D ichterliebe’, the title chosen or accepted by Schumann for his choice of Heine’s texts, involves a double-meaning. Schumann the composer-poet found in the poems evidence that their protagonist is a poet-composer: one who is inspired by bird-song (No. 1), one whose sighs become nightingales (No. 2), one who inspires the lily to sing (No. 5), one who dreams magical fairy-music (No. 15), and one who finally buries all his songs at sea (No. 16). That persona, originally Heine’s surrogate [was embraced by Schumann as his own surrogate]... For the purposes of the poems, Heine spoke through the role of the unhappy Dichter; for the purposes of the songs, Schumann transformed that figure into a Dichter of his own.” — Edward T. Cone, ‘Poet’s love or composer’s love?’, in Steven Paul Scher, Chapter 10.
T he relation between Schumann and poetry is pretty revealing,” said pianist and long-time chamber music presenter Cynthia Siebert at a recent dinner party. “It is? How is it revealing and what is it that’s revealed?” I wondered. The conversation proceeded off in other directions. But my curiosity was piqued! Challenge accepted!
M usic theorist/pianist/composer Edward Cone wrote 20 years ago that Robert Schumann’s Dichter (poet) is dramatically different from Heinrich Heine’s Dichter. According to Cone, Schumann’s Dichter chooses music as the primary means of expression while words are secondary.
B ut the music depends on the other. The piano is inseparable from the vocal melody and the words. The piano persists in completing the voice’s unfinished cadences in No. 2, with the prolongation of each B. Every B, relinquished by the voice, resounds briefly before it resolves to A. The same prolongation-resolution motif appears also in No. 3.
N o. 4 has piano doubling the voice, and the two parts alternately imitate each other—a kind of counterpoint that might either suggest the complete co-dependent behavior of both, or the deliberate independence of each from the other. The rhetorical reversals [“He went to the country; to the town went she.”] are chiasmic: miniature embodiments of musical absorption of two-into-one where the two quasi-orgasmic experiences paradoxically highlight the separateness of the two at the peak of their union.
N o. 7 has voice and piano extensively doubling each other throughout—a kind of lovemaking or lovers’ dance. The voice is “on top” or leads through most of the song, but the piano is the one whose outburst at the climax has the voice in an inner or lower position.
M ost subtle in the ‘interpenetration’ of voice and accompaniment is the very first song of the cycle, which sets the tone for all that follows. The doubling is delicately heterophonic—as when the voice, but not the piano, anticipates the resolution of a suspension; or when the piano, but not the voice, remains suspended; or when the voice, after inserting an appoggiatura, resolves a suspension. The effect is the kind of blurring that might result if the piano could pedal the vocal line, treating the voice as a strand of the piano texture [and subduing it, see m.4, image above].” — Edward T. Cone, ‘Poet’s love or composer’s love?’, in Steven Paul Scher, Chapter 10.
I look up the date and see that Dichterliebe, Op. 48, was composed in 1840, when Schumann was 30 years old, the year he and Clara at long last became married, against her father’s will. Susan Youens and others see nothing too subtle about the motivations and construction of Dichterliebe:
T he persona sings of his tears and sighs transforming themselves into [sprouting, turgid] floral offerings and love’s nightingales in ‘Aus meinen Tränen spriessen’; he sings in hectic, [pumping] alliterative excess of ‘die Kleine, die Feine, die Reine, die Eine’ in ‘Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne’; and finds that he cannot trust the beloved’s words of love in ‘Wenn ich in deine Augen seh’.’ In ‘Ich will meine Seele tauchen,’ the persona longs to submerge his soul in the lily’s chalice. That this is a sublimation of sexual imagery is evident in the post-coital sobbing in the piano at the end.” — Susan Youens, Carnegie Hall program notes, 2010.
T here are 14 excellent essays on music-text relationships in the multi-author volume edited by Steven Paul Scher (link below), including several that address music-text manifestations in Schumann’s compositions. Juicy bedtime reading!
R eligion is the everlasting dialogue between humanity and God. Art is its soliloquy.” — Franz Werfel.
C ertain insight: that there are no indications of reality in the unconscious, so that one cannot distinguish between truth and affective fiction.” — Sigmund Freud, letter to Wilhelm Fliess.
T hese recordings have a warm, gorgeous tone; the performers embody a flawless technique; and, above all, the compositions are vehicles for intense heartfelt expression. They transport us from our everyday reality to times and places of rejuvenation, reflection, and recommitment.
M embers of Dan Barrett’s International Street Cannibals Ensemble (title after Montaigne) deliver tactile performances with a widely-variable, bounding pulse. And CCR’s production values are excellent, providing a recording quality that offers exceptional intimacy, great warmth and depth—perfect for these energetic chamber works.
S ome of the compositions on this disc are enigmatic, like track #3, entitled C17H21NO4. There is nothing to describe what this means in the liner notes. But I look up the chemical formula and see that this is the formula for freebase cocaine. Possibly this is Pritsker’s musicopsychotropic homage to Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Mescaline’ or Lou Reed’s ‘Heroin’? (C17H21NO4 is also the chemical formula for scopolamine, an anticholinergic medication, and for fenoterol, a short-acting β2-agonist asthma drug, so don’t go leaping to any conclusions.)
T echnology has been at the heart of Pritsker’s work ever since he started making music. On this disc, he alternates his sampled electronic pieces, which tend to be around one minute in length, with longer acoustic pieces. The result is edgy, full of immediacy and a vivid conversationality, as though the performers’ control and precision could at any moment be derailed by matters arising—or by interaction of the performer with the listener. It is a titrated, dose-adjusted, relenting edginess that never wears out its welcome.
T he unaccompanied cello pieces ‘What Occurred in the Light, Goes on in the Dark’ and ‘In Memory of Giampaolo Bracali’, solo works performed by cellist Dan Barrett, are fine and intense compositions in the long, venerable tradition of cello soliloquys (see list at bottom of post).
W e have solo cello, in canon with itself. The soliloquy embodies a singular harmonic palette from which a series of hopeful reconsiderations are drawn, giving the impression that the artist’s mind is moving in sequences... not in [aporiatic] circles but in provisional sequences of thought that may or may not revisit positions held previously, rolled round and round in the cellist’s brain.
A fter an interim conclusion is arrived at, we find that the arc continues toward/into an extended climax, stretching out into broader rhythms and thinning the pitch-set.
T his conveys something of the impossibility of certainty——a pragmatic distillation of conviction from a subset of the points and evidence that one has entertained: the poignance of our human limitations and finite time on the planet.
I n some circles, soliloquy—as expressed by passionate, sexy cellos, or by anybody—is disparaged as a ‘naive’ form, irrelevant with respect to discourse theory. In turn, postmodern souls who engage in soliloquy are quick to dismiss theory as unconnected to real life, or, at least, to real life as they know it, their own real lives. Taking his cue from the works of Paul Roazen and Jacques Derrida in these fields, Gene Pritsker grafts soliloquy onto theory, exploring and producing one wild, anti-Freudian recording. He explores the unforeseen “collisions of interests” that unfold in the ‘space’ between the soliloquizing subject and the audience members who are witnesses to the soliloquys.
I rreducible uncertainties amid principled striving; civil but, like true cannibals, no strangers to outrage/despair/incivility/loss.
T hese pieces are captivating. The epitome of good will, the chamber and electronic compositions on this disc are enjoyably bold, muscular, and complex. I will be listening to them over and over. So, I hope, will you. The disc (link below) is to be released by CCR in February.
[30-sec clip, Gene Pritsker, Chamber & Electronic Music, ‘What Occurred in the Light, Goes on in the Dark’; (track 1), 2011, 1.1MB MP3]
[30-sec clip, Gene Pritsker, Chamber & Electronic Music, ‘Poem #1: Reflections on Elegy for Jane by Theodore Roethke’; (track 5), 2011, 1.1MB MP3]
I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils; And her quick look, a side-long pickerel smile; And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her, And she balanced in the delight of her thought,
A wren: happy, tail into the wind, Her song trembling the twigs and small branches. The shade sang with her; The leaves: their whispers turned to kissing; And the mould sang in the bleached valleys under the rose.
Oh, when she was sad, she cast herself down into such a pure depth, Even a father could not find her: Scraping her cheek against straw, Stirring the clearest water.
My sparrow, you are not here, Waiting like a fern, making a spiney shadow. The sides of wet stones cannot console me, Nor the moss, wound with the last light.
If only I could nudge you from this sleep, My maimed darling, my skittery pigeon. Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love: I, with no rights in this matter, Neither father nor lover.” — Theodore Roethke, Elegy for Jane (My Student, Thrown by a Horse).
H ans Abrahamsen’s Storm and Still Alessandro Appignani’s Soliloquy Richard Arnell’s Suite for Unaccompanied Cello Johann Sebastian Bach’s six Suites Bernard Barrell’s Soliloquys for cello solo Burton Beerman’s A Still, Small Voice for cello, dancer and video Eve Beglarian’s Eloise Alone Elizabeth Bell’s Soliloquy Luciano Berio’s Les Mots Sont Allés Benjamin Boone’s Buffing the Gut Walter Branchi’s Forms of the Wind for cello and electronics Benjamin Britten’s three Suites Matthew Burtner’s Fragments From Cold Garrett Byrne’s Sprocket! for solo cello Robert Griffin Byron’s Epitaph for cello and MAX/MSP Elliott Carter’s two Figments Gaspar Cassado’s Suite for Solo Cello Joel Chadabe’s Many Times Madeleine for cello and live electronics George Chave’s Three Reflections Paul Constantinescu’s Sonata Bizantina Andreina Costantini’s Jion Tom Cora’s (Thomas Corra) Man with the Movie Camera Anthony Cornicello’s I’ll have an Electric Mahabarata, Please Franklin Cox’s Clairvoyance, Recoil George Crumb’s Sonata for Solo Cello, Toccata Douglas Cuomo’s Only Breath Mario Davidovsky’s Synchronisms No. 3 Paul Michael Dooley’s Gradus for solo cello Henri Dutilleux’s Trois Strophes sur le Nom de Sacher Ludovico Einaudi’s Canto Alejandro Escuer’s El Arco de Encina Robert Fleisher’s Two Movements for Violoncello Domenico Gabrielli’s Seven Ricercari for Solo Cello Guillermo Galindo’s TX3 Orlando Jacinto Garcia’s Night Fragments for solo cello, Mixtura, After Humans for cello, electronics, video Djivan Gasparian’s Memories Ge Gan-ru’s Yi Feng Ada Gentile’s Per violoncello solo Mara Gibson’s E-Tip for cello and electronics Alberto Ginastera’s Punena No. 2 Philip Glass’s Songs And Tissues For Solo Cello Geoffrey Gordon’s Lorca Musica per Cello Solo Michael Gordon’s Industry for solo cello and electronics Sofia Gubaidulina’s 10 Preludes David Hainsworth’s Other Worlds Joseph Hallman’s Three Monologues and sixsolopieces Patrick Hardish’s Sonorities IV Jonathan Harvey’s Curve with Plateau Joseph Hayes’s Soliloquy Michael Hersch’s Sonatas for Unaccompanied Cello Nos. 1 & 2 Jennifer Higdon’s Soliloquy Paul Hindemith’s Sonata Op. 25 Toshio Hosokawa’s Sen II Alan Hovhaness’s Yakamochi Marie Incontrera’s Playing in the Caves Ben Johnston’s Toccata Frederick Kaufman’s Inner Sanctum for solo cello Daniel Kessner’s Four Studies in Melodic Expression Aram Khachaturian’s Sonata-Fantasy for cello solo in C Mark Kilstofte’s You (unfolding)... Hi Kyung Kim’s Five Bagatelles Jin Hi Kim’s Kae Maek Zoltán Kodály’s Sonata Op. 8 for Solo Cello Karl Kohn’s Soliloquy II David Lang’s World to Come for cello, tape, and video Mario Lavista’s Cuaderno de Viaje Ana Lara’s Koaia Tania Leon’s 4 Pieces for solo cello György Ligeti’s Sonata Magnus Lindberg’s Stroke Andrew List’s Tango-Tango for Solo Cello and Dancer Witold Lutosławski’s Sacher Variation For Solo Cello Tod Machover’s Electric Etudes for cello and electronics Robert Maggio’s Winter Toccata (I can’t believe you want to die) Kevin Malone’s Four Pieces for ‘Cello Ovidiu Marinescu’s Quodlibet Sonata Charles Norman Mason’s Ospedaletto for cello and electronics Harold Meltzer’s Blush Alfred Mendelssohn’s Suite for solo cello Lawrence Moss’s Three Chinese Poems Zae Munn’s Projectual for Solo Cello Clancy Newman’s Song without Words for solo cello Niccolò Paganini’s Caprices, Nos. 13, 17 and 24 Arvo Pärt’s Fratres for cellos Kryzytof Penderecki’s Capriccio for solo cello Riccardo Piacentini’s Con fuocco Gene Pritsker’s What Occurred in the Light Goes on in the Dark, In Memory of Giampaolo Bracali Shulamit Ran’s Fantasy Variations Max Reger’s Three Suites for solo cello Op. 131c Miklós Rózsa’s Toccata capricciosa, Op.36 Edwin Roxburgh’s Solilquy 4 Paul Rucker’s Strange Fruit and Soliloquy Timeless Language in the Present Tense Paul Rudy’s Vastly Shrinking Space for cello and electronics,Degrees of Separation, Grandchild of Tree Kaija Saariaho’s Petals Marc Satterwhite’s Witnesses of Time for Solo Cello Robert Saxton’s Toccata Salvatore Sciarrino’s Ai limiti della notte Mark Sforzini’s Remembrance Upon a Midnight Hour Judith Shatin’s For the Birds for cello and electronics Thomas Simaku’s Soliloquy II Stuart Smith’s "Said, nearly", Willow Christine Southworth’s Khaen Song Halsey Stevens’s Sonata for Violoncello Solo Randall Svane’s Three Unaccompanied Suites and Dreams Go Wandering Still Kasper Tagel’s Spanish Suite Karen Tanaka’s Song of Songs (with CD playback) Boris Tchaikovsky’s Suite for Solo Cello David Tcimpidus’s Brock Mountain Passage Augusta Read Thomas’s Spring Song, Ring Bells Summer Jukaa Tiensuu’s oddjob Chinary Ung’s Khse Buon Craig Walsh’s Pipeline Burst Cache for cello and electronics Charles Wuorinen’s Cello Variations Iannis Xenakis’s Nomos Alpha and Kottos Yahuda Yannay’s I can’t fathom it... Eugène Ysaÿe’s Sonata for solo cello, Op. 28 Zhou Long’s Wild Grass (with CD playback) Evan Ziporyn’s Kebyar Maya for solo cello and prerecorded CD.” — Some notable works for unaccompanied or electronics-accompanied or self-accompanied/looped solo cello.
