Hildegard Behrens: a musical journey through time and space

CONVERSATIONS with HILDEGARD BEHRENS
"A musical journey through various dimensions of time and space"

Dear Friends at FanFaire,

My heartfelt congratulations on your 10th anniversary and my admiration for your wonderful work!

Time rushed by and it is hard to believe that it has already been a decade since my first interview with FanFaire! A big, big apology for my long delay in answering your questions about my first master class in Japan. I also promised you some thoughts on the music included in my latest EMI-CD, "The Very Best of Hildegard Behrens", especially on Alberic Magnard's wonderful opera Guercoeur. One wonders how such an authentic genius could be forgotten! I will send you my thoughts as soon as possible, so please don't give up on me! [CLICK HERE to listen to an excerpt from Magnard's Guercoeur, HERE for other music clips from the CD, and HERE to join the FanFaire/EMI Classics CD GIVEAWAY.]

Last summer, I was invited to the prestigious Kusatsu Music Festival in Japan. Famous for its hot springs, Kusatsu is an elegant spa which is located a couple of hours from Tokyo, up in the mountains 3,000 feet above sea level. Musicians from all over Europe come together in August for two weeks to perform concerts and give master classes. The temperatures were boiling hot upon my arrival in Tokyo. However, after driving up into the mountains, I found myself in a most beautiful countryside, similar to landscapes in Switzerland with lush vegetation and moderate summer temperatures.

I began my concert program with Schumann's Frauenliebe und Leben, accompanied by Anthony Spiri. I have loved this music for as long as I can remember. True pathos of unconditional love through all its stages: from the first uncertain hopes through happiness of marriage and motherhood and finally the death and loss of the loved partner, shines like a diamond throughout this masterpiece. The naive and genuine emotions move me in a similar way as Agathe's¹ humble faith in the Almighty.

Our generation is suspicious of sincere emotions. Naiveté has become synonymous with stupidity and there is a general fear of being labeled sentimental or kitschy. Showing feelings makes one vulnerable. Irony and sarcasm are ways of putting up a facade of false strength.

[Click PLAY button above to view a slideshow of recital images. The music clip is from the EMI album "The Very Best of Hildegard Behrens" - a FanFaire/EMI Classics CD Giveaway.]

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In the second half of the concert, I performed Arnold Schönberg's Pierrot Lunaire for the first time, conducted by Francis Travis. This ground-breaking, atonal composition was originally commissioned by an Austrian actress around 1910. Schönberg chose a selection of 21 poems from Albert Giraud's Pierrot Lunaire, in the German translation by Otto Erich Hartleben, and made three groups of seven poems each.
[Click PLAY button below to view a slideshow of concert images.]

	He composed for an ensemble of 5 players (8 instruments) and created a vocal part for Sprechstimme.² This was a novelty and therefore, in his preface to the score, Schönberg gives precise instructions as to how he wants the vocalist to perform. Rhythm and tempo are to be strictly observed, while the melody, as noted, must never sound like singing. Only in a handful of places has he explicitly indicated "to be sung". The pitch and intervals, minutely noted throughout, serve as a reference to form a spoken melody, which hits the correct pitch briefly and moves forward to the next syllable and pitch. He urges the soloist not to bring in any additional individual expressions, other than the ones he has asked for. WATCH A VIDEO CLIP OF THE PERFORMANCE.
He writes, "less is more!" As Schönberg was an uncompromising personality, one might think that his instructions are very rigid and limiting, but I found that there is actually abundant room for fantasy, taste and temperament, while still respecting the composer's wishes. The poems tell of Pierrot, the Harlequin of the Comedia del Arte's adventures and mishaps, his vanities, fantasies, memories and his journey back to his home in Bergamo. His world comes to life at full moon as a lunatic, eccentric, grotesque, elegant, frivolous, exalted, decadent and even blasphemous dream. The story unfolds in ever changing moods and lightings. For each poem, Schönberg chose a different combination of instruments, and not one is identical to another. The variety and richness of nuances and densities are mind-boggling. Rhythms, sounds and images are woven into a magic web of silver moon rays. Paintings of Max Ernst, Paul Klee, Rousseau, Dali and Picasso come to mind, as well as the ironic wit and cutting edge of Wilhelm Busch's drawings and poetry. Every moment is suspended in the leggerezza and elegance of the Comedia del Arte. It was an incredible experience and privilege to travel through this wonder world!
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The morning after the concert, all vocal students were scheduled to audition for my master class. In order to avoid a competitive atmosphere, I had announced beforehand that I would accept everybody. The audition was very relaxed and informative. The students all had degrees from various Japanese colleges and universities. One young woman had an engagement with the Tokyo Opera Company. Each student had prepared a repertoire according to his or her aspirations. There were two wonderfully flexible pianists taking turns accompanying them.

Last spring, when I was asked to teach these master classes, I had requested one-on-one meetings as opposed to teaching all the students together and in front of an audience.

My own singing teacher had been a mezzo-soprano, whose career was capped by the war. As a singing professor approaching retirement, she was embittered and acting out much of her anger and frustration on her students. This got in the way of the trust needed between teacher and student. Working with her was a traumatic experience for me. Around the time of my debut at the Metropolitan Opera, a colleague had taken me to a public master class held by a famous dramatic soprano. The Dame in her mid-eighties was insultingly blunt with the young students and embarrassed them with rather personal comments. The audience seemed to enjoy this coercive spectacle. Over the years many colleagues have told me about public master classes where former big names were apparently feeding their egos by exposing the young students more than necessary. Due to these experiences, I developed an aversion to public master classes and so I rejected all offers. My reasoning was that the relationship between teacher and student is delicate and vulnerable and that the concentration is scattered in front of an audience. Instead, I would invite interested young studio singers at opera houses to meet casually and discuss singing-related questions, which I would then answer to the best of my knowledge. In Kusatsu, the master classes took place in a beautiful round chapel with rich, clean acoustics, amidst trees and creeks with the sound of birds and crickets chirping through the open doors.

Once the classes were to begin, I saw that they had been planned and organized in the usual way, with audience and even journalists present.
[Click PLAY button below to view a slideshow of photos from a masterclass.]

	As you can imagine, I was irritated at first, but since the overall atmosphere was so friendly and pleasant, I decided to give it a try. Everyone was immediately absorbed in a most concentrated and creative atmosphere and I soon realized how efficient this method of teaching can be. Each student can profit not only from his or her own lesson, but from witnessing the other students' lessons as well. It is a well known phenomenon that it is easier to recognize problems and mistakes in another person's performance thanks to the distance from one's own self. The audience, if concentrated, can even generate extra energy. I realized that the key to a good experience for everyone in such a situation is integrity. The professor must resist the temptation to show off at the expense of the students. WATCH A VIDEO CLIP of a MASTERCLASS with HILDEGARD BEHRENS
I had been so fixated on the negative aspects of having an audience and its distracting influence, that I had "thrown out the baby with the bathwater". Now the spell was finally broken and I gladly accepted the invitation to return and continue my master classes next August.
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I had to leave Kusatsu before the festival officially ended, since I had a commitment for a concert with Mauricio Kagel at the Beethoven Festival in Bonn. Held in honor of his 75th birthday, the concert was to be a whole evening of Kagel's music, conducted by the composer himself. I had been a Kagel fan since my early student times and looked forward immensely to this collaboration. His Mitternachtstück is a piece in four movements, based on diary entries by the young Robert Schumann. Schumann's prose is bold, eccentric and expressionistic, his ideas reaching ahead of his time. Kagel liked to call Schumann the first surrealist writer. Kagel's gift to create authentic music of great beauty and theatrical impact, and the intelligence of his humor make him one of the greatest composers of our time. [Click PLAY button at left to view a slideshow of rehearsal and performance photos of Kagel's Mitternachtstück.] WATCH a VIDEO CLIP of the PERFORMANCE

In the early years of my career, Kagel was working and performing at the WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk) in Cologne. Like Luciano Berio, of whom I was also a big fan, Kagel loved to explore the technical possibilities of instruments like the accordion which were underrated in the world of classical music. He wrote wonderful pieces for groups of instruments. The players for whom he wrote were workers in factories and coal-mines. They adored him for discovering new potential of their instruments and enabling them to play wonderful music together.

I remember one Sunday morning traveling with my son Philip, who was about five at the time, from Düsseldorf to Cologne to see Kagel's Bestiarium. The Maestro, a kind and unpretentious man of natural authority, gave an introduction in which he told us about the cruel custom in South America of hunting and killing song birds. He played melodies on small, painted ceramic flutes, imitating the mating songs of these beautiful creatures. Unable to resist the mating call, they follow the sound only to be caught or shot by their hunters.

This was shocking and sad and the performance of Bestiarium which followed remained equally vivid in my memory.

On the podium there were two puppet-theaters about 7 ft. high, with open backdrops. An actress was moving behind these theaters, towering over the miniature stages. Her costume was a nurse's uniform with a tight cloth tied around her hair. She wore strange glasses and her nose was covered with an old-fashioned porcelain electric plug which looked like a pig's snout. She had a long stick like the ones Geography teachers use to point things out on large maps. On the puppet stage before her, were little rubber duckies with cute baby faces. The woman, who looked like a cruel prison guard, started abusing and beating these little rubber duckies, which made squeaking sounds so miserable that one wanted to stop her. It was so amazing how Kagel made the rubber ducks come to life and made the audience feel empathy with them and detest the abuser. The depth of his understanding fascinated me.

For me those two weeks were an exciting journey through various dimensions of time and space: from singing Schumannâ€™s most beautiful music and Schönbergâ€™s Sprechgesang² to reciting Schumann's fantastic prose, set into Kagel's irresistible sounds and rhythms. Schumann's discourse about the life and afterlife of tones and especially the hierarchy of tones culminated in the 12 tone theory of Schönberg , one hundred years later. The full moon once again plays a major role.

Last November, Kagel's concert was repeated at the Berlin Philharmonic. Unfortunately, the Maestro was ill and could not conduct this second concert. His music, however, was enthusiastically received in Berlin as it was in Bonn.

NOTES:
¹Agathe - the heroine in the opera Der Freischutz by Carl Maria von Weber, a role which Ms. Behrens sang in her early career and recorded with the renowned conductor Rafael Kubelik.

²Sprechstimme and Sprechgesang - German for spoken-voice and spoken-song, musical terms referring to an expressionist vocal technique that falls between singing and speaking. Sprechstimme is most closely associated with Arnold Schönberg (as exemplified by his Pierrot Lunaire) and the composers of the Second Viennese School and was adopted by Alban Berg who incorporated the technique in his well-known operas Wozzeck and Lulu. The two terms are often used interchangeably, although Sprechgesang is more directly related to the recitative or parlando technique found in works of late 19th and early 20th century Romantic German Opera. - FanFaire.

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