"If My Verses Had Wings"

Here's a short video clip I made to accompany Elisabeth Schwarzkopf singing Hahn's setting of a Victor Hugo poem "Si mes vers avaient des ailes" . The lyrics are below...

Mes vers fuiraient, doux et frêles, Vers votre jardin si beau, Si mes vers avaient des ailes, Comme l'oiseau. Ils voleraient, étincelles, Vers votre foyer qui rit, Si mes vers avaient des ailes, Comme l'esprit. Près de vous, purs et fidèles, Ils accourraient, nuit et jour, Si mes vers avaient des ailes, Comme l'amour!

My verses would flee, sweet and frail, To your garden so fair, If my verses had wings, Like a bird. They would fly, like sparks, To your smiling hearth, If my verses had wings, Like the mind. Pure and faithful, to your side They'd hasten night and day, If my verses had wings, Like love!

Bernarda Fink SIngs Bach's "Schlafe, Mein Liebster"

I find it hard to imagine a performance of this aria with more beauty of voice or performer...

You Are the Peace

It is cause for rejoicing that there are currently several mezzo-sopranos and altos of a calibre approaching and sometimes equalling the late Janet Baker. My own favourite at present is Bernarda Fink, who in some ways reminds me of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, a singer of great poise and lyrical sensibility.
Here's her beautiful rendition of "Du bist der Ruh" from her CD of Schubert Lieder. Play it loud and revel in the full and warm tone. As one critic so rightly says, "Fink's voice has an affecting fondness that makes one listen when perhaps the innate familiarity of the music might otherwise lend to distraction. The old becomes new, and the new is perceived in a more favorable light."

"There is an amazing tension in this work. Rückert’s language wells with passion and is plainly a composition of temporal love. But Schubert has transposed the work into an ethereal world of spirit and faith with music which is a marvel of simplicity, classical and romantic at once–music that soothes like a balm applied to an open wound. The song is haunting." http://snipurl.com/pis3u

Below, an original translation of Friedrich Rückert’s poem.

Du bist die Ruh,
Der Friede mild,
Die Sehnsucht du
Und was sie stillt.

Ich weihe dir
Voll Lust und Schmerz
Zur Wohnung hier
Mein Aug und Herz.

Kehr ein bei mir,
Und schliesse du
Still hinter dir
Die Pforten zu.

Treib andern Schmerz
Aus dieser Brust!
Voll sei dies Herz
Von deiner Lust.

Dies Augenzelt
Von deinem Glanz
Allein erhellt,
0 füll es ganz!

You are the calm,
The restful peace:
You are my longing and
what makes it cease.

With passion and pain
To you I give
My eye and heart
Are yours to live.

Enter here and close
Quietly behind you
the gates of your
Gentle embrace.

All other grief
You dispel from my breast:
My heart swells
With the love of you.

Your brightness alone
Lights the canopy of my eyes
Oh, fill it fully!

–Friedrich Rückert, Du bist die Ruh (1822)

Magdalena Kozena at her best

So few people know and appreciate Bach's Cantatas, the 200 or so of which constitute one of the greatest treasure troves of western music. I am particularly fond of many of the arias for the soprano and alto voice, and none so embodies the depth and beauty of Bach's vocal/ensemble writing as this aria from Cantata 199, "Tief gebuckt und voller Reue".

I can't get enough of this performance of it by the outstanding Czech mezzo-soprano, Magdalena Kozena. I wish I could find the words to describe the feeling it conveys: resignation-cum-compassion-cum-joy? It's all there somehow in the main motif, the A-F#-E-D-D cadence.


To quote (as a composite) comments from reviewers:

"But the real surprise was Gardiner and Magdalena Kožená...Good lord, what a lot of feeling she pours into the singing! ...Gardiner..doesn't rush this aria--or she doesn't LET him rush. It's slow and gorgeous..., since there's no vibrato to artificially thicken the texture. It's like pure sunlight cascading through stained-glass. I can imagine Kožená gesturing with her hands as she sings --so much emphasis does she put into particular words, it's heartrending. I have never heard Gardiner accompany an aria with more sensitivity...for once he laid aside his very British stiff upper lip, and wore his heart on his sleeve. I have never, ever heard Gardiner play like this. It was a shock, and a delightful surprise..."

Please play this as loudly as your neighbours can tolerate, to get the full quality of her vibrant and pure voice, and the warmth of the ensemble playing. Please also pay particular attention to the arc from 4:12 to 5:33. Brings tears to my eyes every time, as indeed do many subsequent moments...and it's nothing to do with religion, despite the church setting.

The whole cantata is wonderful; ask me even a little bit nicely, and I'll make more if not all of it available.....

Ella at her best

When all is said and done, has there ever been a better voice for this kind of music than Ella? Here's a playlist of her in her prime, at a concert in London in 1965...