#61 the elisabeth schwarzkopf collection (part 2)

22 Wolf Lieder (1953)

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Elisabeth Schwarzkopf sings Operetta (1959)

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The Very Best of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (2009)

*Please comment if links are inaccessible, will re-upload.

*Part 1 is here.

#60 The Unknown Kurt Weill - Teresa Stratas

Teresa Stratas (soprano)

01 Meine Herren, mit siebzehn Jahren (Nannaslied)
02 Complainte de la Seine
03 Ich sitze da un' esse Klops (Klopslied)
04 Berlin im Licht
05 Und was bekam des Soldaten Weib?
06 Die Muschel von Margate
07 Wie lange noch?
08 Youkali
09 Der Abschiedbrief
10 Es Regnet
11 Buddy on the Nightshift
12 Schickelgruber
13 Je ne t'aime pas
14 Lied von den braunen Inseln

AMAZON
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#59 Hugues Cuénod Chante Debussy - Hugues Cuénod

Hugues Cuénod (tenor)
Martin Isepp (piano)

01 Le balcon BAUDELAIRE
02 Harmonie du soir BAUDELAIRE
03 Le jet d'eau BAUDELAIRE
04 Recuieillement BAUDELAIRE
05 La mort des amants BAUDELAIRE
06 Nuit d'étoiles DE BANVILLE
07 Fleur des blés GIROD
08 Romance BOURGET
09 Dans le jardin JEULIN
10 Les angélus LE ROY
11 L'ombre des arbres VERLAINE
12 Mandoline VERLAINE
13 Le son du cor safflige vers les bois VERLAINE
14 L'échelonnement des haies VERLAINE
15 Soupir MALLARMÉ
16 Placet futile MALLARMÉ
17 Éventail MALLARMÉ

AMAZON
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#58 thoughts on "l'âme evaporée"

L'âme évaporée et souffrante,
L'âme douce, l'âme odorante des lys divins 
que j'ai cueillis dans le jardin de ta pensée,
Où donc les vents l'ont-ils chassée,
Cette âme adorable des lys?


N'est-il plus un parfum qui reste
De la suavité céleste,
Des jours où tu m'enveloppais
d'une vapeur surnaturelle
faite d'espoir, d'amour fidèle,
de béatitude et de paix?...

The soul, wafting, suffering,
sweet and scented of divine lilies
which I picked from your bountiful garden.
To where then the winds have taken chase
of this beautiful lily's soul?

Is there any more perfume
of the divine tenderness,
of days when you'd cover me
in a supernatural veil
made of hope, of loyal love
of happiness and of peace?

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"L'âme evaporée", or known by its poem's title "Romance", is part of Debussy's "2 Romances". It's a perennial favourite for recitals due to its beautiful arching lines, a medium range (D3-F#4 with an optional G#4) and its beautiful parole, set from Paul Bourget's poem. I have taken the liberty of re-arranging the lines and the words somewhat so that it made more sense to be read as prose. The translation is entirely mine, and I have also freely translated some phrases, e.g. le jardin de ta pensée as 'your bountiful garden', vapeur surnaturelle as 'supernatural veil'.

What do I look for in this song? Well, some of the things are fairly obvious from the score. Romance is one of those songs you could imagine how it should sound from looking at the score alone. L'âme douce should be sung with extreme tenderness, which is hard because it is a short stand-alone phrase. Onwards are a few phrases which require little, excepting an ascent to F#; here Debussy sets it on an i vowel and allows a crescendo, so this should help, but one should remember the climax of the crescendo is on jardin and not on cueillis. Où donc les vents l'ont-ils chassée should be sung with each note detached but equal, in the same way Cette âme adorable des lys should be sung legato. The arching phrases onwards should be sculpted to suggest wistfulness; special attention is to be given to d'une vapeur surnaturelle as the top note of this phrase (E or G#) should be sung dolce, as if in remembrance of a lover's embrace. One should not pour out the full voice for faite d'espoir, d'amour fidèle because to do so will break the structure of the parole; one only need to read the original poetry to see that this phrase and the phrase before it should be connected. Debussy knew this: hence the mf marking as opposed to a full-out f. The last phrase, de béatitude et de paix should be tapered delicately, using mezza voce for de paix, surely peace should be suggested by a beautiful half-voice in piano.

Frances Alda, a contemporary of Nellie Melba, offers a rendition accompanied with an orchestra. Her take on the song is quite passionate, as befitting a soprano who sang against Caruso. Her treatment of the line Cette âme adorable des lys? is especially interesting, her portamento turning the phrase into a musical equivalent of Arc de Triomphe. She also used a similar ornament each time the phrase ends on the dominant from a higher note. She took the higher oppure in d'une vapeur surnaturelle, however she had to break the legato line in order to procure the top G#, which she held (which I do not condone in this music). Overall I find the heavy vibrato often emulates veristic singing which of course is the wrong approach in this music; however this may also be a problem with the recording technology.



Nellie Melba's voice sometimes confuses me. Her timbre, especially its lower register, is similar to Luisa Tetrazzini, but its mid-high and high register has a beautiful purity which is unique to her. It is interesting to compare her rendition to Alda's: Melba also applies the portamento like Alda, but not to the same extreme. She also took the higher oppure; while she also took a breath before surnaturelle her legato is more intact, on the other hand her G# was quite precarious and strained. Her take of the final two phrases (de béatitude | et de paix?) uses a form of voce bianca, perhaps she wishes to suggest wistfulness but I suspect its ability to project in a hall. I find Melba's version more congenial compared to Alda's, as she is more successful in conveying the mood of the piece.



Hugues Cuénod's rendition of the song appeared in an LP of Debussy songs produced in 1972. Hearing it one can hear the qualities which made Cuénod such a cult favourite: his timbre, which I could only describe as 'intense ardour', his immaculate French, and his thoughtful phrasing. Notice how he pauses on the first L'âme and his treatment of the phrases Des jours où tu m'enveloppais | d'une vapeur surnaturelle using one breath but clearly indicating where each phrase ends. There are issues, obviously: above E his intonation is suspect, and some of his descending phrases are quite blanche in comparison to others, for example L'âme douce. In my opinion Cuénod's interpretation is the most successful, as he managed to transmit the wistful longing in the poem in his singing; he did it very simply, by tapering off the extreme end of his phrases into a fil di voce, basically singing a mini-diminuendo every time.

Christopher Maltman sang this song as part of an all-Debussy recital CD in 2001. As a baritone, Maltman offers a different perspective. His phrasing is heavy, ponderous. His treatment of Où donc les vents l'ont-ils chassée is confusing: the score marks are tenuto, but he sang it in an asymmetrical way, stressing vent and rushing through l'ont-ils chassée. Perhaps he wished to mimic a gust, as his phrasing is quite suggestive of something billowing in the wind. Surprisingly he took the higher oppure, using voix-mixte to reach G#. I approve this choice as the setting is art song as opposed to an aria. As a baritone the natural richness of the voice helps in faite d'espoir, d'amour fidèle, but I find that the ponderous phrasing often gets in the way of the interpretation.



Sandrine Piau, a renowned French soprano specialising in Baroque and Mozart, sang Romance in a recital of Romantic French art songs released in 2006. Her voice is a slender lyric with a beautiful purity and homogeneity between the registers. I find her rendition a bit rushed tempo-wise. Her Des jours où tu m'enveloppais is very beautiful, which baffled me as to why her L'âme douce is so bland in comparison when both phrases begin with the same notes. I find her treatment of long phrases more successful than short phrases. Her take of the higher oppure to be least successful even in comparison to Altman's, because her high G# while being very secure, sounds to me like it suddenly appeared out of nowhere instead of being part of a phrase. It is interesting to note that Piau is able to convey the song's mood by her sheer timbre, which is quite suggestive of a young girl or even a boy-soprano with its purity and clean lines.

Philippe Jaroussky, the superstar French countertenor, released an album of French Romantic songs in 2006 to both uproar and admiration. He sang Romance a third lower than written. His diction is the best among the singers compiled here, but one may argue that such a small timbre may allow a greater oral space for diction than would a larger voice. His phrasing is exemplary and at points similar to Cuénod, for example the phrase Que j'ai cueillis dans le jardin. I don't know why but I find his vapeur surnaturelle to be extremely arousing. That said, his Faite d'espoir, d'amour fidèle is quite swamped by the piano, a case of the singer doing right and the pianist doing the opposite.

#57 elephant elbows, and other stuffs

Tragic, I know. (This is not MY elbow, just for illustrative purposes)

• My elbows are looking like hell! Looking on the internet, the remedies offered include: olive oil, cooking butter, a mixture of baking soda and lemon juice (???), loofah scrubbing, and professional advice. There's some nice tips here. My method: Enchanteur lotion. I've always used this shit, my grandma loves it, and when I was in high school and being a big-ass Francophone any product with a remotely French-sounding brand name was IN. When lunch money was tight (and it's always tight in boarding schools) I used to improvise and use this lotion as hair cream. It leaves your hair smelling real nice all day and boys keep looking back when you're going past them. Well it was definitely better than one of my friends who used his shampoo as Brylcreem, right to this day he can't grow more than 3 inches of (head) hair! Back to my elbows, they're looking marginally better than last week, when they looked like cities were built and razed down on them. I'm just going to scrub 'em harder with my loofah - but they hooort so maach!!
• I've just finished orchestrating the fifth lied from my song cycle. I love the English horn so much I gave it a solo cadenza. On the other hand the score really looked like I was neglecting the clarinets (compared to the other lieder I've already composed), but ah well. The lyrics are quite raunchy: there's references to bunian people, Malay version of sirens, and coming to death naked, which is basically true, right?

"Datanglah, wahai hati yang duka

Hati muda gundah gerhana

Hati yang tidak disinar suria

Hati yang sunyi tanpa gembira, tak gembira.

Hati sayu berseorangan

di gelap malam bermuraman

diteman bulan dan sepuluh bintang,

tujuh ratus saka bunian.

Hai manusia! hujungmu 'dah hampir

seribu nafas 'dah kau hembus.

Hai manusia! akalmu jahil,

badanmu fana bagaikan kabus.

Datanglah, anak kecil manusia,

datanglah padaku dengan segera

dengan telanjang dari segala peristiwa

duduklah denganku di sisiku selama-lamanya."

Come, Blackheart

The restless youth

in sunless eclipse,

O unhappy heart!

Lonely heart,

sulking in darkness,

with the moon and ten stars

and seven hundred sirens' curses.

Man-child! your end is nigh

your thousand breaths are spent.

Man-child! you are naive,

your body melts like the mist.

Come, Man-child,

come to me now,

naked from your sins,

come and sit with me forever.

© fUGA arts limited 2011

• Last Friday I concluded my ENT posting (that's Ear, Nose and Throat or Otolaryngology for you prudes) with a bang. I got a question about nasal mass and a test to confirm whether it's a polyp or a hypertrophied inferior turbinate (basically a 'roided up nose verandah) and I said "proding test" (it was actually "probing test"). Apart from that it went well. Right now I'm supposed to be writing up case reports for the posting but hey, I'm allowed a rest from time to time! My next posting is Ophthalmology. I wasn't a good Ophthal student (wasn't good at ENT either, but at least I really like looking down people's throats, maybe it's the singer in me), but I'll try hard. BANZAI!!

• The 2010 Grammy nominations are out! On the classical front, I'm rooting for Fab Fabio's Ercole su'l Termodonte for Opera Recording (although a Billy Budd win would be nice, too) and Diva/Divo (Joyce DiDonato!!!) for Solo Vocal Performance. The Ercole should win for Beloved Vivica's performances alone: her Con aspetto lusinghiero was dangerously sultry, and her Scenderò, volerò, griderò could probably replace surgery to cure tongue-tie; but this precious (on musicological terms, seeing as it was a scholarly reconstruction of the score) recording also has DiDonato, Damrau, Beloved Jaroussky (!!!!!!), Ciofi and Lehtipuu. Villazón is a known quantity (translation: meh!) and I've sadly no other information about Miss Romina Basso, but she was at least effective. Oh, I'm looking forward to this already! (And the Academy's chance to correct their decision over snubbing Beloved Vivica's Vivaldi album last year, what a fiasco!) Good luck everyone!!