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RECITAL REVIEW Die Winterreise, Coming Under Schubert's Spell February 17, 2002
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By Jerry Kuderna
Song cycles about unrequited love (usually men being jilted by women) were the stock in trade of the Romantic period. Schubert wrote two, in the second of which, Die Winterreise ("Winter Journey"), the poetry makes the gender of the main protagonist fairly clear (the girl had spoken of love, and the mother, even of marriage). The heartbroken young man is usually sung by a baritone or, if Schubert's keys are used, a tenor. This did not deter mezzo soprano Miriam Abramowitsch and pianist George Barth, for whom this work has become a speciality. Their performance on Sunday afternoon at Old First Church did justice to the work while providing some new insights. Schubert requires so much of any one who would perform this, that we soon forget the irrelevance of the singer's gender and realize that all of us are following the same lonely, endlessly absorbing path.
From the start, Barth's subtle pianism painted the scene of the snow-covered landscape to be traversed in these twenty-four songs. The first four songs built powerfully and inevitably through the "frozen tears" of No. 3, "Die Gefror'ne Tränen," to the grief-filled outpouring of "Erstarrung" ("Chill"). This song was given a cathartic reading with a near ideal balance between voice and piano. At "Der Lindenbaum," ("The Lime Tree") Abramowitsch sang with such yearning that the music but yielded the solace that brought the listener more deeply under Schubert's spell.
There were a few problems. Schubert introduces some tricky rhythmic figures, such as the triplets against 16ths in "Wasserflut" ("Flood"), which seem to portray tears falling on the ground. When Barth did it the first time round, it conjured the picture exactly. As the song progressed, when sometimes singer and pianist seemed to agree that the last note of each group should come together, the pathos was not as great. Also, the scurrying 32nd notes in "Irrlicht" ("Will-o-the-Wisp") sounded not quite beguiling enough to suggest the growing fascination with oblivion and death.
In "Rast" ("Rest) I marveled at the flexibility with which Abramowitsch handled the upward leaps of a tenth, the music's depiction of a vain attempt to find rest. Then, in a wonderful, if heartbreaking moment Schubert paints a bank ream of flowers blooming in Spring, a temporary release us from despair, rudely shattered by frightful dissonances in the piano. The one thing that kept me from quite believing in the flowers blooming in Winter was that Abramowitsch seemed to find them on the ceiling, making me want to look there instead of at her eyes, which was the proper place to find them. The next to last song, "Die Nebensonnen" ("The Mock Suns") caused the shudder that only these pieces provide, a power which caused Schubert to prefer these strange and haunting songs to many happier ones. Looking out beyond the audience, Abramowitsch seemed to truly forget that she was on a concert platform. The lines "Ach, meine Sonnen seid ihr nicht, Schaut Andern doch in's Angesicht" ("Ah, you are not my suns, On others then your light bestow!"), all of the tragedy came together in one blinding moment.
(Jerry Kuderna is a pianist who teaches at Diablo Valley College and is a host of the Berkeley TV program Stop, Look, and Listen.) ©2002 Kip Cranna, all rights reserved |