[MONDAY "FINALLY (?) UPDATED VERSION" NOTE: With all those elements in place, I'm content to leave this post more or less as-was, with occasional added comments -- plus the promise of a follow-up focusing on the Schubert "Ständchen," even venturing into the totally unrelated but much better-known "Schubert Ständchen," the one from Schwanengesang. -- Ed.]
* * *
"Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,(1) "Hark, hark!" ("Hark" total = 2)
and Phoebus 'gins arise,
his steeds to water at those springs
on chaliced flowers that lies;
and winking Mary-buds begin
to ope their golden eyes:
with every thing that pretty is,
my lady sweet, arise:
arise, arise!"
-- Cloten's song from Cymbeline, Act II, Scene 3
SCHUBERT: "Ständchen" (Serenade): "Horch, horch, die Lerch' im Ätherblau" ("Hark, hark, the lark in heaven's blue"), D. 889
[German translation by August Wilhelm von Schlegel]
Rolf Reinhardt, piano. Deutsche Schallplatten-Gemeinschaft, recorded 1962
(2) Just a single "Hark!" ("Hark" total = 1)
NICOLAI: The Merry Wives of Windsor: Act II, Scene 4: romance, Fenton, "Horch', die Lerche singt im Hain" ("Hark, the lark sings in the meadow")
[German translation by Ferdinand Mayerhofer]
Bavarian State Orchestra, Robert Heger, cond. EMI, recorded Feb.-Mar. 1963
Wait, what about the singer? Probably you recognized him right away. If not, better still! You're making the acquaintance of somebody really special -- we'll have full credits when we hear these performances in full. (You no doubt noticed that I cut them off once the stanza taken over from Shakespeare was done.)by Ken
You may remember that last week, in writing about that fine English pianist Imogen Cooper's October 2022 choices for BBC Music Magazine's "Music that changed me" feature (choices that "not only genuinely did change her life but make glorious listening for us"), I mentioned that even as I was discovering in the magazine feature that Dame Imogen is the daughter of the distinguished English musicologist and critic Martin Cooper, I happened to be perusing her father's lengthy and informative booklet essay for the Decca recording of Otto Nicolai's opera The Merry Wives of Windsor conducted by Rafael Kubelik for yet another long-simmering Sunday Classics project.
Which is to say: a follow-up to the October 16 post, in which I wrote about a long-long-ago SC post gathering what I think of as the three great musical lark depictions: Haydn's Lark Quartet, Vaughan Williams's rhapsody for violin and orchestra The Lark Ascending, and the gorgeous "romance" from Nicolai's Merry Wives, "Horch', die Lerche singt im Hain" ("Hark, the lark is singing in the meadow," derived from Shakespeare's Cymbeline song "Hark, hark, the lark"), in which the hopelessly-love-besotted young Fenton sings a wake-up serenade to his adored Anna Reich.
I was angling to exhume the old "lark" post and restore it to working order, for which I started by making a pile of new audio clips, only to discover I couldn't figure out how to merge my "then" and "now" selves for such a rehab job. Instead what I set out to do was to spit the "lark" pile into instrumental larks (Haydn's and Vaughan Williams's) and "singing" larks (Nicolai's and a fourth musical lark I'd added to the mix: Schubert's "Ständchen" (Serenade), "Horch, horch, die Lerch' im Ätherblau" of -- yes! -- "Hark, hark, the lark."
In that Merry Wives introductory note, my eye stuck on Martin Cooper suggestion that Fenton's romance is "almost worthy of Schubert." As I think about it, I think this makes a good deal of sense, but what stopped me was the coincidence (?) that Schubert himself had actually done his own "Hark, hark, the lark" setting -- and it's nothing like Nicolai's. Which brings us to the question of how many "hark"s we can count in the Nicolai and Schubert settings.
THIS ISN'T AN ACADEMIC TECHNICAL POINT --
IT MAKES A WORLD OF MUSICAL DIFFERENCE
Shakespeare, we recall, wrote, "Hark, hark, the lark." For musical purposes, if you retain the "double-hark," you almost inescapably have a rhythm where the second "hark" is the strong beat of a measure and the first "hark" an unstressed upbeat. You're headed toward a ditty-like 6/8 rhythm, like this:
Schubert's serenade "Horch, horch, die Lerch'," D. 889
Excerpted from the performance excerpt we heard earlier
[NOTE: Master Schubertian Graham Johnson hears way more in this song than my glib note suggests -- see my promissory note at the end of the post. -- Ed.]Whereas if you "single-hark," the lone "hark" all but certainly becomes a strong beat, and the basic phrase unit of your setting has a totally different shape:
Fenton's romance from Nicolai's Merry Wives of Windsor
Also excerpted from the performance excerpt we heard earlier
NOW LET'S HEAR FENTON'S ROMANCE IN ITS ENTIRETY:
Two really noteworthy tries -- and then a WOW!
What we're about to hear are recordings made within a period of just over four years by perhaps the first three tenors I would think of for this excruciatingly difficult (not least because it's so totally exposed) aria. I'm not sure Ernst Häfliger was in his very best voice for this 1964 DG LP's worth of Merry Wives excerpts, and a younger Nicolai Gedda might have produced a creamier sound than in this still-lovely performance from his 1967 EMI LP of Famous German Arias. Still and all, I think we have to call these "honorable mentions" alongside what comes next -- from EMI's 1963 complete Mery Wives conducted so expertly by that singular master of what we might call "traditional German" musical idioms, Robert Heger) . . .
NICOLAI: The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act II, Scene 2: Romance, Fenton, "Horch', die Lerche singt im Hain" ("Hark, the lark sings in the grove")
FENTON: Hark, the lark sings in the grove,
listen, listen, sweetheart, quietly, &c.
Gently open your little window,
hear, hear, what she wishes &c.
The song's tune is clear,
anyone who loves will understand it easily, &c.
Hear how the mild sound,
sweetheart, lifts itself up to you.
Don't ask what the song,
dear one, so feelingfully strives for &c. . .
The song's tune is clear,
anyone who loves will understand it readily, &c.
-- stanza 1: German text by Ferdinand Mayerhofer, from Shakespeare; stanza 2: text by librettist Hermann Mosenthal
Ernst Häfliger (t), Fenton; Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Hans Löwlein, cond. DG, recorded in the Kulturraum, Bamberg, Mar. 8, 1964
Nicolai Gedda (t), Fenton; Bavarian State Opera Orchestra, Munich, Heinrich Bender, cond. EMI, recorded in the Bürgerbräu, Munich, June 16, 1967
Fritz Wunderlich (t), Fenton; Bavarian State Orchestra, Robert Heger, cond. EMI, recorded in the Bürgerbräu, Munich, Feb. 27-Mar. 1, 1963
NOW THE (MORE-THAN-COMPLETE) SCHUBERT STÄNDCHEN:
Again, two "just fine" performances -- followed by a total WOW!
Elly Ameling was such a personable singer that it's easy to forget how satisfying a singer she could be, and Barbara Bonney has always struck me as a singer of exceptionally winning charm. Still, do we really need to hear three stanzas' worth from them? Again, though, enter our final entrant and would anyone mind if the song went on for yet another couple of stanzas?
SCHUBERT: "Ständchen" (Serenade): "Horch, horch, die Lerch' im Ätherblau," D. 889
Hark, hark, the lark in heaven's blue!
And Phoebus, newly awoken,
waters his steeds with the dew
that lies on chaliced flowers.
The marigold bud opens
up its golden eyes;
with everything that's charming,
you sweet maid, arise!
When all the live-long night
the radiant host of stars
swatch over you high in their courses,
still more they are hoping
that your starry eyes will greet them.
Awake! They wait for you
because you are so charming;
you sweet maid, arise!
And if all this does not wake you,
then by the tones
of love be gently stirred!
O you will wake then!
How often they drove you to the window,
they know it -- then arise,
and love your singer,
you sweet maid, arise!
-- stanza 1: German text by A.W. von Schlegel, from Shakespeare; stanzas 2-3: text by Friedrich Rell; all translated by William Mann
Elly Ameling, soprano; Jörg Demus, piano. EMI, recorded in Berlin Zehlendorf, January 1970
Barbara Bonney, soprano; Geoffrey Parsons, piano. Teldec, recorded in Teldec Studios, Berlin, April 1994
Fritz Wunderlich, tenor; Rolf Reinhardt, piano. Opera (Deutsche Schallplatten-Gemeinschaft)-EMI, recorded 1962
AS SUGGESTED ABOVE, SCHUBERT WAS PERFECTLY HAPPY
TO SET JUST THE ONE STANZA WRITTEN BY SHAKESPEARE
And Graham Johnson -- the artistic director, pianist, annotator, prime mover, and general animator of the 37-volume Hyperion Schubert Project -- has a great deal to say about "Horch, horch, die Lerch' im Älterblau," which he declares "a masterpiece of economy and delight" -- that is, in the form the composer intended, "without the two extra verses written by Friedrich Rell for the second Diabelli edition of 1835." In this form the song "is over in a trice," Graham notes. "How effortless this all seems, this tender serenade with the chirruping of the lark evoked by a delicate semiquaver motif which also brings to mind tiny elfin trumpets announcing the dawning of a new day."
Of course the song is performed in the Hyperion edition in Schubert's own "over in a trice" form, as it is by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore in their monumental 1966-72 DG Schubert Lieder compendium (originally on 29 LPs, later transferred to 21 CDs).
SCHUBERT: "Ständchen" (Serenade): "Horch, horch, die Lerch' im Ätherblau," D. 889
Hark, hark, the lark in heaven's blue!
And Phoebus, newly awoken,
waters his steeds with the dew
that lies on chaliced flowers.
The marigold bud opens
up its golden eyes;
with everything that's charming,
you sweet maid, arise!
-- German translation of Shakespeare by August Wilhelm
von Schlegel; English translation by William Mann
Christine Schäfer, soprano; Graham Johnson, piano. From Vol. 26 of the Hyperion Schubert Edition ("An 1826 Schubertiad"), recorded 1994-96
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Gerald Moore, piano. DG, recorded in UFA-Ton-Studio, Berlin, Feb.-Mar. 1969
NOTE: As I mentioned, Graham Johnson, in his Hyperion booklet note, makes quite a case for this song, which I tend to think of as more of a harmless pleasure. Since it frustrates me to make such routine reference to his accomplishment wearing his various hats for the Hyperion Schubert Edition, I'd like to roll D. 889 over to a separate post, where we can rehear it through Graham's ears and sensibilities -- in addition, of course, to his fingers.
I worry that in my ritual tributes to Graham's stewardship of the Hyperion Schubert-song project I don't properly stress the musicality of his actual song-accompanying, which for me is of Gerald Moore-worthy caliber. I'm glad that for our performances of the "authentic" single-stanza D. 889 our pianists are none other than Gerald M. and Graham J.! -- Ed.
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