Italian pianist Tullia Melandri records Robert Schumann's Op.4 Intermezzi and Sonata No.1 Op.11 on fortepiano

Photo: © renska I media-weavers

Italian pianist Tullia Melandri has recorded Robert Schumann’s Intermezzi Op.4 and Piano Sonata in F sharp minor Op.11 on a Joseph Simon fortepiano (Vienna, c.1830), an instrument built at the time Schumann was composing the works on this recording. This particular instrument was restored at the Laboratorio di Restauro del Fortepiano in Florence. 

Schumann referred to the Opus 4 Intermezzi, composed from April to July 1832 and published in 1833 as “longer Papillons”, but the Intermezzi are different to the Op.2 “Papillons” in that they include almost no literary allusions. Only in Intermezzo No.2 is there any extra-musical reference, with the marking above the slower middle section reading as “Meine Ruh’ ist his…” (My peace of mind has vanished, spoken by Gretchen in Goethe’s “Faust”, Part 1.)  In his diary the 22-year-old composer wrote: “The Intermezzi are going to be something special – each note is going to be weighed up carefully”. Probing his musical world in depth and the influences feeding into it is not within the capability of every pianist. French literary theorist, philosopher and critic Roland Barthes referred to Schumann as “the musician of solitary images … an amorous and imprisoned soul that speaks to himself”; in 1846, German music critic Eduard Hanslick dismissed Schumann’s music as too “interior and strange” to have a future. Tullia Melandri’s performance of the Op.4 Intermezzi is quick to involve the listener, as she conjures up the pieces with her generous, unfettered, quick-change artistry - their sense of spontaneity, of urgency, of whimsy, their forays into magical worlds, their lyricism and tenderness, here and there, tinged with just a hint of melancholy. Her technical savoir faire gives expression to Schumann’s profuse pianistic textures and his preoccupation with counterpoint at the time. (The composer claimed that he had learned more about counterpoint by reading Jean Paul than he did by taking counterpoint classes.) Melandri wields the Simon fortepiano with mastery and pizzazz, its untamed timbre lending immediacy to the work’s unprompted gestures and clarity to its densest textures.

 

Piano Sonata No.1 in f-sharp minor, Op. 11 showcases the complex inter-relationship between Schumann's music and his life; his compositional style is wrought of many influences - the writings of Romantic authors Jean Paul Richter and E. T. A. Hoffmann and the music of Beethoven, Schubert, and J.S.Bach. No less relevant to the background of the work is, however, that it was begun when the 23-year-old Schumann was engaged to marry Ernestine von Fricken and finished when he became enamoured with the 15-year-old virtuoso pianist Clara Wieck, who would become his wife in 1840. Completed in August 1835 and published anonymously, the sonata was dedicated to Clara under the names Florestan and Eusebius, contrasting characters (from Jean Paul’s novel “Flegeljahre” -The Awkward Age), representing the eternal Dionysian-Apollonian dichotomy and, most pertinently, the two contrasting sides of Schumann’s own personality - the turbulent and the reflective. As to his approach to the sonata construction, Schumann reshapes it to serve his personal narrative, interpolating previous works into its weave. Melandri sets the work’s immense soundscape before the listener. Its moments of forceful turbulence and insistence never emerge as unchecked or coarse. Her treatment of the second movement - Aria - (based on “To Anna”, a song he composed in 1828) is wistful and luminous, its melodic strands beautifully delineated. As to the enigmatic Scherzo with its polonaise-like Intermezzo and puzzling recitative, Melandri navigates its multipartite agenda with some elasticity, then to entice the listener into the fantasy and new sound world of each episode of the Finale, to conclude with consummate bravura. 

 

It is the piano pieces created by Schumann in the 1830s that are exceptionally emotional and intense. Tullia Melandri examines their multiplicity, engaging the Joseph Simon fortepiano’s darker, slightly gritty but crystalline timbre and reliable mechanical reaction to give both actuality and emotional depth to these works. Recorded for the Dynamic label, the disc’s sound quality is buoyant and vigorous. This CD is a must for those of us interested in how historic keyboards and the works originally played on them converge. 

 

Born in Faenza, Italy, in 1976, Tullia Melandri’s piano studies took place in Rovigo, Siena, Imola and Livorno. In 2002, she graduated from the University of Bologna in Culture and Heritage Conservation, with a major in music, presenting a thesis on music philology. Her interest in historically informed performance has taken her to the Netherlands, where she studied fortepiano with Bart van Oort. An award winner of several piano and chamber music competitions, Melandri performs widely.

 

The 2019 Vocal Fantasy Festival, under the auspices of the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra, signs out with G.F.Handel's "Esther" sung in Hebrew

Photo: Yoel Levy

Taking place at the Jerusalem International YMCA on July 27th, the event concluding the 2019 Vocal Fantasy Festival, was a unique performance of G.F.Handel’s oratorio “Esther”. Joining the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra were the Collegium Choro Musici Riga (director: Māris Kupčs, organ), soloists from the Collegium Choro Riga and bass Nerijus Masevičius (Lithuania). Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra founder and musical director David Shemer conducted from the harpsichord.

 

Handel began composing the music for what would become the first English oratorio when serving as resident composer for James Brydges, Duke of Chandos from 1717 to 1818 at Cannons, the duke’s estate north of London. It was a pivotal stepping stone in Handel’s development as a composer and a compelling drama in its own right. Based on the Old Testament and Jean Racine’s 1689 play, the oratorio tells of Esther, a Jewish orphan who has become wife to the Persian king Ahasverus.  Haman, a kind of court minister, feels wronged when Mordecai, a relative of Esther, does not bow to him. As revenge, Haman orders the death of all Jews in the kingdom.  As to the unique performance at the Vocal Fantasy Festival, Handel actually made two settings of “Esther”. These oratorios claimed the attention of the Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam, which commissioned poet Rabbi Jacob Raphael Saraval to translate the oratorio’s text into Hebrew. Saraval chose sections from both oratorios. Israeli conductor and harpsichordist Shalev Ad-El came up with the idea of integrating Saraval’s text with Händel’s music, constructing a new form of the oratorio using the two original versions with Saraval’s translation. How justified was this? It is known that Händel was unrivalled in his liberalism and tolerance and known for his supportive attitude to Jews.  Ad-El performed the “new” version in New York in the early 2000s and with great success. In his Vocal Fantasy Festival program notes, Maestro David Shemer writes: “Some years ago, the cantor of a Jewish community in Riga asked for suggestions for the program of the Mikhail Alexandrovich Jewish Music Festival, to be more specific, for a concert within the festival that would be dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Jewish-Latvian composer and musicologist Max Goldin. When I was a student in Riga in the 1970s, I was privileged to be among Prof. Goldin’s students and the above-mentioned proposition moved me deeply. For the occasion, I suggested performing Handel’s oratorio “Esther” in Hebrew. My colleague Shalev Ad-El was generous in putting material from his New York performance at my disposal. Fifteen years had passed since that performance, and I was sure that if Shalev himself were to return to the score now, he would introduce some changes. So it became my mission to continue the editing process, which, of course, was based massively on the work Ad-El had done on it earlier. A group of young gifted singers took part at the Riga performance in September 2017, as well as the choir and Baroque Orchestra of Collegium Musicum Riga under the artistic direction of Māris Kupčs, a central figure of early music in Latvia…”

 

So once again, Collegium Choro Musici soloists and choir were singing the work in Hebrew, no mean task for non-Hebrew speakers. As the Israelite woman, Tereze Gretere’s singing was at times delicate and honeyed, at others forthright, with Ansis Betins, in the role of Ahasverus, displaying fine tenor vocal colour. As Esther, Monta Martinsone gave a precise, compelling performance, her singing crystal clear and tastefully ornamented. Impressive, convincing and empathic, alto Sniedze Kanepe, possessing a large, natural voice and innate musicality, gave credence to the role of Mordecai, as she embellished key notes with some vibrato. Nerijus Masevičius made for an authoritative, intense - at times, dramatic - and sensitive Haman, his warm bass voice reaching all corners of the YMCA auditorium. The Collegium Choro Musici singers gave meaning and finely shaped expression to the choruses, the lush blend of the fine selection of voices indeed pleasing. The ensemble of just 15 instrumentalists and the chamber choir might have been similar in size to what Handel had at his disposal at Cannons, giving the performance intimacy and immediacy, with some splendid solo- and collaborative instrumental playing. Shemer’s conducting brought all together in subtle eloquence. A memorable event, the oratorio concluded with a substantial, uplifting chorus energized by triumphant brass and Sniedze and Masevičius’ voices threaded through the weave. 

“The Lord our enemy has slain, Alleluja!

Ye sons of Jacob, sing a cheerful strain!

Sing songs of praise, bow down the knee.

The worship of our God is free!

For ever bless'd be thy holy name,

Let Heav'n and earth his praise proclaim.”

 

Photo: Yoel Levy

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