8/2/97 Belfast Music Society Celebrity Concerts

(ONG) ARTS COUNCIL BEL Say 201 FEDERATION NEMS

ardh WINTERREISE one Case so bes PROGRAMME 2 IAN BOSTRIDGE - tenor ROGER VIGNOLES~ piano Gute Nacht Die Wetterfahne Gefrorne Tränen Erstarrung Der Lindenbaum Wasserflut Auf dem Flusse Rückblick Irrlicht Rast Frühlingstraum Einsamkeit Die Post Der greise Kopf Die Krähe Letzte Hoffnung Im Dorfe Der stürmische Morgen nodod Täuschung bedil Der Wegweiser Das Wirtshaus Mut Die Nebensonnen Der Leiermann 10 Schubert (1797 - 1828) Sos od blood Sponsored by The Friends of the B.M.S. Saturday, 8th February 1997 Elmwood Hall at 7.30pm bar

Winterreise Franz Schubert (1797-1828) I'm sure many readers have treasured memories of musical events that made a particular impression on them. One highlight of my concert-going career was, as a student, attending a 1968 Edinburgh Festival performance of Winterreise, given by Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten (and afterwards joining the queue of 'admirers' to have my programme signed by the celebrated couple!) While writing these notes, I dusted off the gramophone and listened again to their recording, which never fails to move me. Song writing was central to Schubert's career - he composed over 600 of them - and the spirit of the song influences all his major instrumental works as well. Even if he had written nothing else, we would still be celebrating his bicentenary this year, as one of the great composers. Many of the songs were settings of friends' poems - amateur verses of no particular literary merit, but transformed by Schubert's music; others, on the other hand, were settings of verses by real poets Goethe, Schiller, Heine... Wilhelm Müller, Schubert's almost exact contemporary (he died in 1827, aged 33) was not, in the eyes of posterity, one of the great poets - had it not been for Schubert, his name would probably have been quickly forgotten - but his poems were very much a product of their time, in the spirit of (or perhaps, some have said, a parody of) the simple folk poetry that was so popular. (The best known example of this idiom is the collection entitled Des Knaben Wunderhorn). Splintant The chief collection of Müller's poems was published in two volumes (1820 and 1824) with the typically Romantic title: Gedichte aus den hinterlassenen Papieren eines reisenden Waldhornisten - Im Winter zu lesen (poems from the posthumous papers of a travelling horn player - To be read in Winter). The volume was dedicated to "Carl Maria von Weber - Master of German Song", though he never actually got round to setting any of the poems. Schubert, however, was attracted to Müller's poetry, and made his first settings, the cycle Die schöne Müllerin, in 1823. The tangled history of Die Winterreise (Schubert omitted the definite article) illustrates the problems in setting 'new' poetry. Müller published 12 poems of the cycle in a literary journal in 1823, and subsequently wrote 12 further poems. Schubert discovered the first 12 in 1826, and set them, as a cycle, beginning and ending in D minor, and concluding his manuscript with a triumphant and florid 'FINE'. Soon after completing this, however, he came across the 1824 anthology that included the 12 new poems, integrated with the earlier set. Since he couldn't place the new poems within his already completed cycle without upsetting his carefully planned structure, he added the new songs as a 'Part two'. The resulting order thus differs in many respects from Müller's, but works perfectly well, as generations of interpreters have proved (though there have always been some who have felt that the poet's original order should be restored, and some have done so in performance). diton The first part of the cycle was published early in 1828, while part two followed shortly after Schubert's death; almost the last action he was capable of on his deathbed was correcting the proofs before publication. The almost unrelieved mood of spiritual and physical desolation

has often been romantically interpreted as reflecting Schubert's circumstances - he was short of money, and in very poor health (ravaged by the effects of syphilis), and his music remained largely unappreciated outside his immediate circle of friends and supporters. But this mood does not dominate the majority of his late works (in the way that a similar world-weariness dominates the late works of Shostakovich, for example). Rather, the extraordinary atmos- phere that Schubert creates in the cycle reflects his genius in discovering depths in the poetry that perhaps Müller himself was not aware of, and in elevating his musical language (as he also did in the late orchestral and chamber music) beyond anything most of his contempo- raries were capable of. The winter wanderer of the cycle remains a shadowy figure. We know he is alone, but we know nothing of the girl who has been the cause of this pilgrimage. Against the ever-present and inhospitable winter landscape, the lonely figure trudges. At first his progress is purposeful, then, increasingly discouraged by thoughts of his beloved's unfaithfulness, mixed with memories of happier times together, it becomes more of a struggle. Even the sound of a posthorn offers him no more than a brief spasm of hope, because he quickly realises that there will not be any letter from her. Premonitions of madness and death seem to intrude on his thoughts - flickering will o' the wisp, phantom suns, a graveyard that he imagines could be his inn for the night. But the cycle doesn't end with death or madness, for, in one of the most remarkable songs Schubert wrote, our wanderer finds companionship in another who is an outcast, an aged hurdy-gurdy man. As his battered instrument turns out its halting little tune, we take leave of the rejected lover and his frozen-fingered companion, as the winter landscape closes about them. Shortly before Müller died, he wrote "perhaps a gleichgestimmte Seele (usually translated 'kindred spirit', but better, 'attuned spirit') may some day be found, whose ear will catch the melodies from my words and who will give me back my own". Alas, he never knew such a Spirit had already taken his words and, in Winterreise, had created one of the greatest of all song cycles. Alec Macdonald 1997

TONIGHT'S ARTISTS IAN BOSTRIDGE At last year's Edinburgh Festival "Ian Bostridge's singing of Schubert's "Winterreise" left no doubt of the phenomenal artistry of this young man..." "It is a wonderfully intelligent and poetically sung interpretation.... I have never hear 'Erstarrung' sung with such nihilistic bleakness and compassion." The Sunday Telegraph. Ian Bostridge studied history and philosophy at both Cambridge and Oxford where he received his doctorate in 1990. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Corpus Christi, Oxford, before embarking on a career as a singer. He pursues a busy recital career: he made his Wigmore Hall debut in 1993; his Purcell Room debut (an acclaimed "Winterreise") and his Aldeburgh Festival debut in 1994; in 1996 he gave recitals in Lyon, Cologne, London and at the Aldeburgh, Cheltenham and Edinburgh Festivals. He has performed the "War Requiem" in London, Berlin, Lisbon, Brussels, Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, Britten's "Spring Symphony" at the Aldeburgh Festival, Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and has made his debut at the Proms in Bach's "Magnificat". His recordings include Michael Nyman's "Noises, Sounds and Sweet Airs", Bach's "St. Matthew Passion", Britten's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Purcell's "Music for Queen Mary", Britten's "Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings and a solo Schubert recital. He made his operatic debut in 1994. Ian Bostridge will sing Quint in a new production of "The Turn of the Screw" with the Royal Opera and Belmonte in "Die Entführung aus dem Serail" in Strasbourg. His future engagements include concerts with Les Arts Florissants, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and his first Tom Rakewell ("The Rake's Progress") with the London Symphony Orchestra which will be recorded by Deutsche Grammophon. ROGER VIGNOLES It is a pleasure to welcome back Roger Vignoles, "one of the finest and most sensitive accompanists on the international scene today". The Washington Times. Among his first partners was the great Swedish soprano Elizabeth Söderström, whom he regularly accompanied throughout the 1970s and 80s. During this period, he also developed particularly fruitful collaborations with Dame Kiri te Kanawa, with whom he has toured extensively in Europe, the USA, South America and the Far East: with Thomas Allen, recording many works including Schumann's "Dichterliebe" and Schubert's "Winterreise"; and with Sarah Walker, in a wide repertoire of song. More recently he has recorded the complete songs of Copland with Roberta Alexander, the Britten Canticles with Anthony Rolfe Johnson and Michael Chance and Tchaikovsky Songs with Joan Rodgers.

While having partnered many other distinguished singers - Arleen Auger, Kathleen Battle, Barbara Bonney, Brigitte Fassbaender, Thomas Hampson, Francois le Roux, Felicity Lott, Ann Murray, Margaret Price, Andreas Schmidt and Fredericka von Stade among them - Roger Vignoles is also an experienced chamber musician. He made his Salzburg debut in 1984 with Heinrich Schiff, and he has also performed and recorded widely with players such as Nobuko Imai, György Pauk, Ralph Kirshbaum and Dimitry Sitkovetsky. In addition to his busy accompanying schedule, Roger Vignoles has recently developed a parallel career as a conductor. He is also much in demand as a teacher, giving masterclasses in many parts of the world, and in January 1996 was appointed to succeed the late Geoffrey Parsons as Prince Consort Professor in Piano Accompaniment at the Royal College of Music, London. NEXT CONCERT Saturday, 22nd March 1997 THE LOWBURY PIANO TRIO Elmwood Hall - 7.30pm