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Recital

1998 (please do let us know if you have the date)

St John’s, Smith Square, London

Gerald Finley

Julius Drake

 

This was filmed and broadcast on the BBC as part of the series “Good Music”, introduced by Stephanie Hughes. See below for a transcription of her commentary and brief interviews with GF and JD, which accompanied the recording.

 

Programme

Schumann:

·        Du bist wie eine Blume (You are like a flower)

·        Die Lotosblume (The lotus flower)

·        Aus de ostlichen Rosen (Roses from the East)

·        Jasminenstrauch (Jasmine branch)

·        Widmung (Dedication)

Brahms:

·        Unbewegte laue Luft (The still warm air)

·        Dein blaues Auge (Your blue eyes)

·        Der Gang zum Liebchen (The way to my loved one)

·        Die Mainacht (The May night)

·        Wie bist du, meine Königin (You are my queen)

·        Meine Liebe ist Grün (My love is like a lilac)

Sibelius:

·        Swarta rosor (Black roses)

·        Säv, säv, susa (Rustling reeds)

·        Demanten pa marssnön (The diamond in the snow)

·        Var det en Drom? (Was that a dream?)

Encores

GF: A familiar song for those of you who know Dichterliebe, and pertinent to the idea of bouquets of roses – the rose, the lily…

Schumann:

·        Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne (The rose the lily, the dove, the sun)

GF [to JD]: What have we got? [laughter]. Again the theme of roses. We thought it would be - if we had the chance [laughter] – to offer you one of Benjamin Britten’s arrangements of an Irish folk melody…

·        The last rose of summer

 

 

Transcribed from the BBC TV programme “Good Music”

Stephanie Hughes: The theme they’ve chosen for the music is myrtle and roses. In the traditional language of flowers both myrtle and roses have a symbolic association with love, and myrtle, being an evergreen, has overtones of fidelity and is often used in wedding bouquets. The floral theme is used reasonably loosely in this concert but the variety of devotion, pleasure and sorrow unites all of the music. Gerald Finley and Julius Drake have been working together for some time, so before introducing the first collection of Schumann songs, here they are on how they first met.

GF: It was about 15 years ago that we met, at… er… a programme of silly animal songs and things like that, and it’s been a blossoming relationship ever since [laughter].

 

In the Schumann songs that we begin [with], we’ve chosen a group particularly for its effervescent quality, its clarity of… erm… definition of piano… there’s lots of rising arpeggio movements in the piano writing, particularly in “Widmung” and “Jasminenstrauch”… erm… and they give a certain energy and passion to the music. Indeed the one we begin with, “Du bist wie eine Blume”, is a very strong, stately song, and I think the simplicity of harmony that Schumann gets in these songs is one which allows it to be a suitable group for our floral arrangement, as it is very clear and sparse.

[Schumann songs]

 

SH: Maintaining the theme of myrtle and roses we move on now to Johannes Brahms. Brahms wrote a large collection of nearly 200 songs but has always been in the shadow of Schubert and Schumann as a songwriter, perhaps unjustly. Gerald Finley.

GF: In the Brahms songs we find ourselves in a much more, in my feeling, a much more luxurious harmonic state. We find the richness of… erm… again arpeggio writing as we found in the Schumann, but perhaps with more dramatic ranges… in the piano part. I found myself that the phrases tend to be longer to sing, they tend to have more arching directions - which can be challenging from breathing points of view – however it’s very satisfying when one achieves the long phrasing.

[Brahms songs]

 

SH: Gerald Finley and Julius Drake now sing a collection of songs by the Finnish composer, Sibelius. These songs continue the concert’s romantic theme of love and flowers, but they’re altogether a more melancholy collection, starting with the first in this group “Black roses” where the roses symbolise sorrow in love. Julius Drake.

JD: When we were working on these songs we both kept thinking of how they reminded us in the harmony and structure of some of the movements from the symphonies. They’re strangely sparse for one of the great romantic composers, and it’s something about the sparseness and the way that the harmonies are spaced – sometimes big gaps between the hands – that, um, gives it this feeling that we now think of as sort of a Nordic quality. You feel with Sibelius that this tremendous, dark, brooding… erm… composer came from the north. And why… it’s very hard to define in the music what makes you feel that, but I think it’s to do with the sparseness, and sometimes the bleakness, of the harmonies.

[Sibelius songs]