Music Lounge (46)

I knew Jan DeGaetani’s name as someone connected to the contemporary music scene in the US and that she was considered an artists’ artist or something like that, but I had actually never any of her recordings until two years ago when I found the track featured this week in our Music Lounge. I was then looking for a recording of Schubert’s Lied der Mignon (Nur wer die Sehnsucht…) and, after having checked all usual suspects, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to give her CD a try. It took me entirely by surprise – the way she and the pianist establish the emotional atmosphere of the song from the first bar was a revelation for me. It has remained my favorite recording of that song, although the recorded sound is far from ideal. To start with, it places a hard edge in her voice and lacks some space. But still – once you listen to it, all other performances sound a bit artificial in comparison.

In 1826, Schubert composed a group of four songs – Gesänge aus “Wilhelm Meister” – inspired by Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (“Wilhelm Meister’s Aprenticeship”). I won’t even try to summarize the plot, for in truly Romantic style, it is impossible to summarize. Among its many characters, there is Mignon, a teenage girl rescued by the title character, who takes her under his protection, since she is lost to her family (not entirely – but it’s too complicated to explain). She is a highly emotional young person who happens to be infatuated with her protector and finally dies of a broken heart when she discovers he is love with someone else. In more than one occasion, the characters in the book sing – and their songs are part of the novel itself. Schubert’s 1826 set turns around Mignon – first there is a duet referred to as Mignon und der Harfner with the text Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, while the three remaining songs share the title Lied der Mignon and generally are named by their first verse. The last song, which we are hearing today, has the same text of the duet – Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt/weiss was ich leide./Allein und abgetrennt von aller Freude/Seh’ ich ans Firmament/Nach jener Seite./Ach, der mich liebt und kennt/Ist in der Weite./Es schwindelt mir, es brennt/ mein Eingeweide./Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt/weiss was ich leide. (“Only those who know longing/Understand what I am suffering/Alone and cut off from all joy/I look at the firmament/In that direction [i.e., where she comes from, Italy]/Ah, he who loves and knows me/Is far away/I feel dizzy/My entrails are aflame/Only those who know longing/Understand what I am suffering”). The text appears in the eleventh chapter of the novel’s fourth book. Wilhelm Meister is ill and melancholic and hears Mignon and the Harper (who is actually Mignon’s unknown father)sing a song that mirror his state of mind.

It is indeed a very sad song, a bit Italianate in its melodic flow and very simple in accompaniment, meant to evoke the harp playing just like when Mignon sings it in the book. Its structure is very similar to many Schubert’s settings of short poems. We have an introduction with the main theme plain in octaves, there is a significant dissonance to emphasize a key word (here Sehnsucht – “longing”). The above mentioned upward three-note arpeggio is used for the first two verses. When Mignon says she is alone and cut off from all joy, the accompaniment acquires a different pattern – a bass note followed by a chord, which settles with a repeated bass note for the last lines in the first part (Ach, der mich lieb und kennt… ). The change in the accompaniment is not accidental. The arpeggio is used for the verses in which Mignon is appealing to the listener who has gone through her predicament too. It is supposed to be enticing. The bass + chord is the part in which she explains how she feels – and the new accompaniment is sparser and therefore a bit gloomier. It also provides a more convincing transition for the short B section (the one in which she has a manic episode) with its repeated chords, the traditional musical representation of agitation. The B section is more recitative-like and also little bit more “German” than the sensuous melody that represents her longing for Italy.

In Jan DeGaetani’s interpretation, the song sounds downright depressing. First, she and her pianist Gilbert Kalisch adopt a very slow tempo. As many performers of contemporary music, DeGaetani had a particularly good ear for tonal color and uses it as an element of discourse rather than just emotional expression. Although Schubert died one century before the composition most of her repertoire was composed, DeGaetani’s artistry was an ideal match for his music. First, her voice was an ideal instrument for his “descriptive” style of Lieder. If she billed herself a mezzo, the bright sound is rather soprano-ish in tone though. It may be my imagination, but I hear a faint splash of Régine Crespin (albeit in miniature) in the warmth behind the tight focus that acquires an edge in the upper register. It is also a voice that sounds believably young, but not childish. And that makes her well-suited to the Mignon Lieder (which she sings one whole tone lower than the original, in a “medium voice” edition). When we first hear her, the sound itself suggests some weariness, at some points glassy, as if it was about to break. Most singers try to make the repetition of the first two lines a little bit more emphatic – and I find this unconvincing. Although the reinstatement goes a bit higher than in the first time, I don’t think that, at this point, Mignon is being emphatic at all. Actually, the text of the song is not about convincing anyone – she says “you’ll only know what is going on with me if you have been there too”. That is why it is so effective the way she fines down the voice in the end of the repeat to almost whisper after a weiss that sounds like a sigh, a slight hesitation before she ends the phrase. The way she colors her voice when she says “Alone and cut off from all joy” is pure vulnerability. We feel at each phrase there is a small surge of energy that quickly dies away, as in the descending notes in nach jener Seite (as Schubert expressly requires), and this is a good way of suggesting the kind of languor Mignon experiences when she thinks about how alone and far away from home she is. DeGaetani ends the first section with a hushed, slightly breathy tone that has a taste of tears. It is a very touching and expressive piece of singing.

Although this is supposed to be only a text Mignon is singing (i.e., not her own words), this is a small sample of her character, since she is prone to nervous outbreaks, fainting spells etc. Accordingly, Schubert was very clever to make the next two verses a disruption of the overall mood of the song (just like he did in the duet with the same text). DeGaetani sings them with a brighter tone and a little bit more energy, which is the right way to prepare the repeat of the first two verses, first sung a tad louder, as if still under the effect of the agitation of the middle section, only to end in an almost lifeless tone.

DeGaetani insisted that a Liederabend is chamber-music, pianist and singer sharing the same importance. It seems that she always worked with Gilbert Kalish, whom she met in the beginning of her career. It is indeed remarkable how he shared with her the ability of tonal colouring. On listening to their Schubert/Wolf CD, we hear how they both favored slower tempi precisely because they were capable of rendering the slightest mood in change and hue in a phrase. Again, it is sad that the sound engineering in this recital is below optimal. Yet it is not a drawback at all. I’ve listened to it again and again with great pleasure.