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CD DÉCOUVERTE
Joseph K. So
MAUREEN FORRESTER
IN ORATORIO & SONG
Canadian contralto Maureen Forrester
will be turning 80 on July 25 th . Her
extraordinary career spanned some
fifty years, from 1951 to the late 1990s,
when her performing days came to a
gradual end as a result of advancing dementia. Her
last public appearance was a benefit concert for the
Toronto Sinfonietta in June 2001. Today Forrester
lives in a long-term care facility in Toronto.
Without a doubt, Forrester is the greatest contralto
Canada has ever produced. She has left her
mark as an important exponent of the song, symphonic,
oratorio—and in the latter part of her
career, operatic—repertoires from baroque to the
contemporary. Born on July 25, 1930 to a working
class family in Montreal, Forrester quit school at
13 to earn a living. Despite their limited means,
Forrester, at her mother’s urging, studied piano
and sang in church choirs. Her voice teacher was
Dutch baritone Bernard Diamant, who was
undoubtedly the most important one in her
career. J. W. McConnell, publisher of the Montreal
Star, recognized her talent and underwrote the
expenses of her studies for over a decade.
Forrester made her debut in Montreal in 1951
in Elgar’s The Music Makers, and her opera debut
as a sewing girl in Charpentier’s Louise in 1953.
She made her New York Town Hall debut in 1956.
Conductor Bruno Walter was so taken by her
singing that he took the young
Canadian under his wing.
Through Walter, Forrester
became a celebrated
Mahler interpreter. If one were to ask what about
Forrester’s voice was so compelling, it would be
difficult to answer; yes, her tone is beautiful, to be
sure, but also her musicality, her way with the
text, and above all an indefinable, luminous, even
spiritual quality to her singing never fails to move
the listener. A self-professed happy person,
Forrester would seem temperamentally unsuited
to these gloomy song cycles and sad alto solos in
many oratorios. In her autobiography, Out of
Character, Forrester reveals that, to sing the sad
songs, she drew her inspiration from a moment
at the end of Mahler Second Symphony, a bar of
music that unfailingly brought her to tears and
put her in the right mood.
In its prime, the Forrester contralto was a force
of nature, a voluminous and rich sound, smooth
through its entire range, and remarkable for its
dark timbre. A voice such as hers comes only once
in a generation. In the two discs, her opulent tone
and innate musicality are very much in evidence.
The Brahms-Schumann recital was recorded in
1958, when Forrester’s voice was in its youthful
prime. It also captured for posterity the long and
celebrated collaboration between the singer and
pianist John Newmark, who accompanied
Forrester in her Montreal recital debut in 1953.
The centerpiece of the disc is Schumann’s
Frauenliebe und Leben Op. 42, composed in 1840,
known as Schumann’s “year of song.” In this short
cycle of eight songs set to text by Chamisso, it
follows a woman’s love for a man, from their first
meeting to marriage, motherhood, and to his
eventual death, told entirely from the woman’s
perspective. In the current 21 st century post-feminist
critique, the idea that a woman’s selfworth
is validated only through her
husband, as Chamisso’s text
implies, seems hopelessly
old-fashioned.
Musicologist
Ruth Solie, in an
essay published in
Music and Text:
Critical Inquiries,
asserts that the
cycle reflects the sexism
and patriarchy of
19th century
European society
from
which
Schumann and
Chamisso came. Solie
dismisses the argument
that this work
merely reflects its
time and can be
viewed and understood
within its historical
context, and
rejects the notion
that both Schumann and Chamisso were actually
sympathetic to women. Despite the controversy,
this cycle remains popular on the recital stage
and recordings, where the interpreters have been
overwhelmingly female of course. However, the
great German baritone Matthias Goerne audaciously
programmed this work in his recitals a
couple of years ago, with mixed reception! No
matter what side of the philosophical fence you
are on, I do believe that the glorious music can be
enjoyed without having to ponder such weighty
issues. Forrester sings the cycle beautifully, but
some might argue that her contralto tones are
not ideal to impersonate a young maiden breathlessly
in love. I find the last song, “Nun hast du
mir den ersten Schmerz getan” mourning the
death of her beloved, especially moving. The
other main work on the disc is Brahms’s
Zigeunerlieder, originally a cycle of 11 songs for
vocal quartet with text from Hungarian folk
songs translated into German. Brahms later
rearranged 8 songs for solo voice and piano. Each
lasting only about a minute and a half, these
delightful songs capture the Gypsy flavour but
the melodic inspiration is entirely Brahmsian.
Forrester sings these rather jaunty songs with
buoyant spirit and vivid imagination, with meticulous
support from Newmark.
The second disc, available as a bonus download,
showcases Forrester in oratorio, a repertoire
where she had some of her greatest triumphs. All
the pieces are “chestnuts” for the alto, including
the ever popular “He was despised” and “O thou
that tellest good tidings” from Handel’s Messiah.
To my ears, Forrester’s “Erbarme dich” for Bach’s St.
Matthew Passion is among the greatest ever,
rivalling the great Kathleen Ferrier to whom she
was often compared. Forrester owes it to the
genius of Bach for writing such an incredibly
beautiful violin solo. The overwhelming melancholia
of the aria and Forrester’s mournful tones
touch one’s soul. Incidentally, Forrester sang this
at a public memorial for Glenn Gould after his
passing and there was not a dry eye in the house.
The orchestra on the oratorio disc is the highly
regarded chamber group I Solisti di Zagreb, founded
in 1953 by the late cellist Antonio Janigro. This
1964 recording still has him at the helm.
The recorded sound of the two discs is perfectly
fine for its age. It is acutely poignant that an artist
who has given so much pleasure to countless music
lovers will now reach her 80 th birthday without
conscious awareness. But for those of us who loved
Maureen’s voice, we can celebrate the occasion by
listening to these discs and be once again reminded
of her greatness. ■
To mark her 80 th birthday, XXI-21 Productions, in partnership
with La Scena Musicale, is re-issuing two Maureen Forrester
discs: one of her as a lieder singer, and the other in oratorio. The
disc is exclusively available to LSM subscribers.
16 Juin 2010 June