REIMANN, A.: Song Cycles after Schubert, Brahms, Schumann and Mendelssohn (Banse, Cherubini Quartet) (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Aribert Reimann - August Wilhelm Schlegel)

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The convention of a composer transcribing and even embroidering on the work of another composer is one of the oldest in western music. Parody masses, beginning at least as early as the fourteenth century, employed a popular melody, or the melody of another composer, as one of the lines in its polyphonic structure. Bach made arrangements of Vivaldi concerti and transcriptions of operatic selections were a staple of the repertoire of nineteenth century piano virtuosi. The practice has fallen somewhat out of favor in the twentieth century, however, with its emphasis on purity and period authenticity. Folk song arrangements are still considered acceptable, but a project of the scale and audacity of Aribert Reimann's arrangements of masterpieces of German Romantic lieder is unusual. Reimann is not a household name on the U.S. music scene, but in Germany he is one of the most successful and best-known composers of opera and vocal music. He is also a skilled accompanist intimately familiar with the lieder repertoire, so this project of arranging songs originally accompanied by piano for string quartet is bound to have had an extended period of gestation. The selections here run the gamut from simple arrangements of individual songs entirely faithful to the original to the combination of a number of songs into a single long movement, with distinctly contemporary connective passages linking the songs. Brahms' Fünf Ophelia-Lieder and Schumann's Sechs Gesänge, Op. 107, receive the most conservative treatment -- skillful and idiomatic arrangements of the piano part for string quartet that might have been made by the composers themselves. Reimann's combination of three Schubert songs into a single extended work with original but Schubertian-sounding bridge material represents a middle ground. Reimann's most daring foray is his 24-minute single-movement "...oder soll es Tod bedeuten?" (...or does it mean death?), based on nine Mendelssohn settings of texts by Heine. The songs Reimann selected begin with the hope of new love and gradually become more anxious until the cycle ends in the bitterness of "Warum sind denn die Rosen so blass" (Why are the roses so pale), which Mendelssohn left incomplete, and in which Reimann leaves the voice to trail off in despair. The songs are clearly Mendelssohn's (with occasional alterations in the accompaniment), but they are framed by the matrix of a contemporary harmonic and gestural language that provides an astringent commentary on the dark texts and intensifies the anguish implicit in Mendelssohn's sweet settings. Reimann's treatment of the Mendelssohn may not please purists, but for the adventurous listener, his additions offer fresh insights into the texts and music of the originals. His arrangements of the Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms are entirely idiomatic and could easily slip into the growing repertoire of songs for voice and string quartet. The Cherubini Quartett plays with resonance, warm tone, and passion. Soprano Juliane Banse sings expressively, but her voice lacks the richness and warmth to fully inhabit the songs. Reimann's settings deserve to be heard again with a great lieder singer to make a compelling case for them.
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