Opted for sandwich at home on this occasion, put off Cavendish Square by both the rain and the dark. As it happened, when we got there, it was a mild evening, not raining and the bench we sometimes use, just outside the perimeter on the northwest corner of the square, was vacant.
Good seats, row G, just right of centre. Flowers good and with a red theme. The left hand couple in front were of the fidgeting variety, the right hand couple were keen, looked as if they knew their lieder, without needing to to on about it, and with the lady being very smartly turned out. Whereas a couple of ladies behind us were very full of concerts they had been to.
This concert was slightly unusual for us in that it was a selection, rather than a well known cycle. A selection of settings of poems by Schiller, Hölty, Mayrhofer and others. But it was very good, despite our not knowing any of it, and none the worse for a lot of it not having virtuoso accompaniment, by which I mean that it may well have been difficult to play well, but did not involve a lot of show-off music. Three encores, with the third and last encore being very well chosen. Unfortunately I cannot now recover the name.
There were a couple of short appearances of a page turner. I would have thought that it would be quite tricky to come onto the stage in the middle of a concert, to turn a couple of pages and then go out again. Perhaps sitting there doing nothing for the whole concert would be worse. But, whatever the case, she seemed to manage OK.
On the way home, I resumed fussing about the words, having now decided that the words do matter, particularly when they are respectable poetry on their own account. While the songs were good when knowing very little of what they were about and more or less nothing of the individual words, one must be missing a lot. At a live performance of this sort, one wants to be looking at the performers and so cannot be looking at a parallel text (in this case) at the same time, and a quick scan before the off does no more than give one the general idea. Whereas at home, following the text is mostly gain, there being nothing live to look at, the spinning disc not having great appeal. But the 'mostly gain' because following the text does both add and subtract. One gets the magic of the poem and its setting, but one loses something of the music on the way. Too much going on perhaps.
I don't think the answer lies in screens around the edge of the stage. I think the only answer must be to be rich and to listen to songs live, in one's own home, taking one's time and getting to know each poem before it is sung. With the option of having a song more than once. Which is not going to work in a concert hall where there has to be a set batting order, laid down in print, and enough of it to make the whole thing seem worth while. Maybe small works like lieder were intended for small settings and the translation to a big setting is always going to be tricky.
Pausing this post, I thought to try references 2 and 3 again, to find that they have returned to full headphone power, not having heard that particular song for a few months, possibly not since as long ago as May - see reference 4 for some of the story. (I think there is more, but cannot presently put my finger on it). Notwithstanding, it would be interesting to hear it live, now that I know the song fairly well - but, sadly, a search of the Wigmore Hall, while it turns up a recording does not turn up a performance. Maybe they have not opened their future programme up to the google crawlers.
All that said, a very good concert. We might have been missing much of what was there, but there was still plenty left to enjoy.
PS: we had another demonstration here of the way that BH and I seem to remember different things. She was fairly sure that we had heard Prégardien before whereas I, although vaguely aware of the name, had no idea. Less than six months ago too.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/winterreise.html.
Reference 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O405pK6BuUc.
Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auf_dem_Wasser_zu_singen.
Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/to-clandon-or-not-to-clandon.html.
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