Winterreise

Last week to hear the Winterreise in the Temple Church, in the middle of the lawyers, off Fleet Street. Sung by Angelika Kirchschlager, accompanied by Julius Drake, a pair heard earlier in the year at the Wigmore Hall and noticed at reference 1. And with the church being noticed at reference 2. Part of the interest on this occasion being to hear the Winterreise sung by a soprano instead of the more usual tenor, part being to hear it next to a performance of that other cycle, 'Die schöne Müllerin', noticed yesterday at reference 4, and part being to see how the Temple Church did as a concert hall.

Started off buying the tickets from somewhere on the Internet, clearly a more amateur operation than the RFH. More like the Dorking Concertgoers, with whom we go most years.

The actual evening turned out to be very hot, hot enough that some of the young trees on Meadway (on the way to the station) were suffering. Not for the first time, I wondered about the entirely respectable people who sit in their million pound plus houses, but who can't be bothered to pour the occasional bucket of water on young trees at the end of their quite short drives which clearly need it. To my mind they are not respectable at all; rather people who are all too keen to take, to accumulate wealth, possibly at the expense of others, but not at all keen to give.

At Waterloo Station we headed for one of the bus stops on Waterloo Road, where, moved by recent reports about the amount of obesity in our schools (THEY ought to do something about it), I was moved to do a quick check on the pavement. I couldn't manage both directions at once, so I settled for those heading towards the roundabout, away from the Old Vic. Three proper fatties out of 58 persons passing, of whom two were ladies and all three of whom appeared to be Latino. And so onto the No.4 bus for the senior bus passed ride to the bottom of Chancery Lane.

Picnic'd under the south windows of the Temple Church, admiring what looked like an opera flavoured audience, no doubt what happens when you have an opera singer trying her hand at what people in the US call art songs. On into the church to find a very Morse like occasion, just like those episodes of Morse or Lewis which involve a musical session in the chapel an Oxford college, less the penguin suits. Lots of high and mighty, lots of wives keen on music and good works, various hangers on like ourselves. But perhaps unusual in another way, in that I imagine a fair proportion of the audience were lawyers who earned a great deal of money and for whom stars of the Wigmore Hall were just the hired help, not really distinguishable from the people who worked the bar at their daughters' weddings. So the chap who did the introductions, rather nicely as it happens, a stand in for the past master or something (all very masonic these lawyers), spent most of the concert quite obviously thinking about something else, perhaps whatever it was he had to do the day following. And he took no trouble to hide this, despite the fact that he was in full view of the singer. His wife, to be fair, looked like she really was interested in the proceedings.

This was the first time that Kirchschalger had sung the Winterreise and we were sitting on a level with her, quite close with a clear field of view, so a lot closer than is the case (for us) at the Wigmore Hall. When she started, I thought there was not going to be enough power, but she soon got into her stride. Sometimes she really hit something and the whole building seemed to be full of her voice. I associate now to remarks about the reverberation of buildings in reference 5, another church as it happens, in Oxford. She was dressed well, but not in an exposing way, and made a lot of use of her face and upper body. Lots of power and lots of feeling - with the former having been more in evidence with Breslik a few days earlier: they both had power and they both had feeling, but the balance between the two was different. And she must have known her accompanist well as there was little visible interaction between them.

On this occasion, I did not think about Kirchschlager's hair at all. Perhaps I would have done had I checked reference 1 before setting out instead of after. Points for and against here, with for including being reminded of things to be watched out for and against including having prejudicial thoughts being put into one's head.

I did try following the words rather than the faces but gave up after the first few verses. Faces much better, despite the loss of most of the words. Maybe it would work better if I used varifocals, as does BH, rather than having to take off my outdoor glasses to read the words.

No.76 bus back to Waterloo and so onto Epsom for marmite sandwiches, the first such for months, and Calvados.

Wound up the proceedings by reading, once again, Bostridge on the matter of triplet assimilation in 'Wasserflut', first noticed at reference 6. I have to say, that while I more or less understand the theory of the matter, I cannot hear it (in the Pears/Britten version), despite the score being littered with said triplets. Maybe one needs to be musical, or to be able to manage a session with a maestro who can go over the finer points in slow time. At least I am reminded that a plus of the gramophone is that one can concentrate on the score (Bärenreiter-Verlag in this case) without feeling that you are missing out on the main business. Also that there are many ways of listening to music - in which connection, my late brother used to assert that musical knowledge was an unnecessary luxury, sometimes even an impediment, but then he had lots of musical knowledge, so I am not sure how he could have been so sure about it.

Bostridge also mentions the trick of making each member of the audience who cares to look feel that the singer is singing for them; a trick that Kirchschlager pulled off for me. She may also pulled me into her orbit enough that I died, as it were, with her at the end of her part of the last song, 'Der Leiermann'. I certainly lost focus at that point.

PS: since visiting this church for the first time getting on for a couple of years ago, the Earl of Pembroke memorialised there has cropped up again in Powicke, as noticed at reference 3. I don't think that in my student days, when I occasionally used to use the nearby Temple tube station, I had any idea that the temple in question was the temple of the Templars. But given that the Templars were the bankers of their day, perhaps that does give us the link to the lawyers who live there now.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/02/last-songs.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/09/knights-in-armour.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/06/powicke-on-lord-edward.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/07/die-schone-mullerin.html.

Reference 5: Auditory Neuroscience: Making Sense of Sound - Jan Schnupp, Israel Nelken and Andrew King - 2012. Chapter 1, page 33 in my paperback edition.

Reference 6: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/04/winterreise.html.

Reference 7: https://www.baerenreiter.com/en/.

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