A sad tale's best for winter
Jan. 27th, 2012 12:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pallas_athenaTonight I saw British mezzo Alice Coote sing Schubert's Winterreise at the Wigmore Hall. Since I'm preparing my own Winterreise at the moment, I think this might be the moment to start writing about it.
So far I've seen three live Winterreisen: one in Leipzig and two in London. The Leipzig one was interesting in that it used some staging, and that worked well enough that I'd like to try to do the same-- but differently, obviously. The London ones were tonight's and one about 18 months ago by bass Matthew Rose, who's currently recording it in Aldeburgh with my friend Gary Matthewman on the keys (both pianistic and blogular).
The two London performances were almost diametric opposites. Alice Coote, tonight, got the emotional journey pretty much exactly right, using her command of legato and messa di voce to brilliant effect. She and Julius Drake have been doing this cycle together for years now, and it shows-- the partnership is just beautiful.
The only trouble with such a deeply felt Winterreise is that it leaves you with no sense of physical distance travelled. Winterreise needs some mud on its boots, some trudging, some exhaustion, some frostbite, but over all a stride that continues through the whole piece. Those songs when the singer has a chance to rest and contemplate are purchased in the currency of that constant, though varied tread. Coote's came across as very much a city dweller's Winterreise-- tears, but no sweat. Musically, the s t r e t c h e d pauses and elastic tempi made for a very Romantic interpretation that at times bordered on self-indulgence; but when you're a pair of celebrities, you can get away with that.
Matthew Rose and Gary Matthewman's interpretation went almost entirely the other way: every hint of emotion was replaced by bitterness and mordant sarcasm; he was only sincere when the music absolutely forced it. It was very much a Brecht/Weill show-no-pain Winterreise, which was aided by a more strictly Schubertian musical approach. Lots of lovely frostbitten bile on show here, which Winterreise does need, but at the same time...
...where's the poet's incentive not to show pain? His solitude gives him absolute privacy, and I think that he suffers-- and, ultimately, loses himself-- *because* he can't close off his emotions. Look at the painful clarity of his response to unexpected moments of natural beauty, for example. To me, it seems clear that his isn't the pain of the closed heart-- it's the pain of the heart that wants to close, and can't.
Sure, there's an argument to be made for his bitterness leading him to shun humanity-- but then, he explicitly refuses suicide at a couple of points, which a thoroughly embittered man might not. In the icebound mountain winter, after all, it's easy enough to die-- you just have to stop moving for long enough. The poet never gives himself that choice. He stops to rest and, once, to sleep-- but his pain drives him on. He could no more stay still long enough to die than he could stay in any of the villages through which he passes.
All of which is to say that what I feel the Winterreise needs is resistance: the tension between forward energy and exhaustion; between inward heat and outward cold; between hope and utter heartbreak; between the desire for human company and the knowledge that he can't bear it. The poet can only be mordant as long as his feeling heart permits him; can only contemplate his feelings until he hits the barrier of intolerable pain; can only walk until he drops and only rest until the pain catches up with him. Hell of a way to spend an hour and a half.
I will be writing more about this as I go, I think. Till then.
So far I've seen three live Winterreisen: one in Leipzig and two in London. The Leipzig one was interesting in that it used some staging, and that worked well enough that I'd like to try to do the same-- but differently, obviously. The London ones were tonight's and one about 18 months ago by bass Matthew Rose, who's currently recording it in Aldeburgh with my friend Gary Matthewman on the keys (both pianistic and blogular).
The two London performances were almost diametric opposites. Alice Coote, tonight, got the emotional journey pretty much exactly right, using her command of legato and messa di voce to brilliant effect. She and Julius Drake have been doing this cycle together for years now, and it shows-- the partnership is just beautiful.
The only trouble with such a deeply felt Winterreise is that it leaves you with no sense of physical distance travelled. Winterreise needs some mud on its boots, some trudging, some exhaustion, some frostbite, but over all a stride that continues through the whole piece. Those songs when the singer has a chance to rest and contemplate are purchased in the currency of that constant, though varied tread. Coote's came across as very much a city dweller's Winterreise-- tears, but no sweat. Musically, the s t r e t c h e d pauses and elastic tempi made for a very Romantic interpretation that at times bordered on self-indulgence; but when you're a pair of celebrities, you can get away with that.
Matthew Rose and Gary Matthewman's interpretation went almost entirely the other way: every hint of emotion was replaced by bitterness and mordant sarcasm; he was only sincere when the music absolutely forced it. It was very much a Brecht/Weill show-no-pain Winterreise, which was aided by a more strictly Schubertian musical approach. Lots of lovely frostbitten bile on show here, which Winterreise does need, but at the same time...
...where's the poet's incentive not to show pain? His solitude gives him absolute privacy, and I think that he suffers-- and, ultimately, loses himself-- *because* he can't close off his emotions. Look at the painful clarity of his response to unexpected moments of natural beauty, for example. To me, it seems clear that his isn't the pain of the closed heart-- it's the pain of the heart that wants to close, and can't.
Sure, there's an argument to be made for his bitterness leading him to shun humanity-- but then, he explicitly refuses suicide at a couple of points, which a thoroughly embittered man might not. In the icebound mountain winter, after all, it's easy enough to die-- you just have to stop moving for long enough. The poet never gives himself that choice. He stops to rest and, once, to sleep-- but his pain drives him on. He could no more stay still long enough to die than he could stay in any of the villages through which he passes.
All of which is to say that what I feel the Winterreise needs is resistance: the tension between forward energy and exhaustion; between inward heat and outward cold; between hope and utter heartbreak; between the desire for human company and the knowledge that he can't bear it. The poet can only be mordant as long as his feeling heart permits him; can only contemplate his feelings until he hits the barrier of intolerable pain; can only walk until he drops and only rest until the pain catches up with him. Hell of a way to spend an hour and a half.
I will be writing more about this as I go, I think. Till then.