Re-engaging the Art of Story Telling in Music

7pm Friday 8th September 2023

Directed by Dr Neal Peres Da Costa

What did Beethoven’s famous Fifth Symphony sound like at the first Viennese performance in 1808? And how did the Italian soprano Dorotea Bussani (1763–1809) transmit Cherubino’s crazed infatuation for the Countess to the audience, in Mozart’s aria “Voi che sapete” at the 1787 premier of his opera The Marriage of Figaro in Vienna? Without a time machine we will never find the answers to these questions. But, one thing is certain: musicians (singers and instrumentalists) from the eras of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and other composers of the 18th and 19th centuries delivered music in imaginatively expressive ways that projected stories to the audience. Through the employment of myriad expressive devices including inflections of tone and timing, musicians took their listeners on scintillating journeys, sometimes whispering, sometimes shouting, at times calm, sorrowful or languid, at others frantic or angry.

But this continuum of expressive devices in musical delivery were all but expunged during the first half of the twentieth century with the rise of modernism, a time of unprecedented change across the arts and other disciplines, in which the ‘sentimentality’ of the 19th century was expressly rejected. In classical music this resulted in styles of delivery which were much more closely bound to the composer’s score notation and markings (which depending on the era could bequite scant), leaving little room for improvised musical creativity from the performer. Thus, the palate of expression available to artists was severely reduced to the extent that performers became “a disappearing transmitter of canonic works and [composers’] identities” to borrow the words of Anna Scott. The development of sound recording at the turn of the 20th century accelerated this change allowing musicians and audiences around the globe quick and easy access to a multitude of performances. This together with the effects of globalization have led overall to a homogeneity in classical music performance; we know how Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony sounds: it should sound the way we hear it on recordings, on the radio, and in the concert hall!

Alas, all is not lost! Early sound recordings preserve the artistry of many revered musicians, some of whom were trained in the middle of the 19th century or a little before. These recordings allow us to experience how musicians within a half century of the passing of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert expressed musical stories. We hear their performance practices “unearthed from a time capsule” to quote David Kjar. They provide rich opportunity for us to learn from bygone artists by emulating (imitating) and embodying their interpretations to make them our own: not for the sake of creating museum performances, but to inspire fresh and novel approaches, paving the way for reimagining music of the past creatively and with appropriately improvisatory spirit.

Tonight, for your delectation, we have assembled a program that intersperses a sound scape of early recordings with live performances. We invite you to listen to the past while experiencing the present. The use of gut-strung stringed instruments, period wind instruments, timpani and a Viennese piano add historical colours that help in our story telling efforts. Our singers, too, are experimenting with the raising and lowering of their larynx position and soft palette to attain myriad hues ranging from clear and light to dark and heavy as was the expectation in bel canto before the 20th century. We hope you enjoy our story telling.

“Voi che sapete” from Marriage of Figaro by Mozart

Emulation by Anna Fraser

Relief from the devilish strains of this movement comes in Mozart’s delectable aria “Voi che sapete” recorded in 1905 by Adelina Patti (1843–1927), arguably the most celebrated soprano of the 19th-century. Patti’s way of expressing the feverish adoration of Cherubino for the Countess is extraordinary by modern standards. She makes frequent changes of tempo to underscore sentimental words or to ignite passionate phrases, modifies vocal timbre to match ever-changing emotions, and employs sliding effects and expressive tremolo to provide particular poetic colouring. It is tantalising to ponder that Patti’s singing preserves remnants at least of the style of singing Mozart heard and expected from a singer such as Dorotea Bussani! Patti’s recording is followed by our performance of the aria, sung by Anna Fraser who is currently exploring historical bel canto techniques in her doctoral studies at SCM as team member on the Australian Research Council funded Discovery Project The shock of the old: rediscovering the sounds of bel canto 1700–1900. Anna has emulated and embodied Patti’s style of singing this aria in a very detailed manner to understand her sound world. Likewise, the Early Music Ensemble has emulated orchestrally the effects evident in the playing of Patti’s collaborative pianist.

“In the Shady Blest Retreat” from Cantata Vauxhall Song W.H. 28, Version by Domenico Corri, The Singing Preceptor

Sung by Anna Fraser

From Mozart we are transported into the magical world of a forest grove in J. C. Bach’s (1735–1782) gentle aria “In the Shady Blest Retreat”. For the performance tonight, Anna Fraser brings to life a 19th-century version of this aria marked up by the renowned singing teacher Domenico Corri (1746–1825), littered with expressive indications and ornamental figures that are eye-opening about ways in which singers of the era enhanced text and story.

“Aufenthalt” from Schwanengesang by Franz Schubert

Emulation by Anna Fraser and Neal Peres Da Costa

We hear next an extract from Schubert’s brooding song “Aufenthalt” (Resting Place) from his song cycle Schwanengesang in a stirring rendition replete with noticeable changes of tempo and rhythm, and other expressive devices by the Russian singer Lev Sibiyakov (1869–1942) recorded in St Petersburg in 1912. Anna Fraser and Neal Peres Da Costa perform an emulation of Sibiyakov’s (and his accompanist’s) interpretation followed by a beautiful little song called “Liebe” (Love) from the third book of Lieder und Gesänge (1818) by Johann Anton André (1775–1842), best known for being Mozart’s publisher. “Liebe” takes us into a fascinating world of expressive possibilities. André’s extensive markings provide a treasure trove of information, a veritable masterclass in methods of storytelling in musical delivery with frequent changes of tempo, a plethora of accent, crescendo and diminuendo signs that underscore the words and their meaning. For example, the first stanza has three changes of tempo in the space of 5 bars (see translation below):

“Strong is the rough hand of death” crotchet = 54

“but stronger still is love” crotchet = 66

Such changes of tempo to enhance the increasingly positive message of the text would hardly have been envisaged but for this information.

“Liebe” from Lieder und Gesänge by Johann Anton André 

Performed by Anna Fraser and Neal Peres Da Costa

We follow it immediately with the beautiful second movement from André’s little-known E flat Symphony (1805), an instrumental recitative and aria to which we are applying the principles of expression discovered in “Liebe”. This is likely to be the first time André’s “Liebe” and his symphonic movement will be heard in Australia.

© Neal Peres Da Costa, 2023