Schumann, Robert - Lieder - Kulman, Elisabeth

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Leveranstid: Skickas vanligtvis inom 2-5 dagar

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Elisabeth Kulman and Eduard Kutrowatz have for many years now been working together, as they share an artistic passion for the unusual and unconventional which has manifested itself in pushing the traditional boundaries between various eras and genres. They aim, in their Lieder programmes, to recount new, interrelated stories, and to this end, they combine song and pieces for piano in unusual sequences, sometimes plucking verses from one song and placing them individually in a programme; carefully and deliberately choosing keys that connect a number of Lieder in order to provide a dramatic link that results in exciting, flowing and sometimes imperceptible combinations. At the 2017 Schwarzenberg Schubertiade, Elisabeth Kulman and Eduard Kutrowatz dedicated the first part of their programme entirely to Robert Schumann. The lieder cycle Frauenliebe und Leben and the op. 104 songs (after lyrics by the singer’s namesake Elisabeth Kulmann, who was born in St. Petersburg in 1808) form a common theme running through this part of the programme, though both song cycles have been broken up and are not sung in full, and are complemented by other songs and piano pieces in the same vein. Meditation and reflection about love and death – the central themes of almost any artistic statement – therefore form a link right from the opening piece from Schumann’s Kinderszenen through to Mondnacht, perhaps the most poignant allegory on transience and leave-taking. For Elisabeth Kulman and Eduard Kutrowatz the key focus when choosing songs is always on the lyrics, the message, and what may lie behind it. It is therefore hardly surprising that they also chose poems by Erich Kästner set by the Austrian composer Herwig Reiter. Despite his acclaimed reputation in German- language literature, Erich Kästner’s works were seldom set to music. His witty, ironic lyrics full of cryptic humour abound with worldly wisdom and hold up a mirror to their readers without merely moralising or preaching. Placing Herwig Reiter’s settings in a dialogue with Lieder by Franz Schubert appears at first glance to be courageous, if not foolhardy. On closer inspection however the art of selection and comparison shown by Kulman and Kutrowatz in their choice of the songs by Reiter and Schubert proves to be the perfect symbiosis. Reiter’s Sachliche Romanze is seamlessly joined with Schubert’s famous Romanze, bringing the heartbreak expressed into the here and now in a truly distressing manner. The Alte Frau auf dem Friedhof serves to extend Schubert’s melancholy in Wehmut and flows into his Litanei, in which “all souls rest in peace”. Thanks to the striking similarity in the primary theme of both songs, the seamless transition from Schubert’s humoristic Schweizerlied to Reiter’s Für die Katz produces a really surprising effect: one might almost think that Reiter had added an additional verse to Schubert’s song! Schubert and Reiter – a successful combination and merging of song settings which certainly do not sound as if they were written 200 years apart.