Adès in the dark
Slim British tenor Ian Bostridge arrives in town for a recital on November 28 featuring Thomas Adès‘ “Darknesse Visible,” as well as the work upon which it “reflects,” the John Dowland song “In darkness let me dwell,” as a sort of prelude to an evening of Heinrich Heine settings including the Dichterliebe. And you, cher public, have a chance to attend the concert as a guest of Carnegie Hall!
La Cieca won’t make this competition overly complicated, just keyed to the themes of Bostridge’s program. Your task is to find and post a YouTube clip either of a notable performance of a song from the Dichterliebe or else of some music associated with darkness. Include paragraph or two explaining why your selection is special, for reasons aesthetic or personal or anywhere in between.
The best “darkness” comment wins a pair of tickets to Bostridge’s Carnegie date, and the finest “Dichterliebe” comment will garner an autographed copy of the tenor’s new tome A Singer’s Notebook. Everyone who enters will receive a discount code for 25% off tickets for the Carnegie program.
The judging of the comments will be done by parterre’s usual panel of blue-ribbon experts and La Cieca’s decision will, as always, be final.
Let’s close this competition at noon on Friday, shall we?
(Photo by Simon Fowler)
I can’t make the Carnegie concert but I did want to post Kathleen Ferrier singing the Kindertotenlieder. Everything about this is dark — the subject matter, the music itself, and of course, the intensely dark colour of Ferrier’s voice. When I first heard this recording, I was familiar with the songs but hadn’t really “heard” them.
Then, one day, I had Ferrier’s recording on my discman while walking down a busy down town street. As the first song, “Nun will die Sonn’ so hell aufgeh’n” was playing, I was so struck by the power and intensity of Ferrier’s singing that I needed to sit down right away. So, I just sat on a curb in the side walk and came to terms with the song and her performance. Just listen to the bitter final line, “Heil sei dem Freudenlicht der Welt” (“Greetings to the joyful light of the world”).
This youtube video has the first three songs though my focus is just on the first song.
This is odd:
I gotta get me some Fassbänder recordings. Don’t have a single one.
Kashania, might I suggest Das Lied Von Der Erde as a starting point? Fassbaender, Araiza, Giulini, Berlin Phil. I doubt I need say more.
Thanks, AJ. I’m always up more recordings of Das Lied. And I love Giulini’s Mahler 9.
Her Kindertotenlieder (plus Fahrenden-Gesellen and Rückert cycles) with Chailly on Decca are an absolute must, too. Giulini’s conducting on the DG studio recording sounds a bit earthbound – there’s a live version from the Philharmonie on Testament with the same “cast” which captures more of the Giulini magic – and BF is devastating in the Abschied.
Thanks, Regina. I’ve found the live Testament Das Lied on amazon. I’ll look for the lieder as well.
As I’ve said on here before, I think of Fassbaender as the most gripping recitalist I have ever experienced. And in German song she makes the text sound so wonderfully natural, as if she were speaking it. Take a listen to the Strauss and Schumann lieder she released on DG in the mid-80s.
She’s also great in her most recent recording, the Sprechrolle of the Witch in Humperdinck’s Dornröschen (Sleeping Beauty) – it’s a dark-chocolatey speaking voice, instantly recognisable as hers (for anyone that knows her Orlofsky, Third Lady in the underrated Sawallisch Zauberflöte or her narration of the spoken sections of Die schöne Magelone). The music is attractive, but the drama is pretty tame, except when Fassbaender’s Witch is centre-stage. It’s on CPO if any Humperdinckians are interested. Monty is spot on about her recitals – all of them had a whiff of the theatre about them. Luckily, when she retired from opera – and she sang only around five roles in the UK, Octavian, Dorabella, Geschwitz, Quickly and Clairon are the ones I remember – she became a fixture at the Wigmore Hall for the rest of her singing career. She’s retiring as Intendantin of the Tiroler Landestheater this season – she was 70 earlier this year.
I’ve always loved her in this. Should be available as a CD or even on itunes.
The Winterreise, probably. If you can get it. One hell of an emotional journey. Got so many memories b/c i’ve seen her do it live, but you know that already.
German Amazon will probably have it. EMI Germany – the former Elektrola – have issued a whole Fassbaender song series (five or six volumes), which have not been released in the US (I don’t know about the US) including some of her earliest recordings. An absolute must is her recording of Schönberg’s Buch der Hängenden Gärten – but there’s loads of stuff which she recorded before she became a star, including Carmen in German (Grosser Querschnitt only) with Jimmy King, I think, as José. I have got a couple of Carmen’s solos from it in a compilation box, but not the “complete” album.
oops UK first time, US the second! Sorry.
Don’t forget the Rosenkavalier DVD with Jones, Popp and Kleiber- her Octavian is outstanding.
Amazing playing of the postlude to that Hor ich das Liedchen klingen. Got to get this Dichterliebe, her voice is captured extremely well.
Besides the admirable “Winterreise”, Fassbaender is very worth hearing in the Schubert recital with Graham Johnson on Hyperion; there is also a sterling Schumann/Mendelssohn recital with, if memory serves, Werba. Her “Scheidend” is particularly good.
Brigitte could get very casual indeed on her days off.
I don’t know how to post a youtube, but for bleakness and depression, a clip from Lars for Trier’s *Antichrist* would take the cake. I know it’s not music or Lieder, but…
Does anyone recall a recording by the countertenor Brian Asawa from some years back, “The Dark is my Delight”? When I heard of this current program it brought the name to mind. In attempting to find something on youtube I could find nothing posted from that disc however there was this, a day late for Purcell’s birthday perhaps, but none the less lovely.
Not competing; just posting something a little different. This song reminds me of my grandpa. He used to say it explained why he left Kentucky as a young man.