Ailish Tynan
In York on 3 May, you’ll be performing Schumann’s Liederkreis in a new translation by Jeremy Sams. Can you tell us about it?
I’m one of a number of singers who [pianist] Chris Glyn has invited to perform Schumann in English translations by Jeremy Sams – Roderick Williams, for instance, is also doing one. I’ve been singing Liederkreis in German for years, so when Chris asked me whether I’d like to do it, I was delighted to say yes. Having done some of Sams’s translations of opera, I knew it would be good, and what he has done with the texts is really exquisite. I can’t imagine just how difficult is must be to find words that not only rhyme well but also correspond closely enough to the original German. The amount of thought he has put into it and the depth of knowledge he has about the subject matter are exceptional. And it all just flows so beautifully when you sing it.
And as for the music itself, does Schumann always write ideally for the soprano voice?
Actually, I wouldn’t sing his Frauenliebe und -leben again, as it sits very low in the voice for a soprano – it is possibly better suited to a mezzo. Liederkreis, however, sits perfectly, and has the lovely ‘Mondnacht’ in the middle. My only bugbear with this cycle is that, rather than ending on a nice high note, it finishes with an F sharp, which is very middle ground for me. The pianist, in contrast, gets a lovely raucous ending!
Your recital also includes settings of your fellow Irishman James Joyce. Are there a lot of such settings available?
There are, yes. When Joyce was on his uppers in the 1920s, the Irish composer Herbert Hughes wrote to a whole load of composers to say that there was this wonderful author out there who had no money, so could they please compose music setting his texts? So there’s a James Joyce songbook out there. And then, there are later songs such as Barber’s ‘Solitary Hotel’, based on texts from Ulysses, and Cage’s ‘The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs’, taken from Finnegans Wake. It’s a great way to sneak a bit of Irishness in there under the guise of something else!
And is Christopher Glyn a pianist you’ve worked with often?
Chris and my paths have crossed quite a number of times over the years, and as well as being a collaborator of mine, I would also consider him a friend. For me, that’s very important – for a song recital like this, the relationship between the singer and pianist on stage is so intimate that friendship really helps.