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The Songmakers' Almanac, Richard Jackson (baritone), Graham Johnson (piano)» More |
The music is in a quietly flowing tempo – 'langsam' but with an almost continual triplet movement. Schubert has achieved a mood of gentle pathos. Many of the bars have an accent on the third beat which then falls to the fourth, phrased away like a world-weary sigh. The quality and imagination of this music with its sometimes magical modulations leads Reed to compare it with the slow movement of the String Quintet and the last piano sonata. The words are written above the stave without any indication of rhythm, and it is as much as the reciter can do to keep them together with the music in the general area indicated on the page; there is no question of a recitation completely in time with the music, although there are perhaps certain 'gathering points' and modulations where the harmonies are suggestive of a specific coming together of word and tone. Fischer-Dieskau is eloquent on the quality of the work: 'Schumann, Liszt and Richard Strauss made much use later of the melodramatic recitative. But none of them achieved the musical intensity of this brief contemplation of the power of love to turn sorrow into joy.'
By chance this music clarifies another problem of Schubertian performance, and this is to do with notation. In the twentieth bar, and again in the thirtieth, a triplet figure in the piano is printed with the stems downwards. Above this, stems upwards, is a dotted quaver+semiquaver figure which shares the first and third notes of the triplet, and is joined to the triplet like Siamese twins. Here is further evidence in Schubert's own hand that, in the mind of the composer and his contemporaries, the last note of a triplet, and the semiquaver after a dotted quaver, could be of equal rhythmic quantity. This has ramifications for the accompanist and chamber music player throughout Schubert's canon, above all in a song like Wasserflut from Winterreise.
Not much is known about Adolf Pratobevera or how Schubert was persuaded to provide music for a family occasion, almost certainly without fee. It is probable that he was one of the many young men on the fringe of the Schubert circle, introduced by one of the older members, and that the composer simply took a shine to him. The father of Pratobevera, whose birthday was celebrated, was an important member of the judiciary, and his son was also to work in the justice ministry. In the 1860s Pratobevera was to rise to high eminence in government circles, but his artistic endeavours, such as they were, seem to have been confined to his youth. Fischer-Dieskau tells us he published 'political epigrams, and a few articles on legal matters'.
from notes by Graham Johnson © 1996
Schubert: The Complete Songs ‘This would have been a massive project for even the biggest international label, but from a small independent … it is a miracle. An ideal Christ ... ‘Please give me the complete Hyperion Schubert songs set—all 40 discs—and, in the next life, I promise I'll "re-gift" it to Schubert himself … fo ...» More |
Schubert: The Songmakers' Almanac Schubertiade ‘Impossible to imagine anyone not deriving enormous pleasure from this collection’ (BBC Music Magazine) ‘Reviewers have long since run out of adjectives to describe Graham Johnson's superb complete Schubert song series for Hyerion. Now, for the Schubert ...» More |