1900! What an image of glamour that can conjure up! La Belle Epoque! The era when kings and emperors still ruled! While the masses toiled in filthy London fogs, or in the warren of back streets in Paris, to take but two examples, for the privileged classes, life was sweet.
In Hyde Park, the Bois de Boulogne, the Prater or Unter den Linden, ladies in long dresses and extravagant hats promenaded in their carriages, and at night, in diamond dog-collars so heavy they could barely move their pretty little heads, danced with dashing officers, many of whom had never seen a battle.
In England, Queen Victoria had one more year to live before Edward VII, that most Edwardian of Edwardians, took over for his brief reign, leaving his serious son George V to cope when war broke out. In Vienna, Emperor Franz Josef, affectionately known as Old Fritz to his subjects, most of whom couldn’t remember anyone else, still doggedly got up before dawn, put on his uniform (always uniform) and settled down at his desk. In Paris, the inhabitants, having had two emperors and decided that was enough, were very much La République Française, and the city was La Ville Lumière, the centre of all that was fashionable. In Berlin, Kaiser Wilhelm II strutted in ever more elaborate uniforms, trying to disguise his withered arm, built battleships even bigger than his ego, and gave very questionable stag parties, at one of which an elderly General was made to dance in a tutu with fatal results. He died of a heart attack on the spot.
Our four singers, accompanied by – no, working in close collaboration with – James Sherlock, presented a very clever selection of what was going on in the musical world from 1900 to 1914.
We started with tenor Paul Robinson in Vienna, where Gustav Mahler was the feared Director of the Staatsoper, and cabbies would point him out to their passengers – “Der Mahler” as he walked to rehearsals.
Paul sang three of Mahler’s great songs to poems by Ruckert. All three were sung with Paul’s customary sympathy and excellent German, but the most touching was “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” – I have lost touch with the world. The two great Austrian composers Schubert and Mahler, are both exceptional exponents of solitude. This song is not so much the icy loneliness of a cycle like Winterreise – it shows someone who has really gone beyond all other feeling into an ideal love which encloses them completely.
We then crossed the border for the music of Reynaldo Hahn – darling of the Paris salons, darling of Proust, and requiring a singer who really conveys their Frenchness. In Katherine Nicholson we got that – her French is extremely good and she understands the style. Katherine deserves to be heard much more.
And over the Channel to Blighty. Step forward tenor Aidan Coburn and baritone Martin Oxenham. To Aidan fell the best of composers represented – Ralph Vaughan Williams – and he presented a graceful “Linden Lea” and then the very well-known “Silent Noon”. The soft top note in the phrase “When twofold silence is the song – the song of love” was very beautiful.
We then, alas, began to hit composers who were killed in World War I. Martin Oxenham, a very experienced singer, sang songs by William Denis Browne, of whom I confess I had never heard, and George Butterworth, both of whom never came home. Between these he sang one of those baritone stalwarts “Sea Fever” by John Ireland, which suited him very well. The lost song “Sleep” was by the tragic Ivor Gurney, who did survive the war, only to spend the rest of his life in a mental hospital, as he had problems already.
A small digression here. For those of you who are not up-to-date with the activities of our Singing Men, two of them are spending the summer working at major opera festivals – Nicholas Mogg (the tall baritone with the beard – keep up!) at Aix-en-Provence, and Aidan Coburn at Glyndebourne. I have already heard and seen Nick as a very elegant (in both senses!) Count in The Marriage of Figaro but I have never heard Aidan sing anything from any opera at all. So this was a first.
“E lucevan le stelle” from Tosca must be one of the best known and most poignant arias from the big Italian repertoire. The concluding scene, where Cavaradossi is escorted to the top of the Castel Sant’Angelo and left alone, except for, usually, one watchful sentry, to realize this is the end for him and his love for Tosca, and everything, is a show-stopper. British tenors who can sing Puccini are quite thin on the ground, but we had one here. By the time Aidan, in fluent Italian, reached the climax “E muoio in disperato!” – I die in desperation – his voice rang round the church in real pain. There was quite a gasp from the audience.
We needed the interval to cool off. After which, off to Germany, with Paul our guide through four of Richard Strauss’ songs. One, which I had never heard, the” Song of the Stonecutter”, was really funny. Strauss had his humorous moments. Paul can be very funny on the platform, of which more shortly.
With dizzying speed we were back in England for two more songs by Balfour Gardiner from Martin, including the rather wry “When I was young and twenty”.
Roger Quilter wrote songs – that is what he did – and Aidan sang several of them. “O mistress mine” probably was the most rewarding for him to sing, and for us.
I haven’t forgotten James, who all this time had shown what a very fine accompanist he is, but now came a special treat. Katherine once more demonstrated her skill at French song, by Ravel, even though they were entitled “Five Popular Greek Melodies”. James played them superlatively well.
And then, I have to admit, one of the most enjoyable items – what’s wrong with a bit of fun? “Goodbye my little soldier” originally from another operetta, is known to my generation as being from the musical “White Horse Inn”. Paul and James had a ball! In the plot, the Head Waiter Leopold, having failed to win the hand of the landlady of the Inn, his boss, is going off to join the Foreign Legion. It has an irresistible swinging tune, Paul got every giggle out of the words, and between the verses James put down the loud pedal and vamped it up to be a credit to any smoky Viennese Bierkeller. Whoopee! Paul sent us off with a cheeky little wave. I waved back!
Then we became serious again. Paul continued with more Ivor Gurney, a song by Lodewyck Mortelmans, a Belgian composer I also had never heard of and (and Paul’s French is very good too) a tragic song of the plight of children in a war torn country, by Debussy, a new one to me and very sharp-edged. Last was “Love bade me welcome” by Vaughan Williams.
And then the lamps went out all over Europe. And the music had to stop.
Songs before the Storm
Suzanne Pinkerton