{"id":2689,"date":"2023-08-03T13:28:30","date_gmt":"2023-08-03T17:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=2689"},"modified":"2023-08-03T13:28:32","modified_gmt":"2023-08-03T17:28:32","slug":"schubert-lieder-on-the-trombone-continued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2023\/08\/schubert-lieder-on-the-trombone-continued.html","title":{"rendered":"Schubert Lieder on the Trombone (continued)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Einsamkeit - David Taylor, Trombone, Joseph Horowitz, Piano\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/851118452?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The 20-minute Mahler\/Schubert song cycle&nbsp;<em>Einsamkeit<\/em>, which I have concocted with the bass trombonist David Taylor, maps a dire trajectory. Each song begins with a disappointed lover. Each discloses an ever more extreme state of \u201cEinsamkeit\u201d \u2013 of an existential solitude grown strange and inscrutable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ineffability of late Schubert was brought home to me by an email from William Sharp, one of America\u2019s premiere vocal recitalists, in response to&nbsp;<strong>my earlier&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2023\/06\/translating-schubert-clairvoyance-or-somnambulism.html\"><em>Einsamkeit<\/em>&nbsp;blog<\/a><\/strong>. Bill writes of \u201cDer Leiermann,\u201d the final song of Schubert\u2019s cycle&nbsp;<em>Winterreise<\/em>&nbsp;(and also of&nbsp;<em>Einsamkeit<\/em>):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI have never understood why anyone calls the protagonist of&nbsp;<em>Winterreise<\/em>&nbsp;a \u2018madman\u2019!&nbsp; Where does that impression come from?&nbsp; Winterreise is a traumatic 24-hour journey of loss and self-imposed isolation precipitated by the loss of a loved potential spouse through social\/class strictures. It ends with the voluntary end of withdrawal into depression.&nbsp; The poet approaches the poor musician (artists are poor \u2014 that\u2019s why they can\u2019t be married) and suggests a healing artistic collaboration.&nbsp; The artist no longer wishes to die, and will save himself with his art.&nbsp; The M\u00fcller boy [in&nbsp;<em>Die schone Mullerin<\/em>] hasn\u2019t got this life-saving thing in his life, and commits suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This compelling reading is not that of \u2013 for instance &#8212; Richard Capell, in his indispensable 1928 study of Schubert songs. Capell writes of this \u201clast turning of the wintry road\u201d:&nbsp;\u201cA madman meets a beggar, links with him his fortune, and the two disappear into the snowy landscape . . . We may read anything or nothing much into the cleared scene.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Johann Michael Vogl, the most eminent contemporary exponent of Schubert\u2019s songs, wrote after Schubert died that his compositions were products \u201cnot of conscious action\u201d but \u201cof providence,\u201d that they occupy \u201ca state of clairvoyance or somnambulism.\u201d The pianist Claudio Arrau applied to late Schubert the term \u201cTodesn\u00e4he\u201d \u2013 a proximity to death.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Einsamkeit<\/em>&nbsp;begins with Mahler\u2019s \u201cWenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht\u201d \u2013 a jilted lover\u2019s lament. Schubert\u2019s \u201cDie Stadt\u201d and \u201cDer Doppelganger,\u201d coming next, are disturbed utterances \u2013 but the dank city, and harrowing&nbsp;&nbsp;\u201cdouble\u201d on the street below, are images we can glean. \u201cDie Nebensonnen,\u201d with its three suns in the cold sky, and \u201cDer Leiermann,\u201d with its strange hurdy-gurdy man, are images less readily interpretable. Different readers, different singers, will render them differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>David Taylor and I first performed\u00a0<em>Einsamkeit<\/em>\u00a0with dancers, two months ago. Igal Perry unforgettably inhabited the Leiermann in a white suit (you can see a video\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2023\/06\/translating-schubert-clairvoyance-or-somnambulism.html\">here<\/a><\/strong>). A few weeks ago, David and I performed\u00a0<em>Einsamkeit<\/em>\u00a0sans dancers at the Brevard Music Festival (the video at the top of this column). David\u2019s bass trombone, with its various mutes and techniques of utterance, is a marvel of instrumental virtuosity. Mainly, however, his rendering of the five songs is a tour de force of expressive musical speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What we have done to Mahler and Schubert (my accompaniments are far from literal) will be differently processed by different listeners. At Brevard, there were musicians in the audience who felt we had newly excavated (not distorted) what Mahler and Schubert were saying.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Further thoughts: working on \u201cDie Stadt,\u201d with its gray water and \u201cdreary rhythm,\u201d I suddenly realized its kinship to very late Liszt \u2013 to his Venetian piano cameos\u00a0<em>La lugubre gondola<\/em>\u00a0<em>I and II<\/em>. And also, by extension, to Busoni\u2019s ghostly, rocking Berceuse. (All these works, Schubert\u2019s included, visit the outskirts of tonality.) I had a look at Liszt\u2019s influential piano versions of Schubert\u2019s songs \u2013 and discovered that, in scoring the cycle\u00a0<em>Schwanangesang<\/em>, he places \u201cDie Stadt\u201d first. And he transcribes it with a fiendish relish: a tremendous achievement, in its way. But Liszt\u2019s pianistic flourishes diminish the strangeness Schubert\u2019s inspiration. Late Schubert also turns uncanny in his Drei Klavierstucke, D. 946 \u2013 which will never rival in popularity the two sets of Impromptus. If \u201cDie Stadt\u201d forecasts late Liszt, here the intermingling of quotidian and sublime is virtually Mahlerian.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When you watch and listen to the Brevard&nbsp;<em>Einsamkeit<\/em>, be sure to use headphones \u2013 or many details (including David\u2019s singing of \u201cDie Nebensonnen\u201d) will be inaudible. My thanks to Brevard&#8217;s Matt Queen for filming\/editing. The Brevard performance included the supertitles below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht (00:00)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When my sweetheart has her wedding day<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It will be my day of sorrow<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ll weep, weep for my darling.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Die Stadt (4:12)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the distant horizon<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The town appears as a misty shape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A dank breeze ruffles<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The grey water in dreary rhythm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The boatman rows my boat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The sun rears up and shows me<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The place where I lost my love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Der Doppelg\u00e4nger\u00a0\u00a0(The Double)\u00a0(7:47)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The night is still. The streets are quiet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is the house where my sweetheart lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A man stands there, wringing his hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Horror grips me as I see his face<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the moon shows me my own self!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Die Nebensonnen (11:32)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I saw three suns in the bright cold sky<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And watched them long with steadfast eye. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now the best two are gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And if the third would only go<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That all were dark \u2018twere better so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Der Leiermann (14:40)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Beyond the village stands the organ-grinder<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Playing as best he can with numb fingers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He staggers barefoot in the snow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No one stops to listen or to look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Strange old man, shall I go with you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Will you join in my songs?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 20-minute Mahler\/Schubert song cycle&nbsp;Einsamkeit, which I have concocted with the bass trombonist David Taylor, maps a dire trajectory. Each song begins with a disappointed lover. Each discloses an ever more extreme state of \u201cEinsamkeit\u201d \u2013 of an existential solitude grown strange and inscrutable. The ineffability of late Schubert was brought home to me by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-Hn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2689"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2694,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2689\/revisions\/2694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}