Volume 23 Issue 3 - November 2017

marriage, a woman pregnant from a man she did not know or love…
it was shocking. Dehmel was a huge influence for Schoenberg’s
early vocal works (his writing was the reason we have Schoenberg’s
Verklärte Nacht) and Berg, Webern and many others. So…is the music
related because of Dehmel? Not necessarily. There are images, reflections,
a fluidity of the music which was a musical development and
style at the time. If it hadn’t been Dehmel it would have been Stefan
Georg, who was a later influence for Schoenberg. The tonalities are
not yet what I think of as atonal…that came a little bit later. Certainly
the Schoenberg Op.2 are closer to Strauss than anything (but better
than Strauss!). Webern’s five Dehmel songs are absolutely atonal. They
avoid harmonic centre, though their endings always seem to confirm
some kind of tonal centre which was elusive for the entire song.
How does the singer make them dramatic, as something unfolding
before the audience? We rarely get to hear songs like this in recital,
and the Romantic and post-Romantic songs have spoiled us in terms
of drama, contrasts, things happening, and big, legible emotions.
I don’t need to make them dramatic. They already are dramatic. I
just have to sing them, rather than interpret. I find the idea of “interpretation”
very foreign. The emotions are deep, pure, full of instinct
and that very Viennese idea of Sehnsucht… longing. It’s all there. I just
need to get inside it. And with a pianist such as Reinbert de Leeuw…a
huge mentor to me for over 20 years…this is a kind of musical heaven
for me. An earthly heaven.
Berg’s Seven Early Songs come across as more varied. The texts are
from different poets – but the songs differ musically too, for example
the intense, soaring Die Nachtigall vs. the playful Im Zimmer. How
do you approach this cycle? Berg is very much “your” composer, if I
can put it that way – you’ve sung Lulu of course and your new CD is
planned around the character of Lulu.
The Berg are more accessible I suppose. We have to remember
that in this late-Romantic period, the song was still the centre of a
composer’s expression. Every composer began with writing songs.
They developed their harmonic style through the very intimate union
of piano, voice and text. And from that, they expanded to larger
works. Nowadays things are very different...
Intriguing that there’s Alma, but not Gustav Mahler on the
program. We rarely get to hear her in recital. How would you
describe her songs? (I thought Laue Sommernacht probably the most
melodic song on the entire program?)
The Alma Mahler songs we chose were in part written when she
was a student (and love interest) of Zemlinsky. And the songs we
present of Zemlinsky were, by the way, written when he was teaching
her. They seemed to be in love, before she met Mahler. Honestly,
her songs are good but they are not great. They are the weakest on
the recital program but we included them because she was such an
important figure at that time. A muse, later a patron. She was the
lover of Kokoschka and inspired his work, also Klimt, also the writing
of Werfel; and the early death of her daughter Manon (with Gropius)
inspired Berg’s violin concerto. She was a very, very important figure
in the musical world of the early 20th century. These four songs
show her potential but she did not develop it. Mahler told her before
they married that she had to stop composing. So she only achieved
a certain niveau in her work and then she stopped, and became
Mahler’s wife. Laue Sommernacht … is it the most melodic? I don’t
think so. Die Nachtigall of Berg is more soaring, I’d say. Or Irmelin
Rose, the strophic fairytale song of Zemlinsky. And really, what does
melodic mean? Something with a tune? I don’t know. I think melodic
means something different to everyone.
The concert ends with Wolf’s extraordinary, almost operatic
Kennst du das Land. How does a singer conserve the energy, physical
and dramatic, up to that point and then deliver that Mignon miniopera
at the end?
I don’t know how other people do it but for me, there is a degree of
2017/2018
Inna Perkis & Boris Zarankin
Founders and Artistic Directors
a season of sequels.
again and more.
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 26, 2017 | 3 PM
MEDICINE + MUSIC:
A CARDIAC AFFAIR
featuring
Steven DANN | Dr. David GOLDBLOOM | Virginia HATFIELD
Inna PERKIS | Ernesto RAMIREZ | Meghan SYMON
Boris ZARANKIN | Julia ZARANKIN
Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor Street West
TO ORDER TICKETS, please call 416.466.6323 or visit offcentremusic.com
thewholenote.com November 2017 | 17