Twelve years ago, I was studying at the National University of Music in Leipzig, Germany. Performing together as a unit of a school orchestra was one of the compulsory subjects for students majoring in orchestra, and students majoring in keyboard instruments or composition are members of vocal music and school choirs, and in the case of piano major, chamber music that includes piano, For example, studying and playing chamber music pieces of your own desired organisation, such as piano trio and quartet, is a mandatory subject that must be taken before completing a bachelor's degree It was one of the most helpful and meaningful times for me during my undergraduate program, and the professor who was in charge of me for the chamber music class was the pianist Phillip Moll. If you're a fan of vocalist Jessie Norman or flutist James Galway, you might be familiar with the pianist's name, but you can study with the master who also released the album Con amore by violinist Jung Kyung-hwa. It was of course a delightful honor. He has a strong American accent but speaks grammatically perfect German, and he said that he had already listened to my performance, and after asking a few questions, he realized that I had never had a chance to deal with the song. He opened a small bookcase and took out a sheet music and handed it to me.
The score was Schubert's song book Winterreise D 911, based on Wilhelm Müller's poem. Since then, we have been busy admiring Schubert's music for one semester, and we have tears while reading the lyrics, and at the end of the semester we have rehearsed over several hours with a friend of a vocalist who put all songs on the stage together and raised our voice did. So Schubert's Winter Traveler became one of my most in-depth studies, getting to know the work well, and becoming a composer named Schubert and a fan praising his work. Schubert's Winter Traveler, who would have mentioned it without fail if someone asked me what song I like, even after a while. As I like to listen and appreciate music as much as I play music myself, the time when I pressed the headphones on which the winter traveler flowed was also great. It was the album of (Andras Schiff).
At the time, I never borrowed the excuse of being a pianist and tried to hear only tenor's interpretation of the composer's original intention of insisting on the compositional qualities that the composer originally intended. I often listened to Sir Peter Pears's albums with Benjamin Britten, who unwittingly realized the odd but endlessly sentimental piano parts, but the reason I listened to Schreier and Schiff's albums more often was the sixteenth work in the songbook. It was because of <Last Hope (Letzte Hoffnung)>. Watching the leaves hanging from the trees fall, the last lyrics of this work, which say that even my hope and body rush to the floor, is "I shed tears on the grave of my hope." How can I describe Schreier's expressive power for this verse in words? Can you explain it? Recalling the first time I listened to this album, I could say,'I heard his scream, and I fell in sorrow.' The interpretation of Schreier and Schiff impressed me greatly, and at the same time, I recognized the need to think about the overall flow, direction, and form of the Gagok collection consisting of twenty-four songs. However, during the rehearsal process of two young musicians with strong musical taste and stubbornness, it was hard to be able to communicate based on rational thinking, and in the end, instead of lacking the overall content and conveying emotions, they showed a performance with outstanding technical features. The winter traveler had ended.
Of course, even after that, I extracted some songs included in the Winter Traveler's songbook and listened to it boringly. Appreciating is not as easy as you might think. Then, as the new coronavirus infectious disease situation has prolonged, one album stood out while browsing and listening to many albums as an opportunity to allow time to spare. A live album of a German baritone, Matthias Goerne, and master pianist Alfred Brendel, who drastically changed my beliefs about the'original composition intended by the composer' mentioned earlier. Was. I settled on the living room sofa to listen to this record on a helpless afternoon when I felt I had only time. Starting with the balance for each Mars, Brendel's performance that achieves the overall balance perfectly, Görne's unique voice, and his delicate pronunciation and expressiveness. It became increasingly clear that opinions on the overall flow of the traveler would change.
My thoughts that I interpreted the sixteenth work of <The Last Hope> in the story of Schubert's Gagok's <Autumn Traveler>, of which the plot will eventually turn into a tragedy, of which the phrase "We shed tears on the grave of my hope" is the culmination of this tragedy. It changed while listening to the albums of Gorne and Brendel. Is it because I doubted the existence of another vertex without knowing it by Görne's modest interpretation compared to Schreier's <The Last Hope>, which is close to screaming. Or is it really that Gorne and Brendel expressed the desperate character of the twentieth song to the extreme? Or, depending on that day, the last passage of this work may have reached me. The last verse of “I must cross this road where no one can come back” in <Der Wegweiser>, the 20th work of the Winter Traveler's song book, repeats as in <The Last Hope>. The meaning of the phrase saying that people avoid the path they go, drive themselves into the wasteland, and cross the road that cannot be returned can be the point of recognizing that they will eventually die. have. Instead of <The Last Hope>, which expresses the image of a stranger who shed tears when he finally becomes suspicious of the hopes or expectations that were barely held, <Milestones>, which speaks of sadness filled with emptiness without any hope, is this songbook. Twelve years ago I did not know that it could be the tragic culmination of. It may be because I haven't considered more than just understanding the contents of the lyrics literally, or I may have felt that too dark sadness was burdensome and dangerous for me as a 20-year-old.
The sorrow when I have to let go of my hopes and hopes is terrible. But, isn't it more desperate enough to scare even the imagination of the empty gray sadness where even hope is lost? I would like to recommend this album for the excitement of Schubert's work, the opportunity to think about the definition of the word hope, and for the outstanding performances of Gorne and Brendel for reminding us of the importance of its existence.
