Jordi, a reader of Liederabend, sent me a few weeks ago the link of a video in which David Hurwitz talked about “The Lieder Problem”. In case you don't know Hurwitz, he's a music critic and author specialized in classical music based in New York, the founder of the online magazine Classics Today. He also maintains a very active YouTube channel with 17,000 subscribers. He published on this channel two years ago the talk that Jordi sent, you can watch it here.
The video contains strong statements and opinions. The first time I watch it, I was surprised (though I was warned); the second time, I took notes to think about it. This article is written from those notes and thoughts (a summary version); I will be very pleased to read your comments on the different issues that Hurwitz discusses. And I would also like to read his comments, given that he reads this article.
David Hurwitz begins saying that when he says "the Lieder problem” he should say “my Lieder problem”, and admits he doesn't like Lieder (or mélodie, etc.) So far, nothing new; most classical music lovers don't. He says he prefers to listen to contemporary songs; again, nothing new. But then he says: “I have no reason to listen to songs because they are not better than contemporary song.” That really surprises me. I won't go into consider whether Frank Zappa is better than Franz Schubert (I'll explain later why), but I don't see why listening to Zappa voids the interest in listening to Schubert, or the other way around. And I mention these two musicians because they're mentioned in the talk.
This declaration takes us closer to the main point of the talk, a statement Hurwitz makes several times in the 15 minutes that the video lasts, and I turned into a question in the title of this article: “a song is just a song”. The critic argues that the songs by Paul Simon or by Hugo Wolf (other two composers he mentions) share the form: a generally short, lyrical piece of music performed by a voice and some kind of accompaniment. In other words, from a formal perspective, they are the same. They are therefore comparable. The problem, for Hurwitz, is that “the classical music culture has to face the fact that a song is just a song”, and give up the “pretentious” tone with which classical songs are presented. He also says that the trend of classical music culture towards considered itself fabulous, “it's nowhere more offensively snobbish and ridiculous and off-putting than when it comes to Lieder”. And he adds that “it's a pose to try to persuade you that the Lied is an incredibly rarefied, important, significant artistic thing, because it isn't”. And it isn't because… sure, because a song is just a song.
Well, if you take a look at the video, you will notice that Hurwitz tends to overact, but that doesn't prevent us, Lied lovers, from examining our conscience. The classical music world considers itself special, I think that's right, as the jazz world or the flamenco world do; it seems inevitable when you go away from mainstream tastes. And, of course, we're not special; we are… just different. But let's focus on Lied.
Songs have always existed; most likely, as immediate as they are, they were the first musical form. And it's probably also the only one that, having a popular origin, arrived at concert halls (I deliberately leave aside religious or military music, also ancient, but with a different origin). I mean that symphonies or quartets have an academic origin, while the Himalayan herdswoman I talk last week about sings spontaneously according to her tradition. I think that everybody more or less agree, so far.
Given that: is it pretentious, a song recital? Hurwitz refers to what he considers the affected way of singing, and I agree that affectation doesn't fit with Lied, but I'm afraid he considers all trained singers to sing with affection: “I don't believe that trained singers have anything to bring to the score particularly other than a stylized and affected technique that the music doesn't require, and often doesn't help the music to sing in that way”. Because, of course, they sing just songs. This statement has a corollary: he misses that other (not trained) singers make cover songs their own, which will benefit the pieces (maybe as the covers included in our open series Lied go pop?). And why? Because, according to Hurwitz, the Lieder were supposed to be sung in casual gatherings of friends in informal circumstances.
And I would say he fails to mention a couple of things.
In the first half of the 19th century, songs were sung mainly in social gatherings. Some of them were casual; some of them were not. Some of them were in informal circumstances; some of them were not. That is, those songs could be sung as family entertainment on a rainy afternoon, or at the musical evening organized by a prominent gentleman once a month, attended by a hundred lucky guests. In any case, all singers were trained singers. Because it was usual at that time in that context. And composers, of course, were aware of it. Those songs could be performed by everyone because everyone had musical training; of course, not everyone was talented, and more than once the audience needed to conceal a yawn or be appalled in silence and circumspection.
So, Lieder have always been performed by trained artists. Back then, in private social meetings, and nowadays in concert halls, that actually have little to do with those gatherings, as Bruce Springsteen's concerts at any stadium do. We seldom see nowadays a singer with his guitar (and no, I'm not thinking of Juan Diego Flórez), and few formats are more intimate than a singer with a pianist, i.e… Of course, song recitals!
Well, I could brood on the matter longer, but we're just beginning the season! I think it's enough. Just let me tell you why I don't go into consider whether Zappa is better than Schubert, or Schubert is better than Zappa. Hurwitz says that you can compare works that share the form (two songs, for instance), but not works of different style (pop and classic), and I agree. However, I have little doubt that Lied has a style of its own, which does not arise from people but from a few privileged minds that one day (thanks, privileged minds!) said: what if we encouraged our composers to make songs in the manner of folk songs, which we are barely rediscovering, but setting into music the wonderful poems that German literature is offering after a long time of silence? Two key features appear in this simplification: the academic origin and the poems (which Hurwitz ignores because, as he says in the commentaries, he is interested in music, not in the literary content of the songs). That's why they called it Kunstlied to differentiate it from the Volkslied; they're songs, but different from other songs. It is also worth saying that those privileged minds thought of a difference that wasn't exactly new: we were told at school about the differences between troubadours and jongleurs, and Greek mythology tells us the differences between the lyre, associated to Apollo and the Muses, and the flute, associated to Dionysus and Marsyas.
The musical illustration of this article parts from a comment of this video: a subscriber reminds that Paul McCartney told a few years ago that Gustav Mahler had greatly influenced The Beatles, and that John Lennon and he spent hours playing Des Knaben Wunderhorn and the Kindertotenlieder. Some say that's just a McCartney boutade, and sadly Lennon can't confirm or deny it, but today we're listening to Mahler thanks to The Beatles. To keep it short, we will repeat Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht; Belén Roig told us about this song a few years ago, when she was a student of the Master in Lied of the ESMUC. This time our artists are Felicity Lott and Graham Johnson.
Dort oben in dem hohen Haus,
Da gucket ein fein's, lieb's Mädel heraus,
Es ist nicht dort daheime,
Es ist des Wirts sein Töchterlein,
Es wohnt auf grüner Heide.
Mein Herze ist wund,
Komm, Schätzel, machs gesund.
Dein schwarzbraune Äuglein,
Die haben mich verwundt.
Dein rosiger Mund
Macht Herzen gesund.
Macht Jugend verständig,
Macht Tote lebendig,
Macht Kranke gesund.
Wer hat denn das schöne Liedlein erdacht?
Es haben's drei Gäns übers Wasser gebracht,
Zwei graue und eine weiße;
Und wer das Liedlein nicht singen Kannada,
Dem wollen sie es pfeifen. Ja!
Up there, in a high-up house,
a lovely, darling girl looks out of the window.
She does not live there:
she is the daughter of the innkeeper,
and she lives on the green meadow.
My heart is sore!
Come, my treasure, make it well again!
Your dark brown eyes
have wounded me.
Your rosy mouth
makes hearts healthy.
It makes youth wise,
brings the dead to life,
gives health to the ill.
Who has thought up this pretty little song then?
It was brought over the water by three geese -
two grey and one white -
and if you cannot sing the little song,
they will whistle it for you!
(translation by Emily Ezust)
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