Myrtle & Rose: Songs by Clara and Robert Schumann

Kyle Stegall (tenor), Eric Zivian (fortepiano)

In our recent review of Isata Kanneh-Mason’s chart-topping disc of music by Clara Schumann, whose 200th anniversary falls this year, we wrote that this remarkable pianist-composer was ‘Truly a life worth celebrating’. So, when the opportunity came along to review a new collection of some of Clara Schumann’s finest lieder coupled with Robert Schumann’s two great Liederkreise from his miraculous ‘year of song’ (1840), we leapt at the chance. The prospect was made all the more enticing by the appearance of another vibrant new talent making its solo recording debut: young American tenor Kyle Segall, student with the likes of Ian Bostridge, Christoph Prégardien, Malcolm Martineau and Julius Drake, has performed with the American Bach Soloists and been hailed by the press for his solo recitals. All of which bodes exceptionally well for this disc of Schumann songs, on which he is accompanied by experienced fortepianist Eric Zivian.

And the performances themselves exceed all expectations. These are beautifully considered interpretations informed not just by deep stylistic awareness and understanding of period practice, but also by a profound and hugely affecting musicality. Stegall himself is very much a tenor in the Bostridge and Prégardien mould, with a light, pliant tone ideally suited to ‘period performance’, but with enough tonal depth and variety to take on the most expressively demanding of lieder. So it is in the Liederkreis, op.39, which sets texts by Joseph Eichendorff. In such well-known numbers as the rapt Mondnacht, Stegall uses vibrato sparingly to wondrous effect, instead making subtle dynamic gradations to shape the line. Zivian’s accompaniments are wonderfully vivid, aided by an 1841 Rausch fortepiano that sounds in exceptionally good condition with regard to tuning and action. As is so often the case, the use of an ‘historic’ instrument allows a myriad of detail to be heard without the singer ever being overwhelmed. From the rich hunting sonorities that open Waldesgespräch to the eerie austerity of Zwielicht, this is a reading of arresting potency with few equals in the catalogue. The exuberant piano cascades in the concluding Frühlingsnacht positively leap off the page, cajoling the voice to new heights of euphoria.

Set alongside Robert’s two Liederkreise, the five songs by Clara included here immediately strike the listener with their disarming expressive openness. Ich stand in dunklen Träumen, op.13 no.1, hints at the domestic warmth of the early years of marriage, while another Heine setting, the turbulent Lorelei, while clearly owing something of its heightened agitation to Schubert’s Erlkönig, is a miniature drama in its own right and on its own terms, the more so when performed with such thrilling engagement. Clara’s setting of Rückert’s Liebst du um Schönheit, so utterly different from Mahler’s famous later version, is a rare gem of a song, while the concluding O Lust, o Lust, op.23 no.6, is another vibrant, full-throated example of the considerable advantages of performing this repertoire in an historically informed but emotionally charged manner. And it’s to the credit of both performers and composer that this selection of songs stands so well beside the two cycles which frame it.

The third panel of the triptych is the Heine Liederkreis, op.24, composed in early 1840 when Robert’s passion for Clara was at its height (they married in September that year). The poems of unrequited love and cold, unfeeling women may seem a strange choice on the composer’s part, but surely reflect the doubt and frustration that Robert felt at still living some distance from Clara and her fiercely protective father. Once again Stegall and Zivian deliver a performance of quite exceptional range and distinctiveness, fully engaged with the fluctuating mood of the individual songs, and culminating in a meltingly beautiful account of the concluding Mit Myrten und Rosen with its neatly incorporated tribute to the ‘daddy’ of all song cycles, Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte.

The performances are aided by a sympathetic recording made in the Trianon Theatre, San Jose, California, which has just the right degree of intimacy to suggest the 19th-century domestic music-making of which these masterpieces represent a highpoint. An added bonus, too, are the excellent English translations by Kyle Stegall himself, clearly a musician of exceptional ability and intelligence. It’s a rare treat to hear this music so stylishly performed, so free from mannerisms and yet so completely absorbing, a meeting of minds and techniques between singer and pianist. For lovers of art song, this is just about as good as it gets. Few other discs come close to demonstrating with such extraordinary clarity why it is that the 19th-century Lied (of the Schumanns in particular!) stands at the apex of musical Romanticism. And here’s hoping that we hear more from the fabulous partnership of Stegall and Zivian in the very near future.