Still not ready for the imagined "regular post," so here's some more-substantive post-teasing

"My collaboration with Wolfgang Holzmair goes back over 20 years. We got together through a joint manager at the time and had an instant musical rapport despite our different backgrounds. I was taken not only by the sheer beauty of his voice, then a rather silvery high baritone, but also by his passionate attention to text and its meaning, which ultimately dictated all his decisions. We have never needed to rehearse for long hours and have never argued. He is also not the sort of singer who needs support and advice over vocal matters, which is good because I do not know so much, still, about the process of singing -- and he always encourages his partner to really be that, a partner, not an accompanist (a word I dislike)."

-- from the "Lieder and chamber music" section of Imogen
Cooper's website (2010 photo by Benjamin Ealovega)

by Ken

Like it says in the title, I'm still not where I need/want to be for the post I was projecting ("Post tease: A special artist finds her way into our Brahms piano party"). I thought I knew what I needed to do, and I sort of did. I may, however, have underestimated (by several thousand percent?) what I would have to do to get there. So I thought I'd tease you all a bit more with some of the audio files that have been waiting patiently for public airing.

And an obvious way to start, since as I mentioned I first encountered Imogen Cooper as a song accompanist, so good that I was riveted -- meaning not that she was stealing attention from her partner, specifically the fine baritone Wolfgang Holzmair, but that she was supporting him so ably while digging out everything she could about what the piano part could do to further the experience of the song. We also learn above that she doesn't much like the word "accompanist," much preferring "partner" -- and while I've got a whole bunch of Holzmair-Cooper song clips ready to go, I thought we might start this round of post-teasing with two songs that are especially challenging and exposed for the pianist.


FROM SCHUBERT'S GREAT NARRATIVE SONG CYCLES,
LET'S HEAR THE END OF NO. 1 AND THE START OF NO. 2

SCHUBERT: Die schöne Müllerin, D. 795:
No. 20, "Des Baches Wiegenlied" ("The Stream's Lullaby")

Rest you well, rest you well,
close your eyes!
Wanderer, you tired one,
you are home.
Faithfulness is here,
you shall lie with me,
till the sea drinks
the little streams dry.

I'll give you a cool bed
on soft mud
in the blue crystalline
bedroom.
Come to me, come to me,
whatever can lull,
lap and lull
my boy to sleep!

When a hunting horn sounds,
from the green wood,
I will gush and rush
all around you.
Do not look within,
blue flowers!
You will make my sleeper's
dreams so troubled.

Away, away
from the millpath,
bad girl, lest
your shadow wake him!
Throw me here
your fine kerchief,
that I may keep his eyes covered over.

Good night! Good night!
Till everything awakes,
sleep away your joy,
sleep away your sorrow.
The full moon is rising,
the mist gives way,
and the sky above,
how broad it is!

-- German text by Wilhelm Müller, translation by William Mann

Wolfgang Holzmair, baritone; Imogen Cooper, piano. Philips, recorded in the Mozarteum, Salzburg, November 1997

SCHUBERT: Winterreise (Winter Journey), D. 911:
No. 1, "Gute Nacht" ("Good Night")

A stranger I arrived here,
a stranger I go hence.
Maytime was good to me
with many a bunch of flowers.
The girl spoke of love,
her mother even of marriage.
The girl spoke of love,
her mother even of marriage.
Now the world is dismal,
the path veiled in snow.
Now the world is dismal,
the path veiled in snow.

For my journey I cannot
choose my own time;
I must pick the way myself
through this darkness.
My mooncast shadow acts
as my companion,
my mooncast shadow acts
as my companion,
and on the white meadow
I look for deer's footprints,
and on the white meadow
I look for deer's footprints.

Why should I stay longer,
until they drive me away?
Let stray dogs howl
outside the master's house.
Love loves to wander,
God made it so,
from one to the next,
God made it so.
Love loves to wander,
fine sweetheart, good night!
From one to the next,
fine sweetheart, good night!

I will not disturb your dreams:
that would spoil your rest.
You must not hear my footsteps --
softly, softly shut the doors.
I shall write as I leave
on the door for you: good night,
so that you may see
I have been thinking of you.
I shall write as I leave
on the door for you: good night,
so that you may see
I have been thinking of you,
I have been thinking of you.

-- German text by Wilhelm Müller, translation by William Mann

Wolfgang Holzmair, baritone; Imogen Cooper, piano. Philips, recorded in the Grosser Saal of the Mozarteum, Salzburg, November 1994


AND TO THE BRAHMS OP. 116 INTERMEZZO WE ALREADY
HEARD, LET'S ADD ANOTHER -- AND A CAPRICCIO TOO

You'll recall that the Seven Fantasias that make up Brahms's Op. 116 (the first of the four collections of short piano pieces, Opp. 116-19, that became Brahms's final legacy to us) break down to three capriccios and four intermezzos. Because it's Brahmsian intermezzos we've been tracking, taking off from the one that seems like, but really isn't, a slipped-in "extra" movement that pushes up to five the movement count for the composer's career-milestone Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5 (as we've seen, the Intermezzo was one of the first two movements completed, along with the sonata's "proper" slow movement), I already pulled out for the post tease one of the four intermezzos from the set (its first intermezzo, the A minor, Op. 116, No. 2), I thought it might be interesting to hear another, this time paired with one of the capriccios, to give us an inkling of why Brahms chose to intermingle the two forms in this set.

BRAHMS: Seven Fantasias, Op. 116:
iii. Capriccio in G minor: Allegro passionato
iv. Intermezzo in E: Adagio [at 2:55]


Imogen Cooper, piano. BBC Music Magazine, recorded live in Wigmore Hall, London, May 28, 1994


FINALLY (FOR NOW), LET'S HEAR COOPER CONDUCT AS
WELL AS PLAY A MOVEMENT FROM A MOZART CONCERTO

These days it's hardly uncommon to encounter a pianist conducting Mozart piano concertos from the keyboard, and many of them do a fine job (we can often hear how helpful it can be to the artist to have his/her own say about the way the orchestral part proceeds), it's not so usual, in my experience, to hear the pianist-conductor shape the orchestral part with the kind of confident strength as well as intimate nuance we hear here in the slow movement of Mozart's first full-fledged piano-concerto masterpiece.

MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat, K. 271:
ii. Andantino


Northern Sinfonia, Imogen Cooper, piano and cond. Avie Records, recorded live in Hall One of the Sage Gateshead, Gateshead (across the River Tyne from Newcastle-upon-Tyne), England, Oct. 18-20, 2005


WE'RE STILL GOING TO TALK MORE ABOUT AND HEAR
MORE FROM IMOGEN COOPER -- AND BRAHMS'S OP. 116

Including that piece I mentioned I wrote last week about Dame Imogen. So stay tuned.

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