One of those tracks that I missed when it came out, vivid and haunting.

 

Jessica Walker was meant to be artist in residence for Lichfield Festival this summer. With the festival cancelled, she had made a video of some Brel and Barbara songs that felt timely for Covid, and some of her own.

Welcome to the 101st work in the Slipped Disc/Idagio Beethoven Edition

An die Geliebte WoO 140

In the summer of 1812, Beethoven wrote three love letters to an unknown woman. On present evidence she is thought most likely to be Josephine Brunsvik, but she may well have been someone who has never been traced.

The immortal beloved letters are the closest we come to seeing Beethoven in love, hopelessly in love.

6 July, morning

My angel, my all, my own self — only a few words today, and that too with pencil (with yours) — only till tomorrow is my lodging definitely fixed. What abominable waste of time in such things — why this deep grief, where necessity speaks?

Can our love persist otherwise than through sacrifices, than by not demanding everything? Canst thou change it, that thou are not entirely mine, I not entirely thine? Oh, God, look into beautiful Nature and compose your mind to the inevitable. Love demands everything and is quite right, so it is for me with you, for you with me — only you forget so easily, that I must live for you and for me — were we quite united, you would notice this painful feeling as little as I should . . .

. . . We shall probably soon meet, even today I cannot communicate my remarks to you, which during these days I made about my life — were our hearts close together, I should probably not make any such remarks. My bosom is full, to tell you much — there are moments when I find that speech is nothing at all. Brighten up — remain my true and only treasure, my all, as I to you. The rest the gods must send, what must be for us and shall.

Your faithful

Ludwig

Monday evening, 6 July

You suffer, you, my dearest creature. Just now I perceive that letters must be posted first thing early. Mondays — Thursdays — the only days, when the post goes from here to K. You suffer — oh! Where I am, you are with me, with me and you, I shall arrange that I may live with you. What a life!

So! Without you — pursued by the kindness of the people here and there, whom I mean — to desire to earn just as little as they earn — humility of man towards men — it pains me — and when I regard myself in connection with the Universe, what I am, and what he is — whom one calls the greatest — and yet — there lies herein again the godlike of man. I weep when I think you will probably only receive on Saturday the first news from me — as you too love — yet I love you stronger — but never hide yourself from me. Good night — as I am taking the waters, I must go to bed. Oh God — so near! so far! Is it not a real building of heaven, our Love — but as firm, too, as the citadel of heaven.

Good morning, on 7 July

Even in bed my ideas yearn towards you, my Immortal Beloved, here and there joyfully, then again sadly, awaiting from Fate, whether it will listen to us. I can only live, either altogether with you or not at all. Yes, I have determined to wander about for so long far away, until I can fly into your arms and call myself quite at home with you, can send my soul enveloped by yours into the realm of spirits — yes, I regret, it must be. You will get over it all the more as you know my faithfulness to you; never another one can own my heart, never — never! O God, why must one go away from what one loves so, and yet my life in W. as it is now is a miserable life. Your love made me the happiest and unhappiest at the same time. At my actual age I should need some continuity, sameness of life — can that exist under our circumstances? Angel, I just hear that the post goes out every day — and must close therefore, so that you get the L. at once. Be calm — love me — today — yesterday.

What longing in tears for you — You — my Life — my All — farewell. Oh, go on loving me — never doubt the faithfullest heart

Of your beloved

L

Ever thine.
Ever mine.
Ever ours.

The previous year he had written a song ‘to the loved one’, a song so brief it is barely more than a breath. It is also his only original work for guitar. That summer he made the first of two revisions adapting it for piano. The opening strophe of the song is strikingly close to his ‘immortal beloved’ letter:
Your silent eye shed a tear
that glistens with love,
oh, may I drink it from your cheek
before the earth absorbs it.

Just a song. It marks, for Beethoven, the end of love. This performance by Matthias Goerne (with Jan Lisiecki) conveys all you need to know about love and loss. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (with Hartmut Höll) is fast and unfeeling. Hermann Prey, rather slower, makes too much of it.

Resignation WoO 149 (1817)

At the age of 46, Beethoven came across a poem that said all he wanted to express about his farewell to love. It begins:

Out, little candle!
What you need
Can’t be found here
Any more.

Remarkable as this self-recognition was, he composed the song not in his late-period obduracy but in the spirit of youthful innocence. It has charm and humour, even a trace of self-mockery. It suggests that he once loved being in love but can now manage nicely without it.

The tragically shortlived German tenor Fritz Wunderlich left a recording that is practically unsurpassable in its blend of youth and late-life, an interpretation stripped of nostalgia and pathos, reduced to the plain male truth.

Fischer-Dieskau is duller in a lower register, though not without psychological depth about personal loss. In a limited field, these two artists are outstanding.

 

The director Humbert Camerlo has died after a long illness.

Former head of Opéra du Nord and Opéra de Lille, he joined the Paris Opéra as resident director under Rolf Liebermann and Hugues Gall.

 

The soprano Monique Borelli has died in a Marseille hospital, aged 59. after a knife attack in the family home by her son, 18.

A graduate of the conservatoires of Marseille and Nice, Monique was a multiple award winner who retired into private life as a singing teacher.

More details as they emerge.

 

Yesterday, Ivan Fischer warned the orchestra was doomed if it did not embrace fundamental reform.

Today, at 3pm UK time (10am NY), I’ll be looking at the post-Covid options for orchestras in a conversation with the European Union Youth Orchestra director Marshall Marcus.

It’s live on Youtube and Facebook. Click here and here.

 

The deputy concertmaster of the Augsburg Philharmonic, Agnes Malich, has been subjected to bizarre disciplinary action after organising a campaign for cultural awareness and fundraising during the Covid shutdown.

Her boss, André Bücker, says that while he does not object to her initiatives, the fact that the concertmaster had announced cooperation with other institutions without consulting the theater management was a violation of her employment terms.

The two sides go to court on Monday.

Agnes is being supported by the German Orchestras Association (DOV).

 

The music director has invited a small group of musicians to perform the Siegfried Idyll and the Wesendonck Songs tomorrow.

The venue?

The family home at Wahnfried.

 

The Orfeó Català-Palau de la Música Catalana has announced on its website that the English tenor Ian Bostridge and German pianist Igor Levit have called off tonight’s Winterreise due to a rapid rise of Covid-19 in Catalonia.

The two artists performed last Wednesday without incident at the Granada International Festival of Music and Dance.

 

The tenor is making a gift to a fund for performers left workless by Covid.

He writes:

Ihr Lieben, wie angekündigt möchte ich gerne $5000 spenden, um zu helfen, dass die vielen Künstler die durch die COVID Krise in eine katastrophale Arbeitslosigkeit gedrängt wurden, die Zeit bis zur Wiederöffnung der Kunst überleben. Viele von euch haben in den letzten Tagen nachgefragt, wohin sie spenden sollen. Ich habe mich dafür entschieden die Opernsänger in meinem Land zu unterstützen: www.saengerhilfe.de

Ich möchte euch aber gerne dazu auffordern die zahlreichen Künstlerorganisationen in eurem jeweiligen Land zu unterstützen: #WeWillMetAgain ist beispielsweise eine Organisation des arbeitslosen METOrchesters, die mit verschiedenen Projekten versucht für ihre Musiker durch die schwere Zeit bis zur Wiederöffnung der Metroplitan Opera zu überbrücken.

Dear friends, as announced, I would like to donate $5,000 in order to help artists who have been forced into unemployment due to COVID to survive the crisis until they can work again. In the past couple of days, many of you have asked where to donate. I‘ve decided to help opera singers in my country: www.saengerhilfe.de

I would, however, like to ask you to maybe donate to one of the many artists associations in your respective countries: #wewillmetagain, for instance, is an organization of the unemployed METorchestra, which is trying to get their musicians through the hard times until The Metropolitan Opera can open again. They have many ongoing projects through their organization.

Some of the big names in Anglican music are running a campaign to stop Sheffield abolishing its cathedral choir.

Read this:

As former musicians of Sheffield Cathedral, we were shocked and saddened to hear of the Dean and Chapter’s decision to close the Cathedral Choir. In this collective statement, we want to correct the record, put forward our views on how the Cathedral can move forward from this situation, and challenge the divisive narrative being advanced by those with responsibility for leading and managing the wider Cathedral community through sharing our own experiences of music making at the Cathedral.

We welcome the Dean and Chapter’s desire to champion diversity and inclusion and their willingness to connect with the ‘mixed urban communities’ in which the Cathedral is situated. However, we are alarmed by statements from the Dean and Chapter which attempt to frame their decision to disband the Cathedral Choir as one of championing inclusion. We believe that it is dangerous and wrong to characterise our grievances with their decision in this way.

More must be done to make organisations more diverse and inclusive. But, to use inclusion as a pretext to obscure the Dean and Chapter’s mismanagement of music at Sheffield Cathedral is shameful. In recent years, Sheffield Cathedral Choir has made great advances in encouraging the role of women and non-binary members among the lay clerks and choral scholars of the choir. It also supported a girls’ choir and a Schola Cantorum, serving university student communities. Cathedral musicians, past and present, led the Cathedral’s outreach work which took music across the city. Notably, this included the Sheffield Cathedral Sing! Project, which worked with 2,000 children from 30 primary schools each year, including children of mixed heritage, different disabilities, and socio-economic disadvantage. Through this work, cathedral musicians connected meaningfully with schools from some of Sheffield’s most disadvantaged areas.

Regrettably, the Dean and Chapter’s statement also advances a misleading argument regarding the proportion of choristers at Sheffield Cathedral that were privately educated. Over the last 20 years, privately educated children have typically constituted a minority of the choristers at Sheffield Cathedral. In fact, we are aware that the Dean and Chapter were seeking to establish a formal partnership with Birkdale School, a private school in the city this year. These actions seem to be at odds with the Dean and Chapter’s statements.

Sheffield Cathedral Choir has developed over the last 400 years, so it is right that the Dean and Chapter acknowledge that starting anew will require ‘flexibility, imagination and experiment’. We offer for their consideration successful schemes underway in other Yorkshire cathedrals (for example Leeds Cathedral Choir, which reformed successfully without disbanding its existing setup). A new Canon Precentor will be recruited by the Dean and Chapter to lead this work, and it is surely misguided to remove all existing expertise within the Cathedral. This will make the new appointee’s work to make the Cathedral a musical place for all people significantly harder.

The task of rebuilding music at Sheffield Cathedral will require a commitment to inclusive dialogue which has been notably absent from recent events. The process must engage meaningfully with all people affected by this current decision. This means the Dean and Chapter must reach out beyond the vested interests that underlie this short-sighted decision. The process must include voices from past and present members of the Cathedral community.

In their public statements, the Dean and Chapter have failed to offer any condolences to the musicians that have lost their jobs resulting from their recent decision. We feel this is a glaring omission. They have also neglected to recognise the dedicated service of choristers, choir parents, lay clerks, choral scholars and many others who took great pride in being part of the musical community at Sheffield Cathedral. We extend our solidarity with current musicians and their families and we thank them for their dedication and service. We ask that the Dean and Chapter publicly join us in enthusiastically recognising the work of those whose services have so unexpectedly been dispensed with.

Save Sheffield Cathedral Choir!

Signed by former musicians of Sheffield Cathedral Choir:

James Bingham, Choral Scholar and Outreach Animateur (2010-2013)

Stewart Campbell, Choral Scholar and Lay Clerk (2003-2016)

Nicholas Cox, Lay Clerk and Outreach Animateur (2007-2017)

Guy Cowman-Sharpe, Choral Scholar (2014-2017)

Ella Taylor, Chorister (2004-2010)

Gina Walters, Chorister (2001-2007) and Outreach Assistant (2008-2009)

Olivia Shotton, Choral Scholar, Lay Clerk, Theory Teacher (choristers), Outreach Animateur (2015-2019)

Dr Stephen Henthorn, Choral Scholar and Lay Clerk (2011-2019)

Timothy Peters, Choral Scholar and Lay Clerk (2014-2019), Animateur of Sheffield Cathedral’s Young Voices (2017-2019)

Duncan Kelly, Choral Scholar (2013-2016)

Jonny Peters, Choral Scholar (2011-2014)

Dr Richard Longman, Deputy Lay Clerk (2012-2016) and Sing! Project collaborator (2013)

Professor Helen Abbott, Cathedral Consort (2012-2016)

Colin Davey, Organ Scholar (1992-1995)

Anthony Gowing, Assistant Director of Music (2005-2012)

Elizabeth Watts, DMus, FRCM, Singing Teacher (1998-2002)

Louis Romégoux, Chorister (1995-1998) and Choral Scholar (2005-2010)

Vanessa Frampton, Chorister (2008-2014)

Dr Emma Roberts-Tyler, Chorister (1996-2003)

Alice Muir, Chorister (1998-2001)

Emily Beahan, Chorister (1994-1999)

Georgina Hulse, Chorister (1997-2005)

Amy Wood, Chorister (1995-2002)

Katherine Soper née Beddus, Chorister (1995-2002)

Alistair Jellinek. Chorister (2004-2011)

Laura Barnett, Chorister (1999-2005)

For press and enquiries please email:

savesheffieldcathedralchoir@gmail.com