b0079_WH booklet template.qxd 21/10/2015 23:13 Page 1 Alice Coote Christian Blackshaw Schumann Lieder Frauenliebe und -leben Dichterliebe b0079_WH booklet template.qxd 21/10/2015 23:13 Page 2 Alice Coote mezzo-soprano Christian Blackshaw piano Recorded live at Wigmore Hall, London, on 22 June 2014 Robert Schumann Ein Liebesliederstrauß – A bouquet of love songs 01 Widmung Op. 25 No. 1 02.07 02 Du bist wie eine Blume Op. 25 No. 24 01.45 03 Dem roten Röslein gleicht mein Lieb Op. 27 No. 2 00.59 04 Die Lotosblume Op. 25 No. 7 01.49 05 Meine Rose Op. 90 No. 2 03.52 06 Mein schöner Stern! Op. 101 No. 4 03.14 Frauenliebe und -leben Op. 42 23.09 07 Seit ich ihn gesehen 02.21 08 Er, der Herrlichste von allen 03.15 09 Ich kann’s nicht fassen 01.52 10 Du Ring an meinem Finger 02.52 11 Helft mir, ihr Schwestern 02.00 12 Süßer Freund, du blickest 04.45 13 An meinem Herzen, an meiner Brust 01.17 14 Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan 04.19 2 b0079_WH booklet template.qxd 21/10/2015 23:13 Page 3 Dichterliebe Op. 48 30.18 15 Im wunderschönen Monat Mai 01.35 16 Aus meinen Tränen sprießen 00.55 17 Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne 00.33 18 Wenn ich in deine Augen seh’ 01.43 19 Ich will meine Seele tauchen 00.48 20 Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome 02.24 21 Ich grolle nicht 01.38 22 Und wüßten’s die Blumen 01.15 23 Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen 01.28 24 Hör’ ich das Liedchen klingen 02.21 25 Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen 00.59 26 Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen 02.35 27 Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet 02.20 28 Allnächtlich im Traume 01.22 29 Aus alten Märchen 02.33 30 Die alten, bösen Lieder 05.06 encore 31 Nachtlied Op. 96 No. 1 02.34 Total time: 74.06 Engineered by Steve Portnoi www.outhouseaudio.com Produced by Jeremy Hayes Recorded live at Wigmore Hall, London, on 22 June 2014 Director: John Gilhooly Wigmore Hall Live — General Manager: Darius Weinberg Photography by Benjamin Ealovega Manufactured by Repeat Performance Multimedia, London 3 b0079_WH booklet template.qxd 21/10/2015 23:13 Page 4 Woman and man, the human SouL in Love: Schumann Lieder Alice Coote and Christian Blackshaw begin their ‘Widmung’, boasts a melody of miraculous Schumann recital with six gems – four from 1840, beauty; no matter if the prosody is not quite that annus mirabilis which yielded some 140 right (the rest between ‘ängstigt’ and ‘sich’ is Lieder, and two from almost a decade later. Three syntactically awkward), the magical tune more of these masterpieces form part of Myrten, than makes up for any technical shortcomings in Robert’s wedding present to Clara. The cycle word-setting. opens with ‘Widmung’ (the title is Schumann’s), First published by Pietro Urbani in 1794, ‘O, a poem from Liebesfrühling, a collection of more my luve’s like a red, red rose’ is an amalgam of than 400 love poems that Rückert addressed several old ballads and illustrates Burns’s genius to Luise Wiethaus whom he married in 1821. for reworking old material. The poem was Schumann’s music, of course, expresses his un - translated by Wilhelm Gerhard as ‘Dem roten dying love for Clara – we can hear his passion in Röslein gleicht mein Lieb’ and set to music by the accompaniment’s ecstatic arpeggios, and his Schumann in March 1840 – the idea of fidelity devotion in the slow middle section. The piano is expressed by those bass octaves, written as postlude quotes from Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’, to a semiquaver-quaver motif throughout the final indicate perhaps that Schumann, despite the three verses. The final song of this opening group bravura of the piece, intended it to be understood is ‘Mein schöner Stern!’ from the Minnespiel aus as an expression of devoutness. Such was the Rückerts Liebesfrühling Op. 101, a collection of intensity of Schumann’s love that he failed to verse that had also inspired Clara and Robert to detect the irony of Heine’s ‘Du bist wie eine compose together their Op. 37 collection of Blume’. Instead of ironic detachment – present in almost a decade earlier. The text of this wonderful the clichéd opening line, the inverted jingly refrain song talks of dark clouds within the poet’s and the stress pattern of the penultimate line, in breast – Schumann must have been aware of his which the poet exhorts God to preserve the purity incipient madness, and this plea to the star not to of his beloved when, as we know from Heine’s abandon him is set to music of profound personal Lyrisches Intermezzo, she already belonged to conviction. another – Schumann gives us rapture, awe and Frauenliebe und -leben, composed imme - one of the world’s greatest love songs, which was diately after Dichterliebe, tells the story of a also one of Clara’s favourites. The music has the woman’s love for a man of higher birth. ‘Seit ich pace of a prayer and at the first mention of purity ihn gesehen’ describes her obsessive love for (‘rein’) moves from B flat minor to the unsullied the man she has just met. Schumann’s marking is key of E flat major. ‘Die Lotosblume’, marked ‘sehr Larghetto – faster, therefore, than Largo, and langsam’, is a rapt love song which, like urgent enough to convey the strength of her 4 b0079_WH booklet template.qxd 21/10/2015 23:13 Page 5 feelings and the blindness of her love. ‘Er, der Herrlichste von allen’ is not the exultant love song that we hear all too often in recitals. The marking is Innig, lebhaft (fervently/tenderly and lively) and the pianist is instructed to play piano. There is not yet any indication that her love is requited or even that the man has noticed her. ‘Kämmerlein’ (‘little room’) from the previous song and ‘niedre Magd’ (‘lowly self’) from ‘Er, der Herrlichste von allen’, suggest that she might be a servant in the house of the man she loves. There is no reason for her to be happy; indeed, she confesses with touching ingenuousness that when the man chooses a bride, she will bless his choice. The song ends with a reprise of the opening melody and words, but composed a third lower to depict the hopelessness of her love. By the opening bar of the next song, ‘Ich kann’s nicht fassen’, all this has changed. Marked Mit Leidenschaft, this passionate song relives the moment when the man declared his love for her. Her response is a ROBERT SCHUMANN mixture of ecstasy, tenderness and erotic desire A lithograph by Joseph Kriehuber (‘O let me, dreaming, die … Let me savour blissful death.’). ‘Du Ring an meinem Finger’ celebrates gradually quickening tempo and the harmonic their engagement and contrasts her rapture with progressions help to convey her rising passion. the desolation of the life she led as a single In ‘Helft mir, ihr Schwestern’, whilst asking woman. The passage beginning ‘Ich will ihm her bridesmaids to dress her for the wedding day, dienen, ihm leben, / Ihm angehören ganz’ (‘I shall she muses on her relationship with her fiancé, serve him, live for him, / Belong to him wholly’) as she remembers lying in his arms, remembers has been unfairly criticised by strident feminists his sexual impatience – ‘Immer noch rief er, / who fail to realise that any woman or any man Sehnsucht im Herzen, / Ungeduldig den heutigen in the first intoxicating days of love can indulge Tag’ (‘He still called, / With longing heart, / in such hyperbole. Schumann’s marking here, Impatiently for this day’) – and hopes that she will incidentally, is nach und nach rascher: the receive him without shyness or trepidation on the 5 b0079_WH booklet template.qxd 21/10/2015 23:13 Page 6 wedding night. ‘Süßer Freund, du blickest’ is the notation to suggest that this postlude should most tender song of the cycle, and the most be played differently to the prelude – but what moving. The scene is the bridal bed, and before seemed energised and vibrant in the opening the start of this wonderful music the man, noticing song should now be played with greater sadness, her tears, asks her without much understanding of poignancy and tenderness, as the bereaved the opposite sex, what is amiss. At the end of the woman turns to the future and feeds off fond second verse she says she will whisper into his memories. ear the cause of her tears. What then follows is The original version of Dichterliebe contained one of the miracles of the Lieder repertoire. The twenty songs, but Schumann, having had them piano interlude, no longer than three and a half refused by Bote & Bock and Breitkopf & Härtel, bars, traces the man’s reaction to his wife’s finally decided to reduce the number to sixteen, statement that she is pregnant: initial disbelief when the work was eventually published by Peters gives way to gradual realisation and, finally, in 1844. Schumann took the 16 poems from ecstatic acceptance – a progression that is Heine’s Lyrisches Intermezzo, and named his work signposted by Schumann in a succession of after a line from Rückert’s Liebesfrühling about crescendi and decrescendi, and a rhythmic variety the unhappiness of a poet’s love. None of Heine’s that culminates in one single, held and rapturous poems is a straightforward expression of requited semibreve chord that the pianist is expected to love.