DMA Vocal Coaching and Accompanying Recital No. 3

Program Notes

TRAITOROUS LOVE

PROGRAM NOTES

Love is not always a “many-splendored thing.” There is often doubt, depression and disdain when encountering the feelings surrounded by love. In this recital, you will hear songs expressing such feelings and emotions. These songs are composed by the masters of music and art song – Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Wolf and Liszt.

First on the program is the Italian cantata Amore Traditore, BWV 203 by J.S. Bach. It is one of only two cantatas by Bach that are in the Italian language. The singer is having a one sided conversation with the god of love to reject the chains that love imposes and to reject the unrequited love for which he feels anxiety, plain and heartache. The cantata itself has been a source of dispute for authorship. However, even though the original notebook where this cantata was found has been lost, there is documentation that this was possibly written in the years that Bach was stationed at the court of Prine Leopold in Köthen. Because this was not a church position for Bach, he was not writing choral music but focusing on instrumental and solo works. It is also probable that the bass singer Johann Gottfried Riemenschneider was the performer for whom this cantata was composed.

Composed in 1809, the four short arias in Italian are the subjects of new love. In their original order the third and fourth movements share the same text, but the emotion is vastly different. For this recital, I have moved the third to the front of the set in order to create a better storyline. So we begin with the impatient lover (L’amante impaziente) who is smitten for this new relationship. In the second song (Dimmi, ben mio) she is enchanted with the lovers smile and his words of love. She finds a moment of quiet, but her heart is fluttering and she recognizes a faltering in its beating, foreshadowing what is to come. We return to L’amante impaziente, but this time the atmosphere has darkened and the lover is nowhere to be found – will they return?

Hugo Wolf set texts of Michelangelo to music in 1897, just six years before his death. At a time when his health was beginning to decline, these pieces could perhaps reflect his own view of life. In these pieces, the singer is dealing with the ideals of life and existence. The first song, Wohl denk ich oft, looks upon the life that has been lived and for the character’s name to be known, is enough for him to have had a meaningful life. The second song, Alles endet, was entstehet, is a moment to reflect that all things that come into being must also leave this world. In the final song, Fühlt meine Seele, the life has been lived, but is the speaker ready to move on to the next form of life? It seems that there is something that is keeping them from feeling that long-desired light of God.

We are more familiar with the German Lieder of Franz Schubert. However, with the three songs in D. 902 with texts by Pietro Metatstasio, he chooses to retain the Italian text. The look from eyes is a running theme with the songs on today’s program, and in the first piece, the singer is captivated by this pair of eyes. Il traditor deluso has great text painting and musical imagery. This piece takes on a recitative and aria form that is suggestive of the styles of Rossini, who at the time had great influence in the music of the period. The final piece, Il modo di prender moglie, is a bit humorous while also being quite serious. The character has decided that he will marry for money rather than for love.

The Italianisches Liederbuch is a collection of 46 songs of Paul Heyse’s texts based on Italian folk songs composed by Hugo Wolf. Usually when performed as a whole, the songs alternate between a male and female singer. The female songs all deal with the practicalities of love as well as complaining about her lover. In fitting with the theme of the recital, the four pieces chosen do just that. Wie lange schon is marked with the phrase Sehr langsam und nicht ohne Humor. Where does the humor come from? You must wait for the final phrase to find out. Mein Liebster singt am Hausis a clear representation of a young girl who has been told that she cannot go out to meet her lover and creates an emotional scene to no avail of the situation improving, so she cries incessantly so that she does not know whether it is day or night. In Schweig’ einmal still, the girl has had enough of her lover’s singing. Comparing him to a donkey, she would rather hear the donkey. In Ich hab in Penna, she has lovers all over Italy. Where else, perhaps, might there be other lovers?

Franz Liszt took inspiration from the sonnets of Petrarca in his collection of three sonnets. All of these songs are about the conflict that surround love and love that may be unrequited. It is possible that these texts were about the famous lover of Petrarca, Laura de Noves, the wife of a count. It is also possible, that because of this marriage, the feelings of love could not be acted upon, thus creating the conflict within the writer’s being. Also in a recitative and aria form, the first song Pace non trovo begins directly with the conflicting emotions and those continue throughout the song. Benedetto sia il giorno is a tribute to honor the life in which Petrarca is enchanted. We hear the name of Laura as he calls out to her. In the final song I vidi in terra Petrarca is reflecting on the ways Laura has given him inspiration and compares those ideals to the angels, but being an angel on earth. Liszt was only in his early thirties when he composed these pieces. We can see with these pieces the beginnings of virtuosic writing and he would go on to create some of the most virtuosic music ever written in the Romantic period.