There was a romantic, early spring feel to this lunchtime concert, both in the choice of music and its execution. The weather even conspired to give us a warm sunny day.
The recital of Schumann’s music for voice and piano was given by the baritone Joseph Lia, accompanied by the Russian pianist Elena Lebedeva at St James Cavalier, Valletta.
It began with the lightly textured account of Schumann’s early collection of 12-character pieces, Papillons for piano solo, performed by Lebedeva. She successfully captured the mysterious nature of these brief, but poignant, utterances. There was a nice sense of lightness in the opening waltz.
The musical composition of these pieces consists of 13 festive dance-sequences, nine of which waltzes, and the composer has attempted to depict character in music. Each one of the 12 sections originally had a title, but Schumann removed them before publishing the work.
The title of the completed work, Papillons (which translates to ‘butterflies’) is clearly a reference to the airiness, colour, flightiness and spontaneity of the music.
Incorporated into the introduction and finale is the old German song (the Grossvaterlied). The conclusion to the work contains six accented notes representing the striking of a clock. On the score, Schumann inscribed, “The clamour of the carnival dies away, the clock in the tower strikes six”. After this, the pianist executes a remarkable diminuendo, effected by the removal of notes, one at a time. The partygoers disappear as the sound gradually vanishes into nothingness.
Lebedeva kept a nice playful sense of humour running through the performance, but at times there seemed to be a lack of lightness one comes to expect from this work. Overall, a very commendable performance played with style.
Lia’s fine, sonorous, lyrical baritone voice lent itself beautifully to Schubert’s songs
The second part of the recital was a performance of the Song Cycle Dichterliebe. Dichterliebe, or The Poet’s Love. It is Schubert’s best-known song cycle. The texts for the 16 songs come from the Lyrisches Intermezzo of Heinrich Heine, published as part of the poet’s Das Buch der Lieder.
The very natural, poetical affections of the poems are beautifully mirrored in Schumann’s settings. The poet’s love is a wonderful array of nuanced responses to the delicate language of flowers, dreams and fairy tales. Schumann adapts the words of the poems to his needs, sometimes repeating phrases and often rewording a line to supply the desired cadence.
Schumann creates literary effects in music: the wistful, ambivalent longing of Im Wunderschönen Monat Mai (In the wonderful month of May) evokes a feeling of spring, conjures up the early flowers and early budding of love.
For Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome (In the Rhine, the Holy River), Schumann uses the imagery of the Cologne Cathedral, whose bells were the first in Christendom to sound out three consecutive notes of the scale, by playing a bell-like figure with the left hand while the right plays snatches of a Bach organ prelude. He uses the imagery of the famous Madonna and Child in Cologne Cathedral.
Ich hab’ im Traum Geweinet (I wept in my dream) evokes Heine’s nightmares with one of the sparest piano parts ever put into an art song.
Schumann uses common musical motifs between songs to pull ideas together, such as the disembodied melodies bring-ing forth painful memories in Hör ich das Liedchen klingen (When I hear the little song playing) and Am Leuchtenden Sommer-morgen (In the radiant summer morning).
The lively, fairy tale evokes a uninhibited joy in Aus Alten Märchen Winkt Es (From old fairy tales it beckons) which contrasts with the final Die Alten, Bösen Lieder (The nasty old songs), a melancholy recollection of love lost.
Lia’s fine voice lent itself beautifully to Schubert’s songs, conveying the different sentiments evoked by the words which were sympathetically accompanied by Lebedeva.
The couple were given a well-deserved, enthusiastic reception by the rather disappointingly small audience.