Die schöne Müllerin

Just about a week ago, to the Wigmore Hall to hear Schubert's 'Die schöne Müllerin', a song cycle we may never have heard live before: certainly there appears to be no record on the blog, and our concerts were much thinner on the ground in the days before blog.

A muggy and humid evening and the trains were said to be OK, although it did turn out that the Victoria trains were off.

The hollyhocks in Meadway were looking well, despite the heat, with some of them a good deal taller than I was. Flowers I like, but for some reason I have never tried to grow them. And I never did flowers at all on the allotments, although I did do ornamentals like pampas grass and bamboo.

Picnic'd in Cavendish Square, then off to the hall, decorated with yellow flowers, including some small sunflowers, and not much more than half full - which surprised us, with 'Die schöne Müllerin' being billed as both a major work and a popular work. Although checking with Bachtrack later, there were no further performances billed in this country and only two or three in Europe. And a curiosity in New York where it is offered with guitar and baritone. So not that popular. While there are what look like dozens of Winterreise's. I was rather impressed and I liked the lightening of tone, not as bleak as that of the later work.

From the programme notes we learned that the tone of Müller's original poems was all very ambivalent, rather ironic, certainly in performance in Viennese drawing rooms - while Schubert stripped all that out in his music and went the full romantic mile. Artistic license in adaptation.

BH, who followed the words rather than the faces, my usual custom, thought it wonderful - although she thought the young man of the songs was a bit wet and should have taken a leaf out of the hunter's book. The rest of the audience was also very enthusiastic, earning themselves two encores: I think the 'Erlkönig', at any rate a song with a lot of 'Vater' in it, followed by something by Dvořák, from the next door country to the tenor of the night, that is to say Pavel Breslik of Slovakia, ably assisted by Amir Katz of Israel. Both of whom were new to us, with the nearest thing being Parson Katz in 'The Good Soldier Švejk', a book I once knew very well.

Still warm outside and lots of summer clothes to be seen.

Vauxhall was in a bad way by the time we got there, but we managed a late running Epsom train after a short wait - to find, sitting opposite us, a couple of the singers from the Tommy Steele (in his eighties if you please) version of the Glen Miller story. Proper luvvies, of middle years, one of whom thought he ought to tell us that his picture was in an advertisement in the 'Evening Standard' that BH was reading. Lots of luvvy talk of shows past and present, digs past and present. Names dropped here there and everywhere. And it seems that one at least of them was actually in theatrical digs. Such places still exist.

PS: intrigued by the absence of terminal 'e' at the end of the feminine 'Müllerin', so not like the French. Must find someone who knows how these things are managed in German.

Reference 1: https://bachtrack.com/.

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