Lammermuir Festival: Das Lied von der Erde
A tale of two Lieder!
St Mary’s Parish Church in Haddington was looking magnificent on Monday evening, floodlit outside and beautifully lit inside, it is truly the Cathedral of parish churches and a great venue for Mahler’s most famous work. Mahler himself wanted to call it his Ninth Symphony but like many composers was afraid of the ‘curse of the ninth’ i.e. that several composers, including Beethoven, died soon after completing their ninth Symphony. Ironically, Mahler himself died soon after completing ‘Das Lied’, so maybe he was right to worry about the curse! The title became ‘Das Lied von der Erde’ - A Symphony for Tenor, Alto (or baritone) Voice and Orchestra’. Many people agree with Leonard Bernstein that it “was Mahler’s greatest symphony”. Mahler composed the work at a time of great personal trouble and the work based on old Chinese poems is about life, love and death, although as one critic noted there is quite a lot of drinking in it!
St Mary’s was well filled for the concert, but carefully socially distanced, and everyone was fully masked. This was truly a safe environment for a concert. The music was provided by a 14-strong Hebrides Ensemble, ably conducted by William Conway. They were placed right at the front of the church, behind the singers, but they made themselves heard very clearly throughout the concert and there was some fine individual playing by the clarinet, cello, horn and bass. Our two singers were Joshua Ellicott, tenor, and Roderick Williams, baritone, and they were warmly greeted when they came to the front. Mahler originally arranged the work for a tenor and an alto but allowed a baritone when an alto could not be found. There are many fine performances on record with altos and I’ve been listening to them whilst writing this review (Apple Music is very useful!), including Janet Baker and Jessye Norman, but baritones have been singing it frequently recently and it was of course a great pleasure to have such a great baritone as Roderick Williams singing it tonight. Joshua Ellicott is a very well-respected tenor who has been well reviewed internationally and locally has sung with John Butt and the Dunedin. Having listened to his recordings I know he is capable of fine singing, particularly his Florestan. However I think tonight he over-used his powerful tenor in the opening song ‘Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde’ (Drinking Song of the Earth’s Sorrow); it does of course call for a strong declaration in its opening lines but Joshua, maybe in a bid to fill the large St Mary’s space, seemed to almost shout it at the beginning of the song. Having listened to several other tenors in this song, including Jonas Kaufman, Siegfried Jerusalem and Placido Domingo, I don’t think this volume level is necessary. Also the musicians seemed to respond loudly, as if to compete with this powerful voice and the whole opening song became a bit of an aural trial. Speaking to several people after the performance this was a view widely shared.
The contrast was enhanced when Roderick Williams began the second song ‘Der Einsame im Herbst’ (The Lonely one in Autumn) his lovely velvet modulated baritone voice cast a spell across St Mary’s which took us all into the autumn of September outside, but also the autumn of Mahler’s heart as he neared the end of his life. This contrast between Joshua and Roderick continued throughout the work To be fair the baritone does tend to have the best tunes and in particular ends with the mighty ‘Der Abschied’ (The Farewell) which is by far the longest song and leaves us all gripped by his dying “Ewig… ewig“ (Forever …forever).This held us all in a spell and William Conway our conductor kept us suspended for almost a minute afterwards before he dropped his baton. We all gave a great ovation to this wonderful work which was right at home in St Mary’s. It was a great night but also a tale of two Lieder.
