CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Sandrine Piau
Susan Manoff

Weill Recital Hall
Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 7:30 PM

Sandrine Piau, Soprano
New York Recital Debut
Susan Manoff, Piano

FAURÉ "Au bord de l'eau," Op. 8, No. 1
FAURÉ "Nell," Op. 18, No. 1
FAURÉ "Le secret," Op. 23, No. 3
FAURÉ "Clair de lune," Op. 46, No. 2
FAURÉ "Sylvie," Op. 6, No. 3
ZEMLINSKY "Liebe und Frühling"
ZEMLINSKY "Das Rosenband"
ZEMLINSKY "Frühlingslied"
ZEMLINSKY "Wandl'ich im Wald des Abends"
CHAUSSON "Hébé," Op. 2, No. 6
CHAUSSON "Le charme," Op. 2, No. 2
CHAUSSON "Sérénade," Op. 13, No. 2
CHAUSSON "Le colibri," Op. 2, No. 7
R. STRAUSS Mädchenblumen, Op. 22
·· Kornblumen
·· Mohnblumen
·· Efeu
·· Wasserrose
DEBUSSY "Nuits d'étoiles"
DEBUSSY "L’âme évaporée"
DEBUSSY "Triolet à Philis" ("Zéphir")
DEBUSSY "Fleur des blés"
SCHOENBERG Vier Lieder, Op. 2
·· Erwartung
·· Schenk mir deinen goldenen Kamm
·· Erhebung
·· Waldsonne

Encores:
POULENC "Voyage à Paris" from Banalités, No. 4
POULENC "Les chemins de l'amour"

Program is approximately 1 hour, 20 minutes including one intermission

This concert is made possible by The Ruth Morse Fund for Vocal Excellence.

Program Notes:

GABRIEL FAURÉ (1845–1924)
“Au Bord de l’eau,” Op. 8, No. 1; “Nell,” Op. 18, No. 1; “Le Secret,” Op. 23, No. 3; “Clair de lune,” Op. 46, No. 2; “Sylvie,” Op. 6, No. 3

We begin with that quintessentially French composer, Gabriel Fauré. Trained at the École Niedermeyer in Paris, where the teaching of conventional harmony was enriched by study of the church modes, he developed a musical language all his own in three anthologies of 20 songs each. Despite winning the Nobel Prize in 1901, poet René-François Sully-Prudhomme, who penned “Au Bord de l’eau,” was hardly great, but he provided Fauré with the
material for a great song. The regular rhythm of the chord changes suggests something of the enduring nature of love, while a flowing motion represents those things that pass. “Nell,” the first song of the second anthology, suggests why Debussy called Fauré “the Master of Charms.” The poet is Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle, a leader of the Parnassian movement whose verse tells of exotic places and savage realms; here, he goes no farther
than Scotland, but perhaps that’s exotic enough for a Frenchman. “Le Secret” is the setting of a poem by Paul-Armand Silvestre, a civil servant and whose understated erotic verse left composers plenty of creative elbow room. No one will have any difficulty decoding the sweet secret of this song. If Silvestre was a minor figure, Paul Verlaine is among France’s greatest poets; his “Clair de lune,” which Debussy set twice, also inspired one of Fauré’s greatest songs, a minuet-like piano composition with an unchanging vocal theme. “Sylvie,” with its intricate weaving of the voice and piano, is characteristic of Fauré’s chamber music.


ALEXANDER ZEMLINSKY (1871–1942)
“Liebe und Frühling,” “Das Rosenband,” “Frühlingslied,” “Wandl’ ich im Wald des Abends”

At the turn of the century in Vienna, the artistic climate and personalities—particularly Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg—shaped the life and art of Alexander Zemlinsky. Schoenberg and Zemlinsky met in the mid-1890s. Zemlinsky was the younger man’s composition instructor for a time, and Schoenberg’s Op. 1 songs are dedicated to his “teacher and friend.” Both men had reason to ponder the mysteries of women: In 1901, Schoenberg married Zemlinsky’s sister Mathilde—not the easiest of marriages, given her affair in 1908 with artist Richard Gerstl. That same year, Zemlinsky had an affair with Alma Schindler, who soon rejected him and married Mahler. Zemlinsky’s relations with Schoenberg deteriorated in the 1930s. This personal agony aside, Zemlinsky became a brilliant musician.

Young Zemlinsky revered Brahms, and it shows in “Liebe und Frühling,” set to verse by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben. Zemlinsky sets this text in an ample three-part form, with livelier strains framing a somewhat calmer internal section in which the poetic persona rejects nature’s springtime beauties. The 18th-century poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock’s poem “Das Rosenband” had already been made famous by Schubert when Zemlinsky appropriated it. “Frühlingslied” is a setting of a Heinrich Heine poem about bell-like sounds that announce spring’s arrival and are sent to greet “a rose.” Zemlinsky paints the words by summoning treble bells, chiming against a deep bass bourdon. In “Wandl’ ich imWald des Abends” Heine preserves a bygone Romanticism by mourning its absence. With its lovely swaying figures and wistful harmonies, this is among the best of Zemlinsky’s early songs.


ERNEST CHAUSSON (1855–1899)
“Hébé,” Op. 2, No. 6; “Le Charme,” Op. 2, No. 2; “Sérénade,” Op. 13, No. 2; “Le Colibri,” Op. 2, No. 7

A student both of Jules Massenet and César Franck, the wealthy, worldly Ernest Chausson combined Wagnerian opera (he was a frequent visitor to Bayreuth) with an unmistakably French delicacy. His austere setting of “Hébé,” by Louise-Victorine Ackermann—the only female poet on this evening’s roster—is an understated evocation of regret over lost youth, represented in mythology by Hebe, the goddess of youth. In “Le Charme,” the composer returns to Silvestre’s poetry for a song as enchanting as its title; the faint tinge of darkness when the music of the beginning makes a return appearance is both typical of Chausson and evocative of the poet’s last words, “your first tear.” “Sérénade” introduces us to the poetry of Henri Cazalis (pseudonym Jean Lahor). The Contemporary
Parnassus was an anthology of 100 French poets active in the 1860s and ‘70s, and Lahor was dubbed “Hindu” for his “orientalized” verse. His poem is a hymn to the beloved’s eyes as islands of beauty and tranquility, expressed here by Chausson in music that is sensuous to a degree, but never crosses the boundaries of French restraint. “Le Colibri” is justly one of Chausson’s most beloved songs, set to a poem by Leconte de Lisle in which a hummingbird’s sip of deadly hibiscus nectar is compared to “that first kiss” between the poetic persona and his
beloved. The unusual meter of five beats per measure creates a hovering motion suggesting an experience beautifully out of the ordinary.


RICHARD STRAUSS (1864–1949)
Mädchenblumen, Op. 22

“Actually, I like my songs best,” Richard Strauss once said. Given his dedication to opera, one should take this statement with a barrel of salt, but it is true that songs were the bookends of his long and productive life. Believing that truly great poetry did not require any enhancement, Strauss gravitated to minor poets between 1885 and 1895, including Felix Dahn (1834–1912). A lawyer and historian, Dahn was a virulent anti-Semite whose scholarship would later be used to justify Nazism, but Strauss was interested only in his lyric verse. Women today might bristle at the flower-equals-woman analogies found here, but they were commonplace in 19thcentury verse. In this early opus, we hear Strauss’s signature elements: melodies that provoke sensuous delight and an extraordinary way with the musical language of late Romanticism.

In “Kornblumen,” an ethereally high vocal line is poised above a rich but discreet accompaniment. “Mohnblumen” features a more active piano part, filled with trills that suggest nature’s vitality. In “Efeu,” a harp-like accompaniment entwines with a lyrical, passionate vocal line. For the word liebend (“loving”), the singer spans almost two octaves in two syllables—a musical metaphor for love’s expansiveness. In “Wasserrose,” Strauss begins in an appropriately
elfin treble register and ends with mini-wavelets of music in the piano, rippling in concert with a hymn to beautiful, exotic, mysterious womanhood.


CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918)
“Nuits d’étoiles,” “L’âme évaporée,” “Triolet à Philis” (“Zéphir”), “Fleur des blés”

If Claude Debussy began by composing salon songs in the style of Massenet, he soon created an aesthetic all his own—the paradigm for French art-song ever since. The songs on this program were written when he served as an accompanist for a singing teacher named Madame Moreau-Sainti, to whom “Nuits d’étoiles” is dedicated. There, he met and fell in love with an older, married amateur coloratura, Marie-Blanche Vasnier, for whom he composed
numerous songs collected in the so-called Vasnier Songbook. The affair ended in 1887, when he found a younger lover named Gabrielle Dupont, but this relationship with the French “Mrs. Robinson” left its mark on music history.

“Nuits d’étoiles” is redolent of earlier 19th-century French songs written for the salon: Harp chords resound in the piano, and the vocal line features lulling, symmetrical patterns. “L’âme évaporée” is possibly a farewell both to Madame Vasnier and to the salon manner of song composition. “Triolet à Philis” is prophetic of Debussy’s mature style, with harmonies that drift in parallel motion, and so too is “Fleur des blés.” Debussy’s later songs are unquestionably more profound, but we see the oak in the acorn of these charming early works.


ARNOLD SCHOENBERG (1874–1951)
Vier Lieder, Op. 2

When songs from Schoenberg’s Opp. 1–3 were performed for the first time in December 1900, there were vociferous protests. In these early songs, he was already moving away from the laws of music that had prevailed from the late 17th to the early 20th centuries, and each step along the way provoked waves of criticism. Three of the songs in Op. 2 are settings of poetry by Richard Dehmel, who was notorious for the controversial eroticism of his poetry. As Schoenberg later confessed to the poet, the desire to express the feelings aroused in him by Dehmel’s poetry greatly influenced his style at a formative stage in his development.

At the start of “Erwartung,” the first song in Op. 2, Schoenberg veers between an uncomplicated, familiar chord and a complex, neighboring harmony. In “Schenk mir deinen goldenen Kamm,” Jesus asks Mary Magdalene for her golden comb, her silken bath sponge, her heaviest burden, and her heart; to depict such sacral passion, Schoenberg strains the boundaries of the late-Romantic musical realm. “Erhebung” builds to an immense erotic
and musical climax, which dies away in the final two measures as if in post-coital bliss. The text of the opus’s final song, “Waldsonne,” was written by Johannes Schlaf, a partner of Arno Holz in the emergence of German naturalism. It evokes the remembered golden gleam of love, beauty, and desire in the midst of nature.

Sandrine Piau, Soprano
New York Recital Debut
SANDRINE PIAU

A renowned figure in the world of Baroque music, French soprano Sandrine Piau performs regularly with such celebrated conductors as William Christie, Philippe Herreweghe, Christophe Rousset, Gustav Leonhardt, Sigiswald Kuijken, Ton Koopman, René Jacobs, Marc Minkowski, Fabio Biondi, Michel Corboz, Josep Pons, and Louis Langrée. She was recently awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture.

Embracing both lyric and Baroque repertoire, she performs such roles as Pamina (Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte), Titania (Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream), and Servilia (Gluck’s La Clemenza di Tito).

Previous engagements have taken her to the Grand Théâtre de Genève to perform the role of Ismène (Mozart’s Mitridate, re di Ponto); to the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées to sing Aennchen (Weber’s Der Freischütz), as well as Pamina and Servilia; and the Théâtre du Châtelet to perform Ismène, Nerine (Rameau’s Les Paladins), and Wanda (Offenbach’s La Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein).

Ms. Piau has been invited by the Opéra National de Bordeaux to perform Titania, Teatro Lirico di Cagliari to sing Pamina, Opéra de Montpellier and the Dresden Festival to sing in Handel’s Xerxes, Drottningholm Festival to sing Asteria in Handel’s Tamerlano, and the Bayersiche Staatsoper and Opéra National de Bordeaux to sing Konstanze in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail.

Her recent roles include Nanetta (Verdi’s Falstaff) at the Grand Théatre de Bordeaux, the title role in Handel’s Atalanta at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and Sophie (Massenet’s Werther) at both the Capitole de Toulouse and the Théâtre du Châtelet. Future projects include Dalinda (Handel’s Ariodante) at the Théâtre Champs Elysées and the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Pamina and Cleopratra at La Monnaie Brussels, and Titania at the Opera National de Lyon.

In recent years, Ms. Piau has performed at the Salzburg, Covent Garden, and Montreux festivals; the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Teatro Comunale di Firenze, and Teatro Comunale di Bologna.

Ms. Piau has an exclusive recording contract with Naïve. Her recording of Mozart arias, with pianist Freiburger Barockorchester, received enthusiastic critical response and was awarded the Prix Charles Cros. Her second Naïve album, Debussy Mélodies, with pianist Jos van Imserseel, was awarded the Prix Ravel at the Orphée Awards in Paris. In January 2005, Gramophone named Haendel: Opera Seria, with Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques, an Editors Choice. The album also won the Stanley Sadie Handel Recording Prize that year.

Her latest release, évocation, features a Franco-German program based on texts that reference women in the third person, and was recognized as a Gramophone Editors Choice and Opera magazine’s “Diamant d’opéra.”

Susan Manoff, Piano
SUSAN MANOFF

Born in New York, Susan Manoff studied piano at Manhattan School of Music and the University of Oregon. After winning first prize in the Petri Competition, she went to Paris to study with Noël Lee. Ms. Manoff pursued her love for singers and the art song repertoire, and has rapidly become one of the leading and most appreciated accompanists of her generation.

She has worked with Christa Ludwig and Hans Hotter, and appears regularly in recitals worldwide with such artists as Véronique Gens, Patricia Petibon, Sandrine Piau, Magdalena Kožená, and Natalie Dessay. Fascinated with the theater, Manoff has also created recitals that blend music and text, working with such partners as Nelly Borgeaud, Hélène Delavault, Marie Christine Barrault, and Jean Rochefort.

Ms. Manoff currently focuses on chamber music, performing with Nemanya Radulovic and other notable instrumentalists. Her festival appearances include Verbier, Covent Garden, Lugano, and Montpellier. Her 2009–2010 season includes performances at Carnegie Hall, the Musikverein (Vienna), and the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam). Ms. Manoff is a professor at the Paris Opera School and the Paris Conservatory.