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UMKC’s Conservatory of Music and Dance continued their celebration of Franz Liszt’s 200th birthday with a lieder recital featuring an arsenal of sopranos performing the songs of the birthday boy and some of his contemporaries. While attendance was admittedly sparse, those who braved the nightmarish campus parking at the university were treated to an inventive and exciting program.

The performers all availed themselves well, with solid collaboration with Richard Williams throughout. Each of the three sopranos and three mezzos possessed a distinctive voice that brought something unique to the table. I was particularly enamored with the voice of mezzo-soprano Ruth Carver, who displayed a truly rich and variegated tone; any conductor within 200 miles looking for a Mahler mezzo needs to get on the line to UMKC, stat.

What struck me most about the evening was the confrontational approach to the program. As someone who enjoys nothing more than rankings and pitting arbitrary things against one another, it was like a dream come true: a gauntlet of composers setting texts by a who’s who of Romantic poets in a head-to-head showdown of songwriting supremacy. If only I could say “yes” this easily to everything else in life.

The first half of the concert featured a three-part duel between Liszt and Schumann on settings of the poetry of Heinrich Heine, with a single Liszt setting of a text by Emil Kuh thrown in for good measure. The second half comprised three takes on Goethe’s famous “Mignon’s Lied,” along with the “Connais-tu le pays” aria from the Ambroise Thomas’ opera, before concluding with two Liszt settings of Victor Hugo.

In some ways, this concert was like throwing a birthday party and having your friends upstage your night with better and more interesting news. I admire Liszt very much, but as a composer of art songs he was overmatched on this program; the list of people who can outshine Schumann, Schubert, or Wolf in a songwriting contest can probably be counted without involving your toes. To be fair to Liszt, he was a little too busy shredding the piano and inventing the symphonic poem to hone his art song skills, but the most musically satisfying works on this night were not the ones written by the evening’s dedicatee.

This is not to suggest that Liszt’s lieder are bad, far from it. Both Schubert and Schumann compose songs with a sublime effortlessness and elegant simplicity that borders on the otherworldly. Wolf packs as much emotion and searing intensity into a small-scale form as any composer who ever lived. Liszt? He wrote some nice songs.

The performances were committed throughout, and any gaps in the quality of the music were bridged by the impassioned singing. The aforementioned Ms. Carver added much in the way of nuance and poise to all three of her selections (all Liszt, in fact). Sarah Bauer gave a delightfully aggressive reading of Wolf’s “Mignon,” displaying a wide range of expression. Jessica Diana Salley also shone brightly, particularly on the final song of the evening, Liszt’s “Oh! Quand je dors.”

In spite of the art song superstars raining on Liszt’s parade, it was a fine concert and a valuable one at that; Liszt’s lieder are not performed with great regularity. While they may not compare favorably with the greatest masters of the form, they do highlight some of his strengths, especially his complex harmonic language. And a thorough examination of Liszt’s output requires an exploration of this hidden corner of the repertoire, a journey that was taken passionately by all involved.

REVIEW:
University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance
Liszt 200 Series: Lieder by Liszt and his Contemporaries
Thursday, September 15, 2011
White Hall, James P. Olson Performing Arts Center
Univeristy of Missouri-Kansas City
4949 Cherry St, Kansas City, MO
For more information visit http://conservatory.umkc.edu 

Top Photo: Ruth Carver

By Erik Klackner

Classical Contributor

Erik Klackner loves music enough to try and write about it. After receiving a bachelor's degree in horn from the University of Kentucky and a master's in orchestral conducting from the University of Utah, Erik worked as a freelance musician in the Pacific Northwest before relocating to the Midwest. There is an 85% chance that he is engrossed is some random Varèse piece or Bruckner 9 as you are reading this sentence. His unedited thoughts can be read at klacknermusic.wordpress.com.