The last time is noticed at reference 1 and preparation for this time took the form of reading some of Bostridge's book about the work, noticed for the second time at reference 2. Bostridge himself we do not seem to have seen, at least there is nothing recorded in near ten years of blog life.
A nicely produced and illustrated book from Faber, mainly taking the form of a chapter about each of the 24 songs of the cycle. Accessible and not very music theoretical at all. From which I have learned so far that the cycle was very much a product of its time and very much more bound up with the story expressed in the words than I had realised. Also more clever and more crafted; a lot more sophisticated than the simple pouring out of emotion, which is how I mostly hear it.
I have also, I think for the first time, learned what a hurdy-gurdy actually was. I had thought that it was a hand held version of the barrel organ, a very small version of which is put into music boxes and children's toys, with the music being expressed as flaps sticking up from the surface of a hollow brass cylinder. One turns the cylinder and the flaps pluck the strings or open the valves. The hurdy-gurdy the Winterreise is talking about is rather different, with all five strings being continuously sounded by turning a rosined wheel against them. The tune arises from three of the strings coming with stops with which the player is able to vary the pitch - and with the resulting sound being not unlike a bagpipes. And in England, rather like the bagpipes, then confined to the western and northern outlands, Despite this the instrument had a long pedigree, long enough to appear in Holbein's vision of the expulsion of the first humans from the Garden of Eden. Named in German for the same lyre as the suite at reference 3. And so we have the 'leiermann'.
I worry about not having the words available from time to time, and on this occasion, for the first time, we had them in English projected in large onto the screen behind Bostridge. This meant that I was really able to connect the words to the music, but with the catch that whoever organised the projection was much more into artiness than legibility - and not even bothering not to project across bits of staging, which made reading the words even harder. A bad mistake, as for me the idea should have been to be able to pick up the words with an occasional glance, without having to make a study of them.
Further distractions provided by pictures of winter landscapes and heads. By Bostridge climbing about the set - surprising me by being able to sing when more or less lying down. I would have got vertigo and not been able to sing at all.
The conversion of the piano accompaniment to a small orchestra - the Britten Sinfonia, including both accordion and harp - was both clever and effective, but not, in the end as good as the real thing.
All in all there was too much going on and I was distracted from the music. It lost much of its impact - with, for example, the end of the last song being completely lost. Although, knowing what I know now, I do not agree with my father's dictum that this closing song should close at full blast, rather than the more usual very quiet. I think more usual was more right, and I settle for fairly quiet.
So, an interesting experience. I think that I would give it another try should someone else have a go, but I also think that I will continue to prefer the real thing.
The young audience - including quite a lot of people of working age - seemed enthusiastic enough and the lady next to me said that she had been transfixed. But then BH suspected her of being some kind of media type or luvvie.
Back home I decided to back the whole performance up by getting a copy of the score, and was only paused by confusion over versions for high, medium and low voice. Eventually, that is to say yesterday, I got a handsome German edition from Bärenreiter from Schott in Great Marlborough Street. Only £10 or so, which surprised me, but then I suppose that most people in my condition will settle for the freebie available as a pdf from google (a pdf which included some discussion about the merits of various translations of the poems), so they have to price it down a bit. And having had a try with this, a parallel text and some vinyl (Fischer-Dieskau and Moore), the current story is that I would get the best result by knowing the songs well enough for me to know what was going on without having to look at either the words or the music during the performance. Which should be in the original German as too much would be lost in translation. For example, the 'Marvellous old fellow' in the illustration above, taken from the pdf, does not seem quite right to me for 'Wunderlicher Alter', despite having almost the right shape, but it should be said that I know virtually no German.
PS: and going back to reference 3, I forgot to mention there that the Tan String Quartet, being a modern French Quartet, all used apple notebooks for the score, with foot pedals to turn the pages. First time I have seen a whole quartet do it. See, for example, reference 4.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/winterreise.html.
Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/winter-journey.html.
Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/more-tuition.html.
Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/cuarteto-casals.html.
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