Why did we launch the Schubertreise series?

Schubertreise introduces  audiences to a huge and largely neglected repertoire: in addition to the two great cycles, only thirty or so of Schubert's 587 songs are regularly performed in public. From an early age I have been fascinated by Schubert's songs, and my wish, together with that of my companion pianist Michel Stas is to share that passion. I also wanted to show the impact of a major scholarly edition (The Bärenreiter neue Ausgabe) on the choice of repertoire, and how modern research into performance practice finds its way into that edition, specifically with reference to transpositions and internal opus number groupings. Then there was the question of the role of the accompanist, namely the challenges posed by playing songs in transposition, and the necessity of transposing certain passages of an accompaniment up an octave when accompanying lower voices (a practice sanctioned, indeed encouraged by Schubert himself). One thinks of the jazz-like freedom with which continuo groups, concerned as they are with practical solutions, change instrumentation as they see fit, in line with contemporary baroque performance practice. I should add that downward transposition on a period instrument poses fewer problems (apart from the obvious one of running out of notes) than it does on a modern piano, where low harmonies tend to sound much more muddy than on a fortepiano.

I also wanted to challenge certain assumptions, notably in the case of the so-called Schwanengesang song cycle. It would be refreshing to hear the songs as they were probably intended, i.e. the Heine order, not that of Tobias Haslinger (Haslinger published the songs together as a cycle shortly after Schubert's death, for purely commercial reasons, and invented the title to underline the poignancy of the composer having died so young). This implies performing the Heine and the Rellstab groups separately, and assigning the Seidl song Die Taubenpost to a group of Seidl songs, discarding the notion that this collection of disparate songs should be performed as a cycle. How does that affect our perception of the work? Michel Stas and I have performed the songs in these three separate groups, and find it a convincing solution. 

There was also the thorny problem of other entrenched performance traditions. Nowadays we are trained not to add or subtract material from a composition (very praiseworthy), but there are in my opinion exceptions to this rule, notably in songs which begin without any introduction. It was common practice in Schubert's day to improvise introductions for such songs, thus setting the atmosphere and avoiding the ugly recital phenomenon of "giving the singer his note", a solution about as musical as pressing the Enter key on a PC. 

A problem also arises for those using Diabelli's edition of Schubert songs, omnipresent in the Peters Edition. Diabelli tagged on introductions and postludes in keeping with this tradition, but without informing the performers as to what he had done, leading to what we would now consider considerable editorial legerdemain. A case in point might be the reconstruction of Schubert's famous Wiegenlied ("Schlafe, holder, süsser Knabe"), which begins without a piano introduction. The question has to be asked: if I sanction my own introductions based on thematic material (and I have done, in line with Schubert's own practice), am I slaughtering a sacred cow? It is difficult (for some listeners) to break free from the notion that what they consider an artistic artifact, as something set in aspic, should not be tampered with.

One of the more refreshing aspects about performing from memory is the singer's potential to enter into a strictly non-musical landscape: the performer can react to the words, and recite them (and act them) as such, while at the same time retaining the duality necessary to perform her purely musical task. This implies an approach to the learning process far removed from the traditional "learn the notes, then the words" method which does so much to cripple the world of imagination in performance. I perform all of the songs by heart, since this to my way of thinking is the most vital performance experience possible. My wish is to give the impression that I am improvising while at the same time conceding that there is nothing authentic about this approach. We can be fairly certain that Schubert's performers sang with the score, and in fact the modern notion of the solo recital performed from memory began with Liszt, some years after Schubert's death.

Thanks to the Bärenreiter neue Ausgabe, Schubert's complete songs are being made available to the public for the first time, in thirteen volumes, of which the first ten, under the editorship of the late Walther Dürr*, have already been published. Moreover, and also for the first time, all of the songs are being published in keys suitable to all voice types: high, medium and low. Prior to the appearance of this edition, the Schubert song publishing market had been cornered by Peters Edition, which published around 75% of the songs in seven volumes, but of which only the first three volumes were transposed into keys other than the originals, making the choice of Schubert repertoire for the lower voice type distinctly limited. Furthermore, dubious editorial additions by Diabelli continued to be incorporated, making no distinction between what was Schubert and what was not: this was particularly true of some tacked-on introductions and postludes, a feature still found in some of the older versions of the Peters Edition. 

The first four volumes of the Bärenreiter neue Ausgabe cover the songs that Schubert published or intended having published during his lifetime. That is interesting for two reasons: the grouping of songs within a particular opus number shows us first of all his desire to impose certain tonal as well as thematic relationships, and, secondly, the songs he chose for publication reflect his own taste, which does not always coincide with ours. Erlkönig was his first published work and is universally popular, but I can think of better candidates for publication than his setting of Zacharias Werner's Morgenlied (having said that, Morgenlied was very popular in Schubert's day).

Volumes five to thirteen deal with the remaining songs in chronological order. 

The much touted number of 636 songs has gained a hold in the popular imagination, but my tally is rather lower: 582. This is because I don't include songs which have been completed by others, nor do I include minor variants, songs with obbligato instruments, Schubert's own arrangements of his own operatic arias, duets such as Antigone und Oedip  and Hektors Abschied or part-songs. Schubert wrote up to five different versions of certain songs such as Die Forelle, often from memory, to please a friend's request. Certain versions of the same song however are quite different: Meerestille and Jägers Abendlied spring to mind, as well as the five different versions of Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, the three versions of Der Jüngling am Bache and the two versions of Thekla. The programmes devoted to these different versions have been particularly well received.​ 

Finally, a word about pianos. For the series in Jodoigne (Belgium) Michel Stas has performed on a replica 1810 Walter fortepiano, built by Claude Kelecom. For the series in Dublin we use a Steinway, helpfully tuned to A=440! ** 

Schubertreise is unique in its involvement of the same two performers. At the end of the series the public will have had an opportunity to appreciate our inevitable interpretative evolution, and will have had the opportunity to discover songs which astonish by their variety: the Ossian songs, so rarely performed, as well as the Italian songs; the evolution of recitative in Schubert's writing, bearing witness to his lifelong desire to achieve success as a composer of opera, and above all the sheer scope of his invention, in which he transformed the bourgeois tinklings of many of his contemporaries  into works of the highest calibre, devoid of sentiment, and imbued with that empathy for mankind that only the greatest of artists (I think of Verdi and Shakespeare) have achieved. The only constant is the fact that the complete songs will be performed, starting with Die schöne Müllerin and ending with Winterreise.​

*Walther Dürr died in January 2019, and since then Bärenreiter have been dragging their heels when it has come to the publication of the remaining volumes. Volume ten, scheduled for publication in 2019, eventually appeared in 2024!

** The accepted standard pitch today is A=442, although A=445 is not unheard of. Performance pitch, alas, is rising, at the behest of recording companies. But what one gains in brilliance one loses in gravitas, not to mention the increased wear and tear on the voice. 

© Conor Biggs