“What if a woman wrote the song?” This question drives a recital of songs by female composers performed by soprano Golda Schultz and pianist Jonathan Ware. Opening with works by Clara Schumann and Emilie Mayer (including her setting of the ballad Erlkönig), this recital weaves stories of women’s experience with fantastic tales of powerful sirens like the Lorelei. The great American-British violist and composer Rebecca Clarke’s arresting William Blake settings offer a woman’s perspective on texts also set by Benjamin Britten. Devotional works from Nadia Boulanger reveal a compositional master in her own right, in addition to her legendary status as pedagogue to innumerable greats including Aaron Copland and Daniel Barenboim. This be Her Verse, a song cycle by poet-librettist Lila Palmer and composer Kathleen Tagg was directly commissioned by the artists to conclude the programme and add an important contribution to the repertory: Songs written by women, about women, highlighting the female experience.

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C Schumann - Lieder, Op. 12 Liebst du um Schönheit
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C Schumann - Lieder, Op. 12 Warum willst du andre fragen
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C Schumann - Am Strande
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C Schumann - Lorelei
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E Mayer - Erlkönig
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E Mayer - 3 Lieder, Op. 7 Du bist wie eine Blume
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E Mayer - 3 Lieder, Op. 7 Abendstern
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R Clarke - Down by the Salley Gardens
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R Clarke - The Tiger
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R Clarke - Cradle Song
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R Clarke - The Seal Man
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N Boulanger - La mer est plus belle
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N Boulanger - Priere
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N Boulanger - Elegie
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N Boulanger - Cantique
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K Tagg - This be her verse After Philip Larkin
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K Tagg - This be her verse Wedding
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K Tagg - This be her verse Single Bed

Europadisc Review

In a week of several new outstanding vocal recitals, our attention has been grabbed – and held – by a particularly special one. South African soprano Golda Schultz has already begun making a name for herself on international concert and opera stages (including notable recordings of Porgy and Bess and Le nozze di Figaro). Now, together with her regular musical partner, Texan-born pianist Jonathan Ware, she releases her debut recital album on the Alpha label. Entitled ‘This be her verse’, it’s an absorbing and utterly compelling collection of songs by women composers from the 19th to 21st centuries.

Schultz’s introductory booklet note sets out her stall: ‘As a singer I always understood that my job and responsibility was to give voice to the female perspective within the songs I performed. To explore them fully from my own life experience and find a corner of the piece not yet completely illuminated; in a realm mostly dominated by male composers this idea was, and is central to how I approach songs.’ And her own voice, warm in timbre but focused and capable of a wide range of nuance, is fully equal to the task of articulating a broad spectrum of feelings, thoughts and emotions. ‘Each woman has a strong and present style that sets her apart; but all their styles line up so perfectly with one another and therefore, it feels like you find yourself in the middle of a conversation across generations.’

Several of the texts will be familiar to listeners in more famous settings by male composers. The disc opens with Friedrich Rückert’s ‘Liebst du um Schönheit’, best known from Gustav Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder. But Clara Schumann’s altogether more homely setting is always a joy to hear, and it serves as the perfect curtain raiser, with the warmth of Schultz’s voice matched by Ware’s relaxed yet attentive accompaniment. More dramatic in demeanour are Clara Schumann’s settings of Wilhelm Gerhard’s ‘Am Strande’ and Heinrich Heine’s ‘Lorelei’, the latter infused with a triplet-driven urgency strikingly reminiscent of Schubert’s ‘Erlkönig’.

It's a rather less familiar version of Goethe’s ‘Erlkönig’ poem that introduces the next composer: Schubert may cast a long shadow, but Emilie Mayer’s setting, with its swirling chromatic progressions in the accompaniment, has a special power of its own. Schultz inhabits the text and the contrasting personae of this poetic masterpiece without recourse to caricature, and the funereal piano postlude, so different from Schubert’s brutally simple closing cadence, really hits home. Mayer’s settings of Heine’s ‘Du bist wie eine Blume’ and Helmina von Chézy’s ‘Abendstern’ cast a different sort of spell, and both Schultz and Ware are fully in touch with their sensitive inflections and abundant charm.

Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) is probably best known today for the works she wrote for her own instrument, the viola, but her songs – judging by these settings of Yeats’s ‘Down by the Salley Gardens’, William Blake’s ‘The Tiger’ and ‘Cradle Song’, and John Masefield’s ‘The Seal Man’ – are just as fascinating, full of modal colouring, quasi-impressionistic echoes and an intoxicating, febrile sense of mystery. ‘The Seal Man’ (1922), with its brief passages for unaccompanied voice and timbrally varied accompaniment, is surely one of the most powerful examples of the British song tradition from the last century, and Schultz and Ware turn in a performance of extraordinary potency.

What a contrast it is to jump from Clarke’s music to the radiant spirituality of her exact contemporary Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), starting with the glorious expansiveness of Verlaine’s ‘La mer est plus belle’, before moving on to Henry Bataille’s ‘Prière’, Albert Samain’s ‘Élégie’ and Maetrlinck’s ‘Cantique’. All of them demonstrate Boulanger’s complete understanding of vocal and pianistic technique and expressive capabilities (she was, after all, one of the 20th century’s most influential teachers), and they receive glorious performances here.

The feature that really sets this disc apart, however, is a brand-new song-cycle, This be her verse, specially written for the performers by librettist Lila Palmer and composer Kathleen Tagg. While almost all the other works here are settings of texts by male poets (albeit ones often highly attuned to the feminine sides of their protagonists), these three songs – ‘After Phillip Larkin’, ‘Wedding’ and ‘Single Bed’ – tap into a particularly compelling combination of sensitivity and wit that makes them instantly engaging, on a both a poetic and a musical level. Tagg’s use of extended piano techniques – metallic striking down the length of the piano string as well as using prepared timbres – is especially ear-catching, along with the jazzy/bluesy inflections. Schultz and Ware are vibrantly alert to the texts and subtexts here, while both music and verse are accessible enough that this cycle should be taken up more widely, though one can scarcely imagine a more authoritative or enjoyable performance than the one it receives here.

For anyone who wants to discover why women composers deserve and benefit from more attention, this disc is an absolute zinger. If you also want to explore this week’s other vocal releases, they include tenor Nicky Spence’s powerful disc of Vaughan Williams songs On Wenlock Edge, Carolyn Sampson’s Trennung (a venture into well- and lesser-known classical-era song with fortepianist Krystian Bezuidenhout), and A-listers Véronique Gens and Sandrine Piau in a selection of late-18th-century largely French opera entitled Rivales. All will give immense satisfaction. But Golda Schultz’s debut recital really is something special!

Reviews

[Golda Schultz’s] new album with pianist Jonathan Ware, This Be Her Verse (Alpha Classics), confirms her versatility and musical intelligence. ... The album’s title is from a new song cycle by [Kathleen] Tagg, to texts by Lila Palmer. Commissioned by Schultz, they are deft, upbeat, sharp and true, a celebration of the single bed and clean sheets. Fiona Maddocks

The Observer 3 April 2022

In this ear-opening recital of music by and about women, the South African soprano Schulz captures a range of expression with gems from Clara Schumann and songs by Rebecca Clarke, whose The Seal Man packs a punch. (Top 5 Recordings of the Year)

The Sunday Times