antique’ ritornello and sophisticated flattened chords, weighed down by a dragging G minor ostinato, the poet is Songs Jewish family in Berlin. A trip to Italy as a young man (August Ludwig Lua). Musically, the French mélodie is at Queen Marguerite slyly laments the demands that being a moved to an outburst of grief on hearing the song that his resulted in five operas written in the Rossinian style, the centre of Meyerbeer’s song compositions, but they true Christian makes – the rejection of all the fleshly lost love used to sing. In Goethe’s Suleika, a young woman, 1 Le ricordanze (1833) 3:22 % La folle de St Joseph (1837) 3:45 followed by his first major success, Il crociato in Egitto cover a spectrum of genres: Italian ariettas and grand pleasures and joys. In Thierry’s Sur le balcon, with its over pulsing A major chords, sings rapturously of her trust Text by Gaetano Rossi (1774–1855) Text by Adolphe Marquis de Custine (1824). Meyerbeer retained close links to Berlin through- scenas, strophic German Lied patterns, French romance smooth amorous arpeggios and affecting piano harmonies, in her absent lover and her dedication of herself to him. 2 De’ miei giorni (Délire) (1840) 2:46 ^ Chant de mai (1837) 3:43 out his life, occupying several important musical posts lyrics, extended interior monologues in several move- two lovers retire from a noisy ball to contemplate the moon There are two contributions from Meyerbeer’s brother Text by F. N. del Santo Mango Text by Henri Blaze de Bury there, but it was in Paris that he achieved his greatest ments, and dramatic ballads. Meyerbeer’s innate dramatic and stars as symbols of their mutual devotion. Maurice de Michael Beer: the first is Mina or the Lied des venezia- 3 Il nascere e il fiorire d’una rosa (1823) 2:36 & Nella (1838) 3:18 successes, becoming the leading composer of French grand instincts often led him to expand the traditional romance Flassan’s straightforward religious piece Le baptême is an nischen Gondoliers, another song of enticement as an Text anonymous Text by Emile Deschamps opéra. Following the sensational Paris première of Robert and prayer forms into short theatrical scenes. appeal to God to purify and bless a newly baptized infant, amorous gondolier invites his beloved into his boat, the le Diable (1831), Meyerbeer’s works dominated the This collection of songs captures the wide variety of couched in an intensely apprehended, hymnlike simplicity. happy situation underlined by its jolly dotted rhythms. * Komm, du schönes Fischermädchen (1837) 2:01 Sei canzonette italiane (1810): operatic scene and gained him international fame; Les musical genres. Most are reflections on the joys and pains The pain of love is depicted in de Custine’s La folle de St Albert Knapp’s Luft von Morgen is a prayer begging for 4 1:34 Text by Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) Sceglier fra mille un core Huguenots was performed 1,126 times at the Paris Opéra of love, but there are several songs with a religious flavour. Joseph: insane with grief, the madwoman longs for the grace, the divine air of life, to bring release from the pain 5 2:40 Da voi, da voi, cari lumi ( Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne (1838) 1:58 alone between 1836 and 1936. However, his reputation Nine of the pieces are Italian. Rossi’s Le ricordanze, in man who deserted her to return to witness her tears and her of sin likened to the agony of a mortal illness; the serious 6 1:53 Giura il nocchier Text by Heinrich Heine suffered an eclipse in the twentieth century as grand opéra the style of a formal three-part operatic scena, is a death – an inner tension reflected in the play between tonic intention is reflected in the solemn triads and low octaves 7 3:42 Bei labbri che amore ) Hör ich das Liedchen klingen (1837) 1:14 fell out of fashion, and the anti-Semitic sentiment that had melancholy sigh for past happiness recalled in a saddened minor and major of G, the declamatory and the lyrical. In of the accompaniment that function like a ground bass. In 8 1:56 Se non ti moro allato Text by Heinrich Heine motivated Richard Wagner’s attacks on him culminated in but also hopeful present. F. N. de Santo Mango’s Délire, Blaze de Bury’s Chant de mai the whole of nature sings the Wilhelm Müller’s Der Garten des Herzens the poet, with 9 Basta dir ch’io sono amante 1:41 ¡ Suleika (1838) 2:37 the banning of his works in Nazi Germany. There have with its contrasting binary couplets, is a near-delirious same song in May – the sweet outpouring of love, captured quicksilver staccato lightness, encourages his beloved to Text by Pietro Metastasio (1698–1782), revised Text by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) been signs, however, in recent years, of a resurgence of outpouring of longing for her lover from a deserted woman in the bright treble piano figures and the smooth and pick the flowers that grow in the garden of his heart. by F. N. del Santo Mango, 1840 ™ Mina (Lied des venezianischen Gondoliers) interest in Meyerbeer’s operas. who cannot let go of vain hope. The gentle canzonetta Il delicate lyrical decoration of the line. The chansonette Scirocco, the second poem by Beer, is an evocation of the 0 La dame invisible (1845) 4:49 (1837) 1:45 Throughout his life Meyerbeer also wrote songs that nascere e il fiorire d’una rosa, with its exquisite intro- Nella is the tale of a beautiful Venetian girl who rejects a desert wind that brings a sense of desolation and yearning, Text by Amédé Edmond Thierry Text by Michael Beer (1800–1833) reflected the German, French and Italian cultural milieux duction, compares the nascent beauty of a rosebud at dawn rich marquis in favour of the poor page she loves, the drama captured in the chain of chromatic thirds that feature in ! Rachel à Nephtali (1834) 5:08 £ Luft von Morgen (1841) 3:20 in which he moved. These songs helped to keep his name to its overwhelming loveliness in full bloom. The earlySei reflected stylistically in the propositions and answers of the accompaniment. In Lua’s song Frühling im Versteck Text by Emile Deschamps (1791–1871) Text by Albert Knapp (1798–1864) in the public eye in the wake of his operatic successes; Canzonette Italiane form a short cycle – light, intimate, the two characters. spring is personified as a handsome youth hidden beneath @ La Ballade de la Reine Marguerite de Valois many of them were composed for performance in the even playful reflections to texts by the great librettist Pietro The nine German Lieder include three by Heine. Komm, winter’s blanket, who breaks his bonds and invites all nature ¢ Der Garten des Herzens (1839) 1:00 (1829) 2:50 fashionable salons of Paris, and sung by the stars of his Metastasio on the trials of love: the pain of betrayal; the du schönes Fischermädchen is a slightly eerie G minor to bloom again; a real sense of expectation and rapture is Text by Wilhelm Müller (1794–1827) Text by Marguerite de Valois, 1540 stage works.