CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Paul Groves

Zankel Hall
Thursday, December 18th, 2008 at 7:30 PM

Paul Groves, Tenor
Pedja Muzijevic, Piano

BEETHOVEN An die ferne Geliebte, Op. 98
BRITTEN The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, Op. 35
FAURÉ La bonne chanson, Op. 61
RACHMANINOFF Six Songs, Op. 38

Encores:
RACHMANINOFF "Oh, Do Not Sing to Me, Fair Maiden"
DUPARC "Soupir"

This concert and the Pure Voice series are sponsored by the Jean & Jula Goldwurm Memorial Foundation in memory of Jula Goldwurm.

Program Notes:

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827)An die ferne Geliebte, Op. 98

With the song cycle An die ferne Geliebte (“To the Distant Beloved”), Beethoven made a significant formal contribution to the German art song, creating the form of Liederkreis, as he called it. It was the first time that a group of solo songs with piano had been through-composed, woven into a unified whole. The intimate and sometimes enigmatic poems are linked by transitional interconnected piano passages. These passages—in what was then revolutionary—make it impossible for the poems to be extracted and sung separately. The forms and musical keys of the songs have a symmetrical pattern with unity created by key (the last song is in the same key as the first—E-flat) and by theme (the evocative opening theme of the first song, which emphasizes nature and the pleasures of youth, returns at the end of the cycle) The modulations of rhythm, tonality, and tempo in the first three songs seem natural and informal. In the fourth song, “Diese Wolken in den Höhen” (“These Clouds in the Heights”), Beethoven was wonderfully inventive in the second stanza: the singer muses abstractedly on a single note as to “where he would rather be.” None of the individual songs in this cycle gives a feeling of contrivance; each contains a folk-like melody full of musical subtlety that does not relinquish its simplicity.

Yearning is the main subject of this song cycle, which Beethoven composed in April 1816 to a Romantic pastoral text by Alois Jeitteles, a poet and medical student. Much speculation has been voiced about whether the cycle may have been written as a love offering to Beethoven’s fabled Immortal Beloved; it was dedicated to the dying Prince Lobkowitz, and as Maynard Solomon (Beethoven’s biographer) speculates, perhaps the composer evokes a generalized yearning in the cycle, “its sense of loss flowing from the numerous leave-takings and deaths of so many of Beethoven’s close friends and patrons.” The work signals the end of the composer’s intentions to marry, as well as the end of his youthful romanticism and “heroic grandiosity.”

BENJAMIN BRITTEN (1913–1976) The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, Op. 35

Britten is considered the finest composer of opera in England since Henry Purcell of the 17th century. He composed The Holy Sonnets of John Donne in 1946, just after the highly successful première of his opera Peter Grimes, for tenor Peter Pears, his musical collaborator, friend, and partner. The cycle contains nine of the sonnets by Catholic poet Donne (1572–1631), who was persecuted until he finally joined the Anglican Church.

As Britten himself explained of setting the words, aiming to capture the essence of the poet’s words:
One of my chief aims is to try to restore to the musical setting of the English language brilliance, freedom, and vitality that have been curiously rare since the death of Purcell. . .[to] transform the natural intonations and rhythms of everyday speech into memorable musical phrases (as with Purcell), but in more stylized music the composer should not deliberately avoid unnatural stresses if the prosody of the poem and the emotional situation demand them, nor be afraid of a high-minded treatment of words which may need prolongation far beyond their common speech length …

The Holy Sonnets focus on the poet’s struggle with death and his relationship with God. He sees life as endless suffering and sin, in which peace and redemption can be found by accepting God. A metaphysical poet, Donne uses extended metaphor and imagery extensively in his writing. The poet W. H. Auden, whom Britten had met in 1935, encouraged him and Pears to explore the work of Donne. After Britten had returned from a recital tour to Germany as accompanist to Yehudi Menuhin in the summer of 1945 (during which the two had performed for survivors of concentration camps), Britten completed the sonnet settings that August, working at his usual rapid pace. His experience in Germany affected him profoundly, undoubtedly having an impact on the content and quality of this cycle, which was also composed to commemorate the 250th death of Henry Purcell.

The Holy Sonnets displays Britten’s musical maturity with their textural unity: the individual songs in the cycle are interdependent—rhythmically, harmonically, and melodically. They deal with the subjects of death, human and divine love, faith, sin and guilt, and redemption and transfiguration. The emotionally intense cycle captures the complexity of the bleak intensity of the poet’s experience, underscored by Britten’s use of declamatory vocal style.

The cycle begins with “O My Blacke Soule!,” a sonnet with wide-ranging vocal contours, relentless rhythmic patterns, and a stark, hammering piano accompaniment.

“Batter My Heart” is a demonic perpetual motion piece at high speed, calling for utmost flexibility, range, and power on the part of the tenor, as well as much skill on the part of the pianist. Britten creates the feeling of pent-up emotions with a progression of menacing monosyllables.

A surprising quietness dominates the slow and eloquent contrasting third song, “O Might Those Sighes and Teares.” The traditional musical representation of a sigh—the interval of the falling second interval—dominates this song, which projects a feeling of indecision. After he establishes it here, Britten makes the half-step interval an important musical structural element of the cycle and uses it repeatedly.

“Oh, to Vex Me,” the fourth song, is declaimed over a perpetual motion accompaniment. Full of twisting and turning figurations, it ends with a long descent of triplets, a very literal shaking in the singer’s line to mirror the words. The simplicity of the final two words, “with fear,” set in two staccato notes separated by a rest, is a potent contrast.

The influence of the Baroque, and Purcell in particular, is very evident in the fifth and central selection in the cycle, “What If This Present.” The darkest moment in the cycle, the song deals with a troubling philosophical question: If this night were the earth’s last, would Christ’s crucifixion have been in vain?

Lyrical and peaceful with gentle contours, “Since She Whom I Lov’d” is one of Britten’s greatest songs, often lauded as a hymn to sacred love. It is infused with personal melancholy, reconciled by its the end as the path to redemption is revealed. Only in this beautiful song does the feverish, relentless quality of the cycle relax. Warm diatonic harmony makes a strong contrast with the urgency of the rest of the settings, whose harmonies are sharpened with emotional urgency. The eventual acceptance of cruel loss—while maintaining religious belief—relates to Britten’s own self-realization after meeting with Holocaust survivors. Here, since “she” is now in heaven, the poet can ponder “wholly on heavenly things.”

“At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners,” a companion piece to “What If This Present,” expresses certainty in resurrection. It is a prayer about wanting to learn true repentance. The piano accompaniment has a remarkable ringing effect, and the last line of the sonnet, addressed to God, is—significantly—unaccompanied.

The prayer continues in the penultimate “Thou Has Made Me,” in which the poet begs for grace. He hopes that God’s work of creation will not have been in vain. The music has a devilishly demanding perpetual motion to accompany the urgent and agitated vocal line, which is directed more towards resolution than despair now, although the coda is very stormy.

The famous final sonnet, “Death Be Not Proud,” has a different message than those that precede it. It opens with Purcell’s influence evident in the ground bass line that gives the song grandeur, dignity, and a confident and regular pace, accompanying a melodic line reminiscent of the 19th century. Together they bring to closure this emotionally intense and rarely performed cycle. At the end, on an ascending major scale, the tenor declaims the words, “And death shall be no more,” sustaining the word “death” for nine long and meaningful beats.

GABRIEL FAURÉ (1845–1924)La bonne chanson, Op. 61

The 70 years of France’s Third Republic, from 1871 to 1940, began and ended with military defeat at the hands of the Germans, but music and the other arts flourished. These were the years of Gabriel Fauré’s greatest achievement. Prior to this time, his music was relatively unheard in the United States. His expressive songs were formerly relegated to an imagined “connoisseur’s” repertory, but he is the composer and teacher whom Ravel revered (and to whom he dedicated his String Quartet), and the man whom Honegger counted among a small number of France’s greatest musicians ever.

Fauré only became a great presence in American music when Nadia Boulanger instilled his principles into the minds and works of many young American composers who studied with her in Paris during the 50 years following the First World War. Thus Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, Walter Piston, Virgil Thomson, and many more of Fauré’s artistic grandchildren preserved and expanded the essence of his musical thought for us. Copland once wrote of Fauré’s music: “To the superficial listener he probably sounds superficial. But those aware of musical refinement cannot help admire the transparent texture, the clarity of thought, and the well-shaped proportions. Together, they constitute a kind of magic that is difficult to analyze but lovely to hear.”

Fauré composed a large number of vocal pieces. When he had finished composing Five Venetian Songs, Fauré wrote a letter in which he said he felt he had exhausted the musical potential of Paul Verlaine’s poetry—nevertheless, he returned to Verlaine’s work for La bonne chanson. Fauré later commented that he had never written anything as spontaneously as this piece. To create this highly original cycle, he was very particular in selecting certain poems and specific stanzas, reordering them to tell the tale of a young couple in love.

At the time Fauré composed this cycle, it was considered revolutionary for its harmonies. The composer unifies the cycle of songs with five musical motifs, beginning with the lyrically descending phrase that occurs at the start of the first song, “Une sainte en son aureole” (“A Saint Enhaloed”). Fauré brings this motif back to end this first song and then, later, concludes the whole cycle with it. He gives a blithe setting to the second song, “Puisque l’aube grandit” (“Since Dawn Awoke”), in triple meter with a smooth legato melody. In the third song, the tranquil “La lune blanche” (“The White Moon”), the features a denser harmony with noticeable chromaticism. The fourth song, “J’allais par les chemins perfides” (“I Was Walking Along Treacherous Paths”) has even more unusual harmonies, and the development of a rising motif that first appeared at the end of the preceding song. “J’ai presque peur, en vérité” (“I’m Almost Afraid, It’s True”) is a frank confession of love, rendered in anxious phrases. “Avant que tu ne t’en ailles” (“Before You Vanish”) alternates between a slow, lyrical tempo and a faster, more impulsive one. The next songs, “Donc, ce sera par un clair jour d’été” (“So It Will Be, on A Clear Day of Summer”) and the fairly straightforward “N’est-ce pas?” (“Is It Not So?”) feature extended vocal lines. The last song, “L’hiver a cessé” (“Winter Has Ended”), brings together the cycle’s motifs in an energetic, lively, and colorful way.

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873–1943) Six Songs, Op. 38

Rachmaninoff took what Glinka called the Romance and gave it more color, separating it from its folksong roots, to make it into a true Russian song form. Rachmaninoff’s songs often are in minor keys and have prolonged, flowing melodic lines, and his rhythm figures are often characterized by the use of turbulent triplets. The rather brief songs of Op. 38 use contemporary poetic texts. Here, Rachmaninoff uses ambiguous harmonies and infrequent or nonexistent time signatures to add complexity to the rhythmic textures. Op. 38 is Rachmaninoff’s last set of songs. (He wrote two more individual songs without opus numbers in 1916).

Rachmaninoff named this set of six songs—which he considered the finest he had ever composed—“Six Poems for Voice and Piano,” thus giving equal importance to both musical voices. Here he pairs melodic lines and cantilena episodes with interpretative virtuoso music for the piano. Rachmaninoff composed the set in 1916, and dedicated it to the young singer Nina Koshitz, who sang the premiere in Moscow. However, Rachmaninoff’s fondness for Marietta (“Re”) Shagininan—an attractive strong-willed Armenian writer with whom he had a four-year friendship—was a more important relationship in bringing about the necessary conditions for the composition of these songs. Rachmaninoff requested the texts from her, asking specifically for something sad because “light colors do not come easily to me,” which she answered with the fanciful symbolists poems in this opus.

The first and last songs of this group deal with the sadness and the elusiveness of love. The impressionistic “Noch’ yu v sadu u menya” (“In My Garden at Night”) paints a musical picture of a woman’s sorrow, symbolized by a weeping willow tree, with gentle vocal lines and delicate piano figurations. The voice to soars in Rachmaninoff’s setting of “K ney” (“To Her”); in the piano postlude, the listener can sense that the bride has reached euphoria in forgetfulness. In this song, Rachmaninoff shows that he is more concerned with colors and textures than with melody.

The third song, “Margaritki” (“Daisies”), depicts a field full of flowers in joyous spring. The piano carries the flowing main melody, spruced with dazzling trills, while the voice adds an accompanying line. The song has a long ethereal postlude. The longest song in the set, “Krïsolov” (“The Rat-Catcher”), playfully details the fickleness of sensual love through rhythms of Russian folk and love spells. “Son” (“A Dream”) has an enchanting high vocal melody and a delicate, impressionistic piano texture, depicting a sense of languor. With “Au!” (“A-oo”) (a call to someone in the distance), Rachmaninoff depicts the elusiveness of romantic love. The radiant setting ends with a piano postlude, rippling yet unsettled, echoing the song and the sounds of distant ringing bells.

—Susan Halpern

Susan Halpern contributes program notes to numerous musical organizations.

© 2008 The Carnegie Hall Corporation

Paul Groves, Tenor
Winner of the 1995 Richard Tucker Foundation Award, Paul Groves has established himself as a leading lyric tenor with the world’s most prominent opera houses and symphony orchestras, including the Metropolitan Opera, Opéra de Paris, Royal Opera Covent Garden, Salzburg Festival, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Vienna Philharmonic. His repertoire encompasses a broad range of roles, from Mozart and bel canto to the lyric and heroic roles of the French repertoire.

Mr. Groves begins the 2008–2009 season with a return to the Grand Théâtre de Génève in one of his signature roles, the title role in Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust. The tenor later portrays Goethe’s tragic figure, this time in a new production of Gounod’s Faust with Minnesota Opera. Other operatic highlights of this season include three title role debuts, beginning with performances of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex in Japan under the direction of Charles Dutoit, followed by Mozart’s Idomeneo in his return to the Opéra de Paris and Massenet’s Werther in a new production with Opéra National du Rhin, Strasbourg. Mr. Groves ends the season with a new production of Alceste for Santa Fe Opera. He also performs in Beethoven’s Missa solemnis with the Orchestre de Paris and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, as well as in performances of Berlioz’s Requiem with The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutoit.

A favorite artist of the world’s greatest conductors, Mr. Groves has made several recordings for the major labels. He also extends his artistry to recitals with recent performances at Alice Tully Hall in New York, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Pedja Muzijevic, Piano
Bosnian-born Pedja Muzijevic has been widely praised for his interpretations of the standard literature and his imaginative programming. He has toured extensively as soloist with orchestras and as a recitalist throughout Europe, Great Britain, Canada, the United States, South America, and Asia.

Mr. Muzijevic has performed with the Milwaukee Symphony, the Residentie Orkest in The Hague, Dresden Philharmonic, Shinsei Nihon Orchestra in Tokyo, Orquesta Sinfonica in Montevideo, Zagreb Philharmonic, Boston Pops, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Napa Valley Symphony, and the Richmond Symphony, among others. He has played solo recitals at Alice Tully Hall in New York; Casals Hall and Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo; Teatro Municipal in Santiago de Chile; Da Camera of Houston; The Frick Collection in New York; National Gallery in Washington, DC; the Aldeburgh Festival in Great Britain; and many others. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in January of 2007 with the Oberlin Orchestra and Robert Spano.

Mr. Muzijevic’s many festival engagements encompass, among others, performances at Tanglewood, Mostly Mozart, Newport, OK Mozart, Bay Chamber Concerts, San Miguel de Allende, Aldeburgh, Lucerne, Holland, Melbourne, Aix-en-Provence, Dubrovnik, Merano, and Bratislava festivals.

Mr. Muzijevic’s chamber music performances include Bargemusic; Lincoln Center and 92nd Street Y in New York; Theatre du Chatelet in Paris; Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players; in La Jolla, California for the La Jolla Music Society; Da Camera in Houston; Library of Congress in Washington, DC; and many others. He made his New York recital debut in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall as a recipient of The Juilliard School’s coveted William Petschek Award. His many honors include top prize in the Busoni International Piano Competition and a finalist diploma in the Naumburg International Piano Competition, as well as special prizes of the Chopin Society (Warsaw) and the Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon).

Pedja Muzijevic studied at the Academy of Music in Zagreb, The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and The Juilliard School in New York. He is Director of Music Programming at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City.