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| Daniel Johannsen (Anette Friedel) |
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| Dror Semmel (Alex Kaplan) |
The stormy, blustery weather leading up to January 10th 2026 had given way to a hazy, pallid Jerusalem sky. The ground was damp underfoot. Nature had provided the ideal setting for a performance of Franz Schubert's "Winterreise" (Winter's Journey) to take place at the Eden-Tamir Music Center. In collaboration with the Israeli Schubertiade, we heard the song cycle performed by tenor Daniel Johannsen (Austria) with Eden-Tamir Music Center artistic director Dror Semmel playing the center's recently-acquired Graf fortepiano.
Dr. Semmel opened the festive event with a
few words about the fortepiano as being the instrument Schubert would have
heard, the fortepiano symbolizing the Romantic Lied genre, its timbre and scope
creating an intimate connection between music and text. Builder of historic
pianos Paul McNulty (US) modelled this Graf fortepiano (the only one in Israel)
after instruments played by Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin.
Confronting his own approaching death,
Schubert found appropriate content for the "Winterreise" song cycle
in the dark, melancholic poems of a Prussian contemporary - Wilhelm Müller
(1794-1827) - a lyric poet who was known to openly invite collaborations with
musicians. Unjustly referred to in his day as second rate, Müller had, in fact,
given new expression to the literary ideals of his time.
"Winterreise" presents only one speaking character and no narrator,
leaving the listener unaware of the protagonist's name, his appearance (except
that he has black hair), his birthplace, occupation or personal history. Of his
inner life, we learn more as the cycle progresses. From the first chords of the
opening song, "Gute Nacht" (Good Night), as we join the protagonist
stepping away from the town, rejected by the lady he loves, the piece's
fleeting recollection of better times is replaced by the piano re-establishing
the bleak mood and weary pace (a feature recurring in several of the songs.)
Johannsen and Semmel's deep, rigorous inquiry into the wealth of fine details
and the many layers of "Winterreise" summons the audience at the
Eden-Tamir Center to be more than attentive!
In addition to some vivid story-telling,
the artists' production displayed the cycle's succession of psychological
states - the protagonist's emotions and moods, those ranging from sadness,
anger, despair, nostalgia, illusion and hope to resignation - the different
states of mind often shifting from one to another within the blink of an eye.
With the fortepiano's timbre direct and transparent, we hear the occasional
divergence between the character of the words and the keyboard score, an interesting
element, at times intimating that the piano is more aware of certain issues
than is the traveller, at others, perhaps more distanced. And the contrasts, so
many contrasts - songs of intensive, explosive energy, songs of wispy textures and
eerie stillness, references to the icy European winter, to the comfort of
warmth, moments of gorgeous, idyllic Viennese melodiousness and then of
despair, contrasts of texture, of tempo, of gesture, and more. They were all
present, not only via the contours of the singer’s melody, but also in the
pictorial vividness of the piano score, set within Müller and Schubert's
immense, palpably existent nature canvas.
I choose to mention "Die
Krähe" (The Crow), a song unique in Lied literature and one of my
favourites. Imaginatively evoking the crow's call (via the word “Krähe")
Johannsen portrays the wanderer speaking fondly of- and to the crow that has
accompanied him from the outset of his journey, asking if it will stay
with him till he dies. However, presenting the song's austere duality, the
wanderer also asks whether the crow is waiting to feast on his carcass. Taking
leave of gravity, Semmel's playing elevates the listener way up into the
tranquillity of the sky to join the bird soaring in its airy expanses, then to
finally descend smoothly into the piano's lower register to deliver Schubert's
grim answer.
As to "Der Leiermann" (The
Hurdy-Gurdy Man), the cycle's horrific final song, announced by a drone on the
piano (a feature of the hurdy-gurdy, an early instrument having several drone strings), Johannsen and Semmel's careful, deliberate pacing of its bleak, haunted
content creates a sense of staticity. The artists' melancholic, intense reading
of one of the most enigmatic songs in Lied repertoire was heightened by an
otherworldly effect Semmel created by combining use of the Graf's double
moderator with the sustaining pedal.
Thirty years after Schubert’s death, Joseph
von Spaun wrote of attending the first performance of "Winterreise" -
a private affair, in which the composer performed the song cycle for his friends.
Schubert referred to the work as " a cycle of horrifying songs",
adding that they had cost him "more effort than any of my other songs.”
With "Winterreise" originally composed for the tenor voice
(possibly to give a sense of implied youthfulness) Daniel Johannsen is utterly
convincing as he narrates and emotes, enlisting his large range of dynamics
and engaging in word painting, his vocal timbre warm yet variously coloured, his diction
inviting the audience to savour every word, every gesture. These qualities,
together with Dror Semmel's outstanding and committed reading of the richly
allusive and occasionally austere piano part, made for a vital, moving and altogether
engrossing musical experience.
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| Graf fortepiano (Courtesy Eden-Tamir Music Center) |
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