German Romantic Partsongs
Lieder für Männerstimmen
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Vier Gesänge für vier Männerstimmen, D.983 (Op. 17)
1. Jünglingswonne
2. Liebe
3. Zum Rundtanz
4. Die Nacht
Gesang der Geister über den Wassern, D.538
Sehnsucht, D.656
Mondenschein, D.875
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
from/aus/de Sechs Lieder für vierstimmigen Männerchor, Op.33
1. Der träumende See
2. Die Minnesänger
3. Die Lotosblume
from/aus/de Ritornelle von Friedrich Rückert in canonischen Weisen für mehrstimmigen Männergesang, Op.65
1. Die Rose stand im Tau
Peter Cornelius (1824-1874)
from/aus/de Fünf Trauerchöre, Op.9
1. Ach, wie nichtig, ach, wie flüchtig
from/aus/de Drei Männerchöre, Op. 12
1. Der alte Soldat
Max Reger (1873-1916)
from/aus/de Fünf ausgewählte Volkslieder (1898)
2. Liebchens Bote
5. Ich hab' die Nacht geträumet
from/aus/de Neun ausgewählte Volkslieder (1899)
7. Verlorenes Lieb'
9. Der Tod als Schnitter
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Drei Männerchöre (1935)
1. Vor den Türen
2. Traumlicht
3. Fröhlich im Maien
The Hilliard Ensemble
David James, countertenor
Rogers Covey-Crump, tenor
John Potter, tenor
Mark Padmore, tenor
Ian Partridge, tenor
Leigh Nixon, tenor
Gordon Jones, baritone
Paul Hillier, bass
David Beavan, bass
Recorded: IX.1989, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London
German Romantic Partsongs
Though the tradition of convivial unaccompanied music for men's voices goes back to the 16th century and beyond, it was in the catch clubs and glee clubs of late-18th-century England that the male-voice partsong really came into its own. In these men-only establishments, where women were usually restricted to special 'ladies' nights', music and drinking were equally relished, with the former often praising the virtues of the latter. In Germany the male partsong came into vogue slightly later; and a decisive moment in its development was the formation in December 1808 of Carl Zelter's Berlin Liedertafel (literally 'song table'). This originally comprised 24 singers, and as with the English glee clubs, members met on a fixed evening each week to eat, drink and make music. Within a few years Liedertafeln were flourishing in all the major German-speaking cities, some of them exceeding Zelter's strictly controlled numbers; and as the 19th century progressed, further impetus was given to male part-singing by the establishment of larger Männergesangvereine (male choral societies), where the music invariably had priority over the drinking.
Schubert was the earliest great composer to cultivate the male-voice partsong, composing a number of them for public or semi-public performance by the Vienna Philharmonic Society, who gave regular Thursday evening 'entertainments'; others were intended for private house-concerts, and many were doubtless performed informally by Schubert and his friends. The first group in this recital dates from 1821 or 1822, when Schubert's reputation as a song composer was rapidly growing. All are four-part strophic settings in simple chordal style, touched with Gemütlichkeit and making no excessive demands on the performers. They were almost certainly written with the expanding amateur market in mind, and were among Schubert's earliest partsongs to be published. Jünglingswonne, with its sturdy, foursquare rhythms and sharp dynamic contrasts, breathes that fervent patriotic spirit found in so many German partsongs of the time. Zum Rundtanz is equally vigorous and straightforward, enlivened by its alternation of two- and three-bar phrases. The other two pieces in the group are tenderly lyrical, in Schubert's favourite slow, swaying 6/8 metre. Liebe contains a lovely turn to the minor to paint 'klagenreicher Nachtigallen', while in Die Nacht the vastness and peace of the night are beautifully suggested by the dynamics - held down to pianissimo almost throughout - and the calmly repeated bass pedal notes.
The three remaining Schubert numbers here are all more ambitious in scope. Gesang der Geister über den Wassern, written in 1817, is his first completed setting of Goethe's great philosophical poem, to which he returned several times over the next few years. Each of the poem's arresting images provokes a characteristically acute response from Schubert, from the fluid harmonies and part-writing at 'ewig wechselnd', through the jagged chromatic music at 'Ragen Klippen', to the delicious depiction of the reflected stars in the following section. In contrast to the Op. 17 partsongs, the textures are imaginatively varied, ranging from the solemn depth of the opening to the airily imitative 'Wind ist der Welle lieblicher Buhle'. Sehnsucht, dating from 1819, is a five-part setting of another famous Goethe poem to which Schubert was frequently drawn. Harmonically the song shows the composer at his most visionary, evoking Mignon's - and by extension mankind's - loneliness and alienation, with recurrent painful shifts from E major to a tonally remote F major; the most brutal, and heart-rending, juxtaposition of these keys is reserved for the final climax, with its sudden eruption from pianissimo to fortissimo. After this the lilting measures of Mondenschein offer necessary relief. This is another five-part setting: a delicately florid serenade for first tenor over an accompaniment that suggests the strumming of a guitar.
Most of Schumann's male partsongs date from 1847-48, while he was director of the Dresden Liedertafel; and several are a direct response to the revolutionary turmoil of the times. But in Die Rose stand im Tau, one of a group of Rückert settings entitled 'ritornelli in canonic style', Schumann is at his most dreamily introspective. Much of the piece's expressive power comes from the dissonances created by the constant canonic imitation between first tenor and first bass. The other three Schumann partsongs here belong to 1840, the year of his marriage and his first outpouring of solo songs. Unlike Die Rose stand im Tau (and most of Schubert's partsongs), they were written specifically for chorus rather than solo voices. Der träumende See, with its quiet touches of imitation, deftly depicts the birds and the butterfly in featherweight staccato writing, while the animated, chattering Die Minnesänger[i] avoids rhythmic monotony - a common danger in this genre - through its alternation of duple and triple time. But the loveliest song in the group is [i]Die Lotosblume, which Schumann set for solo voice the same year. Especially telling are the change to an imitative texture at 'Der Mond, ist ihr Buhle' and the poetic turn to a far-distant key as the flower awakens.
Peter Cornelius, friend and champion of both Liszt and Wagner, is known nowadays almost entirely through his opera Der Barbier von Bagdad and his 'Christmas Songs'. But many of his other Lieder are worth investigating; and, as the two numbers in this recital reveal, his choral writing is colourful and imaginative. Ach, wie nichtig, ach wie flüchtig, one of four 'funeral choruses' Cornelius wrote in 1869, is a series of variations on a chorale by the 17th-century composer Michael Franck; it culminates in a final block harmonization of Bach-like strength and solidity. The nine-part Der alte Soldat was written in 1873, the year before Cornelius's death, for the Magdeburg Männergesangverein. In its rich chromaticism, superbly sonorous textures and carefully controlled growth to an ecstatic climax this splendid piece looks forward to the choral writing of Richard Strauss.
The vocal works of Max Reger, dubbed by his contemporaries 'the second Bach', and in our own time 'the most Teutonic of Germans', have been largely eclipsed by his harmonically and contrapuntally elaborate organ and orchestral music. Among his male-voice partsongs are two attractive collections of German folksong arrangements, composed at Weiden in 1898-99. These treat the beautiful traditional melodies with a sophistication that is never overblown; the part-writing is supple and inventive, with frequent points of imitation, and the chromatic harmonies expressive without being cloying. The most striking is perhaps the powerful five-part Der Tod als Schnitter, with its ominous, hushed unison opening, its extreme dynamic contrasts and its wonderful shift to the major for the final vision of paradise.
Richard Strauss wrote a handful of works for male choral societies, all of them virtually forgotten today. The three Rückert settings of 1935, first performed by the Cologne Männergesangverein, will be a delightful discovery for many. All three are characteristically backward-looking in style and idiom, and combine an engaging tunefulness with the guile of the consummate craftsman. The whimsical, delicate-textured Vor den Türen is full of vivid musical imagery, from the soft tapping and falling penny of the opening to the final depiction of rest in the grave, with its exploitation of the depths of the bass voice. Deep bass sonorities are balanced by some stratospheric writing for first tenor in the tender, five-part Traumlicht, while the rustic revelry of Fröhlich im Maien glances back through Schubert to Haydn, yet remains typically Straussian in its sly, harmonic side-slips and sophisticated cross-rhythms.
© Richard Wigmore, 1990
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Some groups form themselves around a specific, identifiable repertory or genre (string quartets, for example, or early music consorts of instruments and voices); others, such as The Hilliard Ensemble, begin with a certain sound (specific, identifiable) and then evolve through the music that they then perform. Naturally, they will seek to perform different kinds of music in appropriately different ways, but through all their work runs the thread of their particular musical identity, which sets them apart from other groups.
One of the characteristic traits of Hilliard programmes has been the inclusion of 19th-century English partsongs (an area which has been of special interest to me in exploring the byways of English vocal music). Not surprisingly, this has on occasion been extended to the German repertory, Schubert especially. When, subsequently, I came across a set of Richard Strauss Gesänge and decided to programme them for a special concert, the ground was prepared for this present recital-recording of German romantic partsongs.
Schubert and Schumann have already been appropriated by the early music movement (instrumentally at least); what emerges from this recording is that the polyphonic textures of Reger and Strauss are much closer to The Hilliard Ensemble's familiar territory than the early romantics, while overall there is the pleasure of finding small, lyrical offerings from composers normally associated with much longer works for much larger forces.
Paul Hillier