Five sublime songs
Joseph Middleton recommends…
Ravel Shéhérazade
This cycle is one of the most delicious journeys a pianist can undertake. The virtuosic passages take flight and the melting pot of the Orient, French and Basque cultures call for heady transparency and crystal clear textures from the piano.
Helen Grime Bright Travellers
Fiona Benson’s poems are extraordinarily moving, raw and honest and Grime responds with music of the utmost beauty. Her piano writing is jewel-like, and the songs run the gamut from virtuosity to sparse folk-like melodies.
Schubert Die Götter Griechenlands
By not setting Schiller’s whole text, Schubert gives the impression of putting something incomplete in front us, as though we’re examining fragments of pottery. We’re left searching for something that is no longer possible – the cruel illusion that even if we want to, it’s not possible for us to go back in time.
Mahler Ich bin der Welt
The energy and concentration required to find a trance-like state in passages of Ich bin der Welt make this most spiritual song one of the most thoughtful utterances to share with an audience. Mahler wrote that this song ‘is my very self’.
Schumann Stille Liebe, Op. 35
The nub of this song might be seen as ‘Clara, I love you and I’m sorry I cannot find success in large-scale symphonic and operatic writing.’
And here is the paradox, for a jewel of the utmost tenderness, love, compassion and immediacy unfolds.