Last night at Orvis Auditorium, the start of internationally-acclaimed baritone Matthias Goerne‘s recital was delayed for forty minutes! We were given the explanation that the accompanist, Alexander Schmalcz, wanted to have a few notes on the piano “fixed,” and that the technician was at dinner in Restaurant Row. Of course this led us to question why the technician was not called earlier in the day when the piano was tuned?
In the meantime, local public radio host Gary Hickling (“Singing and other sins,” apparently the only radio show in the whole world devoted to art song) gave us a few verbal program notes about the concert, the complete “Winterreise, D. 911” by Franz Schubert.
We would be hearing this work without interruption or applause—approximately one hour and fifteen minutes long, so we were advised to get up, stretch, and use the restroom while we waited. Schubert wrote this immense song cycle of 24 poems while he was dying of syphilis (he died at age 31), and the work is full of gloom and despair. The poetry by Wilhelm Müller is a long winter journey, as described on Wikipedia:
The intensity and the emotional inflections of the poetry are carefully built up to express the sorrows of the lover, and are developed to an almost pathological degree from the first to the last note…. Over the course of the cycle, grief over lost love progressively gives way to more general existential despair and resignation – the beloved is last directly mentioned only halfway into the work – and the literal winter’s journey is arguably at least in part allegorical for this psychological and spiritual one. Wintry imagery of cold, darkness, and barrenness consistently serve to mirror the feelings of the isolated wanderer.
Steven Mark of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser wrote:
Taken from poetry written by Wilhelm Mueller, the songs tell of wrenching loss, anguish and overwhelming sorrow, as a traveler trudges through a wintry landscape, with everything he experiences reminding him of his heartbreak — a creaking weathervane that seems to be mocking him, the horn of the postman telling him there’s no mail for him, a crow ready to devour his frozen body.
When finally the piano technician arrived, everyone in the audience cheered! I was sitting with piano teacher Mark Russell and Rudy Riingen, and when we saw the technician take out the keyboard, Mark said, “it’s not the tuning; he is going to voice some notes.”
In case you don’t know, voicing is the process of changing the quality of the tone that the piano produces. It’s the process of altering the firmness of the hammer when it hits the piano string. The technician uses a special tool with needles to loosen the felt fibers. (I found this information from Piano Life Saver, in case you want a more complete explanation.)
If a piano is too bright or harsh or loud or abrasive in its tonal characteristics, a technician can “soften” the hammer by taking a tool that holds needles and sticking it into the hammer felt at specific locations to loosen up the felt fibers. This will soften the tone. If a piano is too dull or muffled or lifeless or soft, a technician can use various techniques to build more tone.
Gary Hickling described Matthias Goerne has having “the most beautiful voice on the planet.” What I found very strange was that the majority of the concert we saw only his profile, as he was singing facing the accompanist!
I can say with certainty that of all the vocal recitals I’ve been to, the singer faces the audience squarely. Nope, not tonight! I’m not sure why he did this—it was almost as though the audience wasn’t there and he was trying to ignore us. Or perhaps he and the accompanist needed to read each other’s signals in order to create a better ensemble?
In any case, it was a bit odd.
Apparently Goerne has performed this work over two hundred times!
This concert certainly was a tour de force for Goerne, but his vocal technique was very secure and he never took a drink of water in between any of the pieces in the whole recital, even though it was available. We heard the whole range of emotions in this work, from angry, to playful, to sad, to subdued—we heard it all. Even though the concert ended quietly, people started standing as soon as he sung his last note. And… they cheered.
I checked Goerne’s website and one of the most amazing things I learned was that he really racks up the airline miles! Just this year alone (in the five months from January to Mary) he has given concerts in the following cities: Berlin, Toulouse, Hamburg, Rotterdam, New York, Bogota, Paris, Barcelona, Essen, back to New York, Salzburg, Madrid, Pittsburgh, and Honolulu! Wow!
And he had scheduled concerts in Warsaw and Vienna in April but had to cancel when he underwent knee surgery!
After the concert, there was a wine and chip reception, as the Honolulu Chamber Music Series completed its last concert of the season.
(Thanks to Rudy Riingen for the photos—I had forgotten my phone at home!)
Why is it necessary to face the audience when you are so deeply (and should be) so involved in the songs themselves, especially the interpretation of the words of Winterrise? What is there to see when you should be concentrating on the words and, especially, the interpretation? Goerne had many facial expressions as befit the words he was singing and they were mostly the inward expressions of agony of a tortured man. What was he to do? Smile at the audience throughout? Matthais Goerne is the definitive interpreter of Winterrise and he has every nuance down pat. He and his every introspective body movement was brilliant! Credit, too, should be given to his, obviously sensitive accompanist; sensitive to the point of insisting on voicing two of the keys. That is a the mark of a consummate accompanist. It was a treasured night to remember!