Cover image: Gallery Concerts Schubertiade with Tamara Friedman, piano, Elizabether Marshall, soprano, and Adam LaMotte, violin (Photo: Gallery Concerts)
Imagine you are in a salon, in the 1820s perhaps, listening to Schubert on a fortepiano and one of his friends singing, as they perform some of his songs for an appreciative group of listeners. Now transport yourselves to the small Queen Anne Christian Church as it was Saturday night, where Gallery Concert’s Tamara Friedman, playing a fortepiano modeled after ones by Nannette Streicher (a famous maker of Schubert’s day), performed eight of the master’s songs with soprano Elisabeth Marshall.
Other Schubert works were also on the program, called a “Schubertiade” after such salon concerts of his music back in the day. Marshall’s voice is well suited to Schubert, her words clear, the descriptions and meanings in the poems crystal in her performance. (The next Gallery Concerts is March 11 and 12, “La Guitarre Royalle” with lutenist Stephen Stubbs and harpist Maxine Eilander.)
In all of Schubert’s songs, the accompaniment is as important as the vocal line, not least in “Die junge Nonne” (“The Young Nun”), where the stormy weather outside is eloquently portrayed with thunder, lightning and torrential rain in the piano part, while the matching storm in the young nun’s mind comes through in the singer’s role. In both there is resolution to a calm end. If there were no words, it would still be possible to follow what is going on in the expressiveness of Schubert’s music.
Gallery Concerts Schubertiade with Tamara Friedman, piano, Elizabether Marshall, soprano, and Adam LaMotte, violin (Photo: Gallery
Marshall and Friedman gave it artistry and meaning, as they did with the other songs, many of them familiar: among then were “An die Musik” (“To Music”), “Auf dem Wasser zu singen” (“To sing on the Water”) with its exquisite flowing accompaniment, Goethe’s poem “Ganymed,” which sounded joyful and giddily in love with the spring, the familiar “Die Forelle” (“The Trout”), which many know from Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet where the melody is used in a variations movement. The watcher watches the little trout elude the fisherman until at last it is caught, and the music turns dark. Marshall and Friedman’s performances were excellently and expressively performed and a delight to hear, not least because for some reason, we don’t often hear these songs in concert, and there are 600 of them, each more lovely than the last.
Hearing a fortepiano takes a little adjusting to if not used to the sound. The sound is lighter than a modern piano, with a shorter die-away, a lighter touch on the keys and thus more agile. Because the sound is lighter, the player can play full out in a forte passage without wrecking the eardrums of listeners. The lowest register sings more than a modern piano, which can be a revelation to anyone who is trying to play really loud in a modern piano’s lowest register and hearing a blurred rumble. Here each note is clear and tuneful.
At the same time the fortepiano must have been a delight to those who before played harpsichord as, for the first time, they could achieve louds and softs with the touch on the keys and foot on one of the several pedal (there were four on Saturday’s Streicher model). So expressive!
Friedman made a fine case for her instrument, playing a Scherzo and an Adagio both in D-flat, as well as sixteen laendlers, waltzes and dances, all quite short and played without interruption. She was joined for the Sonata in A Minor by Adam LaMotte using a copy of a Guarneri del Gesu violin copy with gut strings. He also made a third in two of the songs, the echo in “Staendchen” and the flashing little fish in “Die Forelle.” LaMotte’s style melded sensitively with fortepiano and voice.
