Eric Sams: Reviews (Minor Vocal Music)

ERIC SAMS: RECORD AND MUSIC REVIEWS

MISCELLANEOUS VOCAL MUSIC

Warlock The Curlew; 12 songs for solo voice and instruments. Haffner Quartet, Mary Murdoch, Mary Ryan, James Griffett

There is much fine music here, some of it novel and all of it well performed; but the fare could have been more varied, and more authentic. The highest flights are attained by The Curlew, a continuous setting for tenor, flute, english horn and strings of four quite separate poems by Yeats. Side 2 has 12 songs, four with string quartet accompaniment by Warlock and seven with instrumental accompaniments arranged by Fred Tomlinson, who is chairman of the Warlock Society. Rather aptly, the corresponding information about the twelfth song, My Gostly Fader, has mysteriously vanished; at any rate there's nothing in the sleeve.

The desolate tones of The Curlew will surely make their wistful appeal to sad and lonely listeners in certain (or rather uncertain) moods. Warlock's bane, as well as his boon, is that his music so often derives its vitality as it were vampirically from the verses; and these are sometimes anaemic, even perniciously so - as witness the sickly pallor of The Water Lily.

That text is by Robert Nichols, whose versifying - must have been a severe test of Warlock's friendly regard for him. Yeats is vastly more memorable and durable; but some of his Celtic Twilight now seems decidedly dim, even to illuminati. It is much to the composer's credit that he not only restores the balance but even tilts it. At times the music is suddenly vivid, as when it follows “the paths that the witches take” - with which Warlock sounds uncannily familiar. The singer too succeeds finely in making repeated lines no imposition, not even the exposed and almost unspeakable quasi parlando about the boughs that withered because the poet told them his dreams. Throughout all the songs James Griffett's voice is agreeable and his interpretation eloquent, sometimes movingly so. Perhaps it is indeed this involvement with words that sometimes makes his diction awry. The “ow” sounds are not always happy; and such lapses as “go(w)up” are the more noticeable by contrast with the usual meticulous enunciation.

The playing is distinctly articulated yet most sensitively phrased, in solos as in ensemble. Mr Tomlinson says that he makes no apology for his arrangements; and musically no doubt they need none. But do we need them? Even authentic Warlock sounds to me more compelling on the keyboard than on strings. In Sleep for example the four-part writing sounds less predictable and hence more expressive on the piano. But the opportunity for comparison is interesting and rewarding; and it might with advantage have been extended to Warlock's other quartet writing, e.g. his own arrangement of his first setting of Whenas the rye, or his settings for two voices and string quartet of Corpus Christi or Sorrow's Lullaby. At least we have here the 6/8 string quartet version of As ever I saw, retitled The Fairest May, which seems to me the pearl of this recording. It was “Warlock's last piece of vocal chamber music, completed in November 1930”, as Mr Tomlinson's useful sleeve note tells us.

I think we might also have been told who discovered The Water Lily (and Jenny Gray) blushing unseen among the British Museum Mss. Again, it is good to have the poets dated and the sources identified; but surely there is good evidence for supposing that the Yeats texts of The Curlew were taken from the Collected Works of 1908 rather than the separate earlier publications here cited?

Frühe Goethe-Lieder. Fischer-Dieskau/ Demus. Archive

Reichardt: Gott; Feiger Gedanken; Die schöne Nacht; Einziger Augenblick; Einschränkung; Mut; Rhapsodie; An Lotte; Tiefer liegt die Nacht um mich her. Zelter: Rastlose Liebe; Um Mitternacht; Gleich und Gleich; Wo geht's Liebchen. Sachsen-Weimar: Auf dem Land; Sie scheinen zu spielen. Seckendorff: Romanze. Neefe: Serenate. Beethoven: Mit Mädeln sich vertragen. Kreutzer: Ein Bettler vor dem Tor. Hummel: Zur Logenfeier. Arnim: O schaudre nicht. Wagner: Lied des Mephistopheles; Branders Lied.

For the benefit of non-jargon-speaking readers it should be explained that “früh” means “written at any time between 1776 and 1832 but excluding all Mozart, Schubert, Loewe and Mendelssohn and almost all-Beethoven”. The title “Lesser Lights of the Lied” would have made up in accuracy what it lacks in commercial appeal.

The sleeve note suggests that this motley medley may be meant to mirror Goethe's own insistence (which for some reason is often taken very seriously, despite its manifest Philistinism) that musical settings should be deliberately designed to show off his poetic gems. But those on display here are rarely of the first water; and some are paste. Nor can the settings be of the finest if the voices of Mignon and, Gretchen have to remain unheard. The Hammerflügel however is heard throughout, though it should surely have been waived for Wagner at least. The 18th-century drawing room is hardly the juste milieu for any of his Faust music; and Auerbach’s cellar in particular is a long way below stairs. Least satisfactory of all, it seems to me, is the undue attention paid to dubious arrangements (Beethoven as well as Wagner) and to what might be called the Liedermeier school (Kreutzer, Hummel) with such undistinguished old boys and girls as the “artistic-minded dilettante” von Seckendorff and the “educated women” Anna von SachsenWeimar and Bettina von Arnim. Of all recorded sounds, that of scraping the barrel is surely one of the least attractive.

On the credit side (mainly side 1) there is much agreeable music always beautifully sung and often brilliantly played. In particular the two old Kapellmeister Reichardt and Zelter are very properly placed on record here as being admirable composers in their own right. They would not otherwise have earned their historical place as precursors of the lied; ex nihilo nihil fit for publication. But those listeners who feel as I do that by and large Schubert's petty forbears are pretty fair bores will find this disc too one-sided to offer lasting value.

Petrarch Sonnets set by Reichardt, Schubert; Liszt and Pfitzner. Fischer-Dieskau/ Demus, Moore

Why make new records? Take already sold ones;

Make a long extract; put new wrapping on it,

Add^-a new title; say “The Petrarch Sonnet”;

(You'll find some more among the pigeon-holed ones –

The public can't complain we're trying to con it –

That's not our way at Deutsche Grammophon).

It won't sell a million discs, or earn us gold ones

But now at least we've got a new recording.

What? half a side still missing? Fill with Reichardt.

He's currently in vogue among the highbrows.

As culture or as commerce; he's rewarding,

And might attain great heights in the July chart:

If we raise sales, who cares who raises eyebrows?

Enesco Sept chansons de Clément Marot op.15. Roussel Odes Anacréontiques, opp.31-2; Deux mélodies op.20: Jazz dans la nuit op.38; Deux poèmes chinois op.12; Deux poèmes chinois op.35: A flower given to my daughter; Light op. 19 no.1 ; Quatre poèmes op.8 nos.1, 4. Yolanda Marculescu (sop), Katja Phyllabaum(pf)

Saga's urge for adventure can make for real discoveries. This excursion traverses some unfamiliar terrain. Enesco's Marot settings sound like a buffer state between the lied and the mélodie, very agreeably cultivated but rather neutral. Roussel, in contrast, is not only French but actively expansionist, establishing one enclave in Spain (Le bachelier de Salamanque op.20 no.2) and four in China (the songs of opp.12 and 35). There is even one corner of an Eng. Lit. field that is for ever foreign, thanks to his very Gallic setting of James Joyce. Here Yolanda Marculescu's English phonemes are no help to repatriation. But her French (the rest of the recital) is sensitively articulated and phrased, and so is her singing. She can be a little too casual about significant detail; thus her breathing while “les bourgeois dormant” in Le bachelier disturbs the expressive sleep of the deliberately drawn-out vocal line. Again, not all the note values are scrupulously observed. But the musical values are; and the result is pure gain. Katja Phyllabaum's piano playing is a great asset. A good example of their intuitive ensemble is offered by the joint Réponse d'une épouse sage from op.38, where the notes of resignation and regret are sounded and touched with real feeling. The frail patterns of Roussel's China are most delicately traced and coloured; and such artistry suffuses the entire disc. So it is doubly a pity that this Saga is textually defective, in the great British tradition of foreign song recording. The translations though adequate are not enough. There are no French texts; and the alignment of Joyce's lyric is a slovenly muddle.

Butterworth: Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad; Bredon Hill; other songs. Finzi: Earth and Air and Rain. Benjamin Luxon/David Willison (Argo)

The programme is nor only uncommonly well performed and admirably planned, like a model nswer to the examination question “Housman and Hardy: compare and contrast”. Here are two very distinct versions of pastoral. In the real county of Shropshire, all is complex fin de siècle artifice; in the imaginary county of Wessex, everything rings simply and timelessly true. So perhaps the former demands a highly inflected musical language, like that of the late C.W.Orr, for its proper interpretation. However, Housman’s heart (on the sleeve, at least) belongs to Butterworth. Nothing is said about the brain, though; and it is surely the whetstone of intelligence that gives Housman’s verse, like his classical criticism, its steely glitter and slicing edge.

This goes like a knife through Butterworth, whose bland absorption often misses the point. Can “wearing white for Eastertide” really mean what the ringing music, donning its Sunday-best church-going modes, seek to imply? This pervasive dimness obscures the poetry. Even at first hearing we fear that the final phrase of When I was one and twenty is going to be feelingly repeated; and oh, ‘tis true, ‘tis true. Fortunately, the essential brightness can be restored to the music by intelligent interpretation. Thus in Is my team ploughing the singer sounds more telling than the composer about why the lover is preferred to the ghost, the vertical man to the horizontal one.

Finzi at least borrows his colour from the texts, and his shades of meaning are usually acceptable. His music is like closely-cupped hands adding resonance to the poet’s voice; and he can even enhance Hardy. Thus “My Lizbie Browne” releases a tenderness that lies locked on the page. Benjamin Luxon articulates the verse with an eloquence that is always compelling and often moving. The same service is performed for the piano parts by David Willison, whose sensitive playing has unobtrusive authority.

Donizetti Six arias for voice and piano, rev. C. Pestalozza. Ricordi

It seems to me that by 1844 Donizetti was far gone in brain-sickness, and that his creative fires were merely smouldering, if not entirely smothered. No wonder he chose to write songs, in that melancholy event; even a few flickers of ideas can be kept going by strophic repetition. The writer of the introduction takes a much more encouraging view. Indeed he goes so far as to assess this final phase as one of unimpaired “maturity”, and to appraise these previously unpublished songs as “felicitous”. However, I see that this edition notates the Gs in the last two bars of the right hand, at the top of p.9, as sharp, not natural; and anyone who can believe that can believe anything.

Let the prospective purchaser decide, bearing in mind that any substantial demand for this set will no doubt unleash another 200 or so Donizetti songs still left lying doggo in the archives. But the present price seems quite reasonable for 35 pages, even of repetitive music; all the work has a certain wan charm; and in any event I expect everyone would rather see genius smouldering than mouldering.

E. T. A. Hoffmann Tre Canzonette Italiane, ed. H Schulze. Deutscher Verlag; Breitkopf

Hoffmann's Tales preceded a whole flock of followers, notably Poe. In Hoffmann's music however the great mystery is his lack of imagination. There's a thin watery trickle of melodic invention, but the harmony is as dull and static as silt. Our indulgent editor is surprised that these canzonets remained in obscurity; “the reasons for the publishers' refusal can no longer be established”. Personally I should have thought that the real puzzle resided in the present acceptance. Perhaps we are in for a new vogue of music with mainly literary appeal. I'd recommend the vocal works of Nietzsche and Manley Hopkins as the next two in the series. Meanwhile it should be said that this text is well edited and presented, and should still be in plenty of time to surge back into oblivion on the great wave of apathy that has greeted the Hoffmann bicentenary.

Robert Lucas Pearsall. Duet for Two Cats, ed. E. Hunt. Schott

This cat duet once made quite a noise overnight, because of its inclusion in Gerald Moore's farewell concert. It was then attributed to Rossini, as in its first publication (Quaderni Rossiniani, c1956) and in a recent separate Peters edition. But thereby hang two tales. First, there's no clear reason for any such ascription, as the Quaderni editorial commentary amply demonstrated (except to the editor concerned). Second there is evidence that the piece was in fact written by Robert Pearsall, better known for O who will o'er the downs so free.

It's a pity that the introduction to this welcome new edition should have missed the first of these points and muffed the second. The only serious argument is framed thus. The duet appears in a Pearsall Ms; he always acknowledged his borrowings; ergo, this must be his own work. But 'always' begs the question; the premises have been specially adapted to fit the conclusion. Further, we infer that Pearsall was a confirmed borrower, which leaves the thesis not so much advanced as retarded. Finally it is certainly impermissible to tell a cover story (“by Pearsall”) which is at variance with the inside information (“almost certainly by Pearsall”).

This is not to deny that the data, properly presented; do in fact point to Pearsall; full credit to Edgar Hunt for documenting that attribution, long ago suggested by the British Library catalogue. It was also a good idea to give an extract from the relevant holograph, and to reproduce the original (ex hypothesi, pseudonymous) publication by Ewer and Johanning-though some attempt should surely bave been made to establish its date (c1826). The text is occasionally ambiguous; it may be worth noting that on p.3 the left hand in bars 1-4 and 8-11 of the Andante just goes on repeating the key note. There are other equally lifeless examples of what might be called a catatonic pedal; no wonder people preferred Rossini. But the piece is after ali intended only to amuse; and all concerned should be wreathed in smiles.

Fifty Art Songs by Nineteenth Century Masters, ed. Henry T. Finck for high voice. Dover

Henry T. Finck was distinguished in his day, as critics go. But as critics go, he went; and Fincks are not what they used to be. Who would now announce the intention of “so training the taste of amateurs that they will be able henceforth to tell real diamonds and pearls from their worthless imitations”? It sounds exactly like the boasts of Bunthorne, and will leave readers equally out of patience. Among the diamonds and pearls are Paderewski's well-named Ah! The Torment!, which also exemplifies the style and standards of translation. Grieg and Franz are roundly asserted to be better song writers than Mozart or Beethoven, and are given more space than Brahms or Schumann. The whole volume is well produced but also well designed to show how musical taste is moulded (not to say mouldied) by environment as distinct from objective appraisal. It's a timely warning; meanwhile this product of its day and age (1903) belongs on the antimacassar between the aspidistra and the bowl of wax fruit.

Leoncavallo. Two Songs for voice and piano, ed. P. Spada. Bèrben/Breitkopf

The music won't be everyone's cup of oversweetened tea; but at least the sugar has flavour, which is the nearest he gets to dating the original holographs (held in the Library of Congress): “È difficile determinare una data di composizione” (the English version of the foreword simply omits that not very taxing phrase). He also seems to have had some difficulty in reading the French texts by Silvestre and Chenier, to judge by the half-dozen obvious blunders in transcription. On the former, a warning note needs to be sounded for unwary singers. The drawing-room context surely demands the reading “yeux” not “jeux” in bar 17. The lady's “jeux” might also have lit up in the dark, as Silvestre says, but that would have been more suitable for the smoking room.

Warlock Songs. Bailey, Parsons. L'oiseau-Lyre

Warlock and Parsons make (however surprisingly) an ideal alliance; full of spirit and fire, yet calm and serene whenever the mood requires. The selection is generous and reasonably representative; Norman Bailey’s singing is typically resonant and often well phrased, with an occasional sensitive inflection. But there, for me at least, the good news ends. The piano sounds rather under-recorded, with some loss of expressive detail, whereas the vocal line is always obtrusive, often dubious, and too often just carelessly wrong. As a result the music suffers, and so will the music lover. The strong-nerved might try comparing vocal line with score, for example at bars 10, 31 and 39 of As ever I saw. The words fare worse still. In Sigh no more, how long is it since summer first was “levvy” ? The horse's hoof in The Fox should be “crumbled”, not “crumpled”, which is more like the cow's horn. The May morning in After Two Years is surely “bright”, not “white”, least of all “wite”, whether there or in The Frostboand Wood - the agonized penitence of which is not best conveyed by referring to a “Save-yer” or describing Mary as “the child mother” instead of “the Child's mother”. Poor Warlock, to have such maledictions pronounced on his art.

Adolf Müller: Nestroy settings. Universal

The great entertainer Johann Nestroy – playwright, actor, lyricist and wit – was all the rage in Biedermeier Vienna. But apart from a few lingering spots (e.g. in Karl Kraus) that fever soon abated; and it never spread very far. Will it ever catch on again? Ernst Hilmar in his brief but cogent commentaries hopes that these facsimile reprints of contemporary settings will help the cause. But they seem to me just as much of a setback now as they must have been then. Each of the four volumes so far to hand offers three or four samples; but at the rate Müller grounds out this ancient corn, there are hundreds more of such sad sacks still to come. Personally I feel they would be better kept in the Stadtbibliothek archives; in particular the so-called “komische Theatergesänge” seem to me comical only in their musical ineptitude. Here lies those deft and nimble lyrics, still bravely smiling, but crushed stone dead by clumsy and rough-hewn settings. Their once famous last words were catch phrases that perished crying out in vain for an equally catchy tune. The threatened series of republications not only wastes the talents of an accomplished commentator but may well continue to destroy Nestroy.

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