Books, Arts & Manners: Schubert, Mozart

I INVITE EXCOMMUNICATION when I recall all those afternoons spent at New York’s Town Hall as a young critic, suppressing yawns as I listened to Schubert Lieder. You and the world know—it has been said so often that we must all know—that Franz Schubert could immortalize a dinner menu by setting it to music. A few of us suggest that some of what he set to music was not very superior to what the table d’hôte announces. Do I forget Schubert’s great lyric gift? I do not.

Perhaps it is the way Lieder—Schubert’s and other composers’—are sung that induces the longueurs. Perhaps we would do better with Ella Fitzgerald. At least she would not go through that finger-milking routine which appears to be required of Lieder singers, whether they are having a go at Schubert or Hugo Wolf. Lyric sopranos that I elsewhere enjoy and admire fall into the trap—and I cite Lucia Popp, who has successfully sung Mozart in the major opera houses of Europe, as a case in point. I had looked forward to her traversal of songs from such Schubert song cycles as Die Forelle, Die Junge Nonne, and An Sylvia (Angel DS-38139) to rid me of my heresies—but, mea maxima culpa, I remain unconverted.

RT

About the Author

Ralph de Toledano

Featured Tags

Manage following

Classical Music

Music

I INVITE EXCOMMUNICATION when I recall all those afternoons spent at New York’s Town Hall as a young critic, suppressing yawns as I listened to Schubert Lieder. You and the world know—it has been said so often that we must all know—that Franz Schubert could immortalize a dinner menu by setting it to music. A few of us suggest that some of what he set to music was not very superior to what the table d’hôte announces. Do I forget Schubert’s great lyric gift? I do not.

Perhaps it is the way Lieder—Schubert’s and other composers’—are sung that induces the longueurs. Perhaps we would do better with Ella Fitzgerald. At least she would not go through that finger-milking routine which appears to be required of Lieder singers, whether they are having a go at Schubert or Hugo Wolf. Lyric sopranos that I elsewhere enjoy and admire fall into the trap—and I cite Lucia Popp, who has successfully sung Mozart in the major opera houses of Europe, as a case in point. I had looked forward to her traversal of songs from such Schubert song cycles as Die Forelle, Die Junge Nonne, and An Sylvia (Angel DS-38139) to rid me of my heresies—but, mea maxima culpa, I remain unconverted.