Winterreise at the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg
by Melanie Eskenazi
For anyone who loves Lieder and beautiful surroundings, the Schubertiade
Festival is heaven on earth. For two weeks in June, and again in
August-September, the world's leading exponents of Lieder and Chamber
Music come to this delectable spot in the unspoilt Vorarlberg, where
the musical standards are as high, and the audience's appreciation
as knowledgeable and enthusiastic, as anywhere in the world.
Most of the concerts are held in the newly-built Angelika-Kaufmann-Saal,
idyllically set in a gentle curve of mountains, and it is not only
the music which conspires to make the experience a perfect one; the
hotels are geared to the Festival, which means that not only do you
get daily reviews on your breakfast table and a "Schubertiade-Bus"
to transport you there and back with your fellow concert-goers, but
even mealtimes are based around your evening - at our hotel, the
"Schubertiade Menu" offered light main courses before the concert,
with delicious desserts and wines served on our return.
As well as the spectacular views afforded by the hall's position,
there are further delights such as the signal for the concerts to
begin and to resume after the interval - no bells here, but two horn
players performing Schubert duos! Other unexpected pleasures included
running into artists at every turn - hardly surprising considering
that the village is tiny - and it is certainly an experience to take
one's interval drinks at a Lott/Murray/Johnson recital with the likes
of Thomas Quasthoff, and to have lunch in the same tiny dining room
as him and Justus Zeyen on two occasions, just hours before their
sublime recitals.
Our week began with Thomas Quasthoff and Justus Zeyen giving the
greatest live performance of Winterreise that I have ever experienced
- and I have heard a lot of them, from Pears to Bostridge. This was
a performance without a weakness. Of course, the place was packed,
and from the first bars of "Gute Nacht," Quasthoff had us all gripped
as though he were a not-so-ancient mariner. This great bass-baritone
does not merely relate the songs, he inhabits them, yet without undue
histrionics; instead of show, we experience what can only be called
"was uns in tiefsten inner bewegt." His pianist is no less remarkable,
with a poetic touch which makes the instrument seem an extension of
the voice. Quasthoff cannot be an easy singer to accompany; his
approach is not rigid, and there were many times when Zeyen seemed
to be seeking guidance from him in an unexpected phrase, but he
carried it all off with aplomb.
This was a Winterreise of strong contrasts; in "Gute Nacht," for
example, Was soll ich langer weilen was only just on the right side
of loudness, whereas Will dich im Traum nicht storen" was so quietly
sung that one felt the audience leaning forward. Overall, the
interpretation had moved on from his Wigmore Hall (with Charles
Spencer) performance - that was a mainly angry, at times muscularly
stoical journey, whereas this was elegiac, poetic, heartbreakingly
forlorn and deeply involving. "Der Lindenbaum" was a case in point;
the crucial line of temptation, Hier findest du deine Ruh" was no
longer sung as though it were an ironically false suggestion, but as
something in which the narrator so much longed to lose himself; you
no longer felt like shaking your head ruefully, instead you just
wanted to weep at such desperate anguish. Indeed, a sense of the most
unutterable sadness prevailed throughout the cycle, in which the few
moments of bravado were even more poignant; there was no suggestion
that this wanderer is on the brink of madness, or that he is some
sort of stoical wayfarer trudging his way towards either death or
transfiguration - on the contrary, this was Winterreise as I had
always dreamed of hearing it but never yet had - possessing a sense
of innigkeit which informed every note, and sung and played with a
rapture and sense of devotion which had me on the edge of my seat,
and the edge of tears, throughout.
In such a wondrous performance, there were so many high points that
it is difficult to select - but as I write this five days later, I
can still hear Quasthoff's melting tone and heartfelt word pointing
at Doch an den Fensterschieben / Wer malte die Blatter da? and his
unaffected yet poignant phrasing of Von Wonne und Seligkeit. In
songs such as "Einsamkeit," which sometimes appear to pass unnoticed,
singer and pianist established and maintained a true Schubertian
gehende bewegung, and although there was nothing exaggerated at Ach!
dass die Welt so licht, no one could have been unmoved by the way in
which the sentiment seemed to go from heart to heart. Similarly,
"Der greise Kopf" was a small miracle of expressiveness and a perfect
demonstration of how to involve your audience in a narrative; Und
hab' mich sehr gefreuet held within it all the false bravado of the
narrator, and the final Auf dieser ganzen Reise! made your throat
constrict with its sense of vehement longing.
Best of all was "Das Wirtshaus," another song where I sometimes
'switch off' and find myself waiting for my favourite, "Die
Nebensonnen." Quasthoff and Zeyen made you hear the shape of the
music as well as the narrative, and it is impossible to give high
enough praise to Zeyen's rapt, poetic, devoted playing, as well as
to Quasthoff's miraculous handling of the words - Die mude Wandrer
laden / Ins kuhle Wirtshaus ein conveying all the doomed yet inviting
temptation of the grave, Bin matt zum Niedersinken, giving a real
sense of aching weariness, and the final lines having an almost
canon-like grandeur.
The final lines of Die Nebensonnen are marked pp for the piano, and
here Quasthoff carried on this quietness in his singing, intoning
the words so slowly and softly, and with such a tremulous air of
rapture, that you could hear the audience almost breathing as one.
"Der Leiermann" brought the cycle to a triumphant close; after a long
silence, a richly deserved standing ovation for a performance which
I cannot imagine being equalled by any other singer and accompanist
today; I'll finally get to hear Goerne and Schneider in Winterreise
at Glyndebourne in October, but until then, the only final comment
which seems appropriate for what I heard on this occasion is from
Donne's The Relique:
Alle mesure, and alle language, I shoulde passe
Shoulde I telle what a miracle (s) he was.
Janos Gereben/SF
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