The recent planned orchestral recital of Schubert’s songs to be given by the Swedish super star, Anne Sofie Von Otter with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra was flung into dark disarray by the sudden death of her husband in Sydney - days before the first of three planned concerts.
The concerts went ahead, with a heavy valedictory tone. By a miracle, Stuart Skelton was in the country and agreed to stand in for Von Otter. New singer and extant conductor devised a program of German Lieder (no Schubert), carefully modulated across Wolf, Liszt and Strauss, to deliver a tender memorial offering.
The stage was darkened, with a spotlight on singer (Skelton) and pianist, the Scottish conductor Donald Runnicles. Skelton has a huge heldentenor voice, so there was never any doubt that his voice would project across the vast spaces of the concert hall (Utzon’s planned opera Theatre, which is also a sad story). His tenor has none of the screech or wobble of the normative Siegfried. Indeed, his pinpoint accuracy and glinting tone was used with sculptural effect. These songs were delivered with tender reflection that hid some of their technical difficulties.
If the pulse of the Wolf – Verborgenheit – was a little slow, its beatific sadness was beautifully caught, balancing bliss and pain at the song’s conclusion as words and music return to the songs opening gambit but enhanced with deeper meaning.
The Strauss items began with Ruhe, meine Seele! – a song that calls for enormous range and vocal resources. It exists in this version for piano and a later orchestral version. Schwarzkopf made this one of her great Strauss interpretations. Skeleton followed its narrative with a heartfelt pulse, summoning strength as required in the rolling storms of the sea (“Wie die Brandung, /Wenn sie schwillt” section). He bound its many beauties together with a closely gradated return of the desperate, soft voiced cry for peace that the singer must deliver - “Ruhe, ruhe…. Und vergiss” as the pain of loss subsides into stricken memory.
Allerseelen followed and in this one song some of the words did not quite trip across the auditorium, but vocally this tender invocation (“come close to my heart”) was delivered with finely shaped feeling, one sensed directed at the absent Von Otter.
The Liszt that followed – Wanderers Nachtlied – was magnificent. Pianist and vocalist were on song as this short poem by Goethe delivered big emotional climaxes by Liszt. Within its sensual framing, it feels as though the dead wait to be reunited with those longing for death. The dramatic foray into the lower notes of the tenor voice was chillingly paced and placed: soon, rest will come (“balde / Ruhest du such”). The cavernous pain of 19th century ennui seemed to open up upon Liszt’s portrait of eternal rest.
The final Strauss was the evergreen Morgen. This poem by a gay Scottish/German poet is in effect one of the great gay love songs, its gender invocation fluid, its author a believer in the equality of love. The conversationally interrupted melody of its opening was dreamy but with an onward pulse that shone a light on its beautiful prosody, through the sun-breathing earth (‘sonnenatmenden Erde’) and the blue waves (‘wogenblauen’). The sweet intake of breath that ends this paean to secret love was haloed by the piano postlude that takes us through the rapt enchantment of lovers on the beach, betrothed in heady music that makes the ineffable float like suspended magic: O Seligkeit, O Innigkeit.
Sydney Symphony Orchestra - Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House - March 22, 2018
Gar Jones
The concerts went ahead, with a heavy valedictory tone. By a miracle, Stuart Skelton was in the country and agreed to stand in for Von Otter. New singer and extant conductor devised a program of German Lieder (no Schubert), carefully modulated across Wolf, Liszt and Strauss, to deliver a tender memorial offering.
The stage was darkened, with a spotlight on singer (Skelton) and pianist, the Scottish conductor Donald Runnicles. Skelton has a huge heldentenor voice, so there was never any doubt that his voice would project across the vast spaces of the concert hall (Utzon’s planned opera Theatre, which is also a sad story). His tenor has none of the screech or wobble of the normative Siegfried. Indeed, his pinpoint accuracy and glinting tone was used with sculptural effect. These songs were delivered with tender reflection that hid some of their technical difficulties.
If the pulse of the Wolf – Verborgenheit – was a little slow, its beatific sadness was beautifully caught, balancing bliss and pain at the song’s conclusion as words and music return to the songs opening gambit but enhanced with deeper meaning.
The Strauss items began with Ruhe, meine Seele! – a song that calls for enormous range and vocal resources. It exists in this version for piano and a later orchestral version. Schwarzkopf made this one of her great Strauss interpretations. Skeleton followed its narrative with a heartfelt pulse, summoning strength as required in the rolling storms of the sea (“Wie die Brandung, /Wenn sie schwillt” section). He bound its many beauties together with a closely gradated return of the desperate, soft voiced cry for peace that the singer must deliver - “Ruhe, ruhe…. Und vergiss” as the pain of loss subsides into stricken memory.
Allerseelen followed and in this one song some of the words did not quite trip across the auditorium, but vocally this tender invocation (“come close to my heart”) was delivered with finely shaped feeling, one sensed directed at the absent Von Otter.
The Liszt that followed – Wanderers Nachtlied – was magnificent. Pianist and vocalist were on song as this short poem by Goethe delivered big emotional climaxes by Liszt. Within its sensual framing, it feels as though the dead wait to be reunited with those longing for death. The dramatic foray into the lower notes of the tenor voice was chillingly paced and placed: soon, rest will come (“balde / Ruhest du such”). The cavernous pain of 19th century ennui seemed to open up upon Liszt’s portrait of eternal rest.
The final Strauss was the evergreen Morgen. This poem by a gay Scottish/German poet is in effect one of the great gay love songs, its gender invocation fluid, its author a believer in the equality of love. The conversationally interrupted melody of its opening was dreamy but with an onward pulse that shone a light on its beautiful prosody, through the sun-breathing earth (‘sonnenatmenden Erde’) and the blue waves (‘wogenblauen’). The sweet intake of breath that ends this paean to secret love was haloed by the piano postlude that takes us through the rapt enchantment of lovers on the beach, betrothed in heady music that makes the ineffable float like suspended magic: O Seligkeit, O Innigkeit.
Sydney Symphony Orchestra - Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House - March 22, 2018
Gar Jones