Thanks for taking the time to converse with me, again, Peter.
Q. First question - it has
been a little while since you participated in the 5 Questions interview series.
What have you been doing professionally since then?
A. Really?
Only a little while? Well, it feels like 2015 was only a short while ago,
that’s for sure.
Back
to the question, what have I been doing... Most recently I recorded a CD of
Mahler’s piano version of Das Lied von der Erde (The
Song of the Earth) which was just released in August 2017 in the US and is
getting some nice reviews and I’m quite proud of this little CD.
I
have been training for some heavy duty Wagner roles. There’s been quite a buzz
going around Berlin and Germany in general about me being a ‘real’ Heldentenor
(Heroic tenor), which is both exciting and utterly frightening.
I’m
going to auditions in New York and Boston this winter to get some buzz
happening in the US as well.
I’ve
sung quite a few concerts and Liederabends, the most recent being a Liederabend of
Beethoven’s ‘An die ferne Geliebte’ (To the distant beloved) which was quite
nicely received, and all of Copland’s 'Old American Songs' which I sang with my
wife, Julie Wyma (who also sang Debussy’s ‘Ariettes Oubliées). A hometown concert I
did in Framingham, Mass in 2016 was great fun (especially as I hadn’t sung in
Framingham in 29 years). Seeing one’s High School Music teacher and realizing
he has somehow not aged at all is an amazing/humbling feeling. Doing concerts
in the US also allows me to return to being a grease monkey, repairing the old
cars and various motorbikes my family has accumulated and cared for.
Reaching
further back, I performed the roles of Max in ‘Der Freischütz’ and Adam in “Der
Vogelhändler’ at Kloster
Chorin here on the outskirts of Berlin.
Add
to that being a dad to an amazing little violinist (who attended River’s School
Conservatory Summer Camp this past summer) and all around smart cookie, and the
husband to my wonderfully amazing wife - life has been good.
Q.
This is all very exciting. I want to circle back to the performances in a
bit, but first a few questions about the recording. I recall studying Das
Lied von der Erde in 20th Century Lit.
class with the late James Sellers – a terrific work. That was the version
with full orchestration. Tell me a little more about the piano version
and how you came to select that work in particular for this recording.
A. Ah,
yes. It is so very sad to think that James is no longer with us. I often forget
that fact.
The
piano version of the piece has a very interesting history. The piece was
written between 1908 and 1909 during which was probably one of the most
difficult times in Mahler’s life.
He
was removed as Director of the Vienna State Opera due to anti-semitism and
political jockeying, he was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect, and
(worst of all) his eldest daughter, Maria, died from scarlet fever and
diphtheria at the age of four (his other daughter, Anna (two years Maria’s
junior) also came down with scarlet fever and diphtheria, but survived).
Mahler
had done a piano version of Das Lied von der Erde, not just a reduction, but a
somewhat different version. The piano version was only ‘discovered’ in the late
1980s. It is a difficult piece to sing normally and with piano even more so as,
instead of a full orchestra’s worth of sound supporting you, the soloist must
sing such demanding music accompanied by only a piano (I’m not trying to take
anything away from the piano, but a piano (no matter how big) is not the same
as an orchestra). That difference allows the soloists to be much more meaty and
in the foreground, but it also means that there is nowhere where the soloist
can fade into the orchestra. For the pianist, the piece is bordering on the
impossible.
There
are subtle differences also in the piano version that seem to have been smoothed
out in the version for orchestra we all know (an example is in the fifth Lied
for the tenor (Der Trinker im Frühling). In the piano version, the tenor is
asked to sing a leap of an 11th (D3 to G4). In the orchestral version, the 11th
leap is changed to a more manageable octave (D3-D4).
Another
example is in the first Lied for tenor (Das Trinklied von Jammer der Erde), the
refrain in both versions “Dunkel ist das Leben ist der Tod” (Dark is life, is
death) gets repeated three times. The first two times it appears it is raised a
half tone (first time in G minor, the second time in Ab minor (with a flattened
2nd)), but the third time it moves up the half step to A minor and then it
almost immediately shifts to A Major. However, in the piano version, in the
third repeated refrain in A minor/Major, the last word (“Tod" (death)) is
omitted as is the last note (A). And so, one gets neither a resolution of the
poem nor of the tonality from the singer that one does get in the orchestral
version (where there is no omission).
The
selection of the piece is a rather easy question to answer. I did not select
it. I was asked to sing it by the producer (who was also the pianist),
Christian Kälberer. I had been recommended (unbeknownst to me) by the mezzo
(Alexandra von Roepke) and (loving Mahler as I do) I jumped at the chance. We
ended up recording it in Italy late 2016 and mastering it in Berlin at the
beginning of 2017 (such were the economics of the situation). Trying to record
this in four days proved challenging, to be sure (especially trying to keep
such a big Steinway tuned), but we made it through quite well, I think.
Q. Tell me about performing this live as compared to
preparing a recording – easier, harder, just different, etc.?
Performing
and recording have their moments both of terror and sublime beauty, but they
are very different creatures and it has mostly to do with the perception of the
audience.
In a
performance, the audience is there, with you, in a moment in time. The memory
of both the performer(s) and audience is dependent on a variety of things, but
(in general) the adrenalin of performing and the desire of the audience to have
a good time affects how a performance is remembered (you hear about this with
quite a few ‘live’ albums and how they’ve been ‘enhanced’ post
performance).
Why
does this happen? Mostly because small imperfections are glossed over by the
experience of a whole evening. On a recording, something that is repeatedly
listened to in the comfort of your home, or on headphones, that little mistake
that was a blip in an otherwise wonderful performance becomes an annoyance upon
those repeated listening experiences (such are the expectations of perfect
recordings).
And
so, in recording, you can do a wonderful take, yet if there is one mistake,
then that take either has to be scrapped and redone (which can be wearing on
the performers) or an edit or splice needs to be made (which never has the same
feeling as that to which it is being spliced).
You
hear this in many classical recordings (although more often in the past as the
digital technology we now have has made splicing almost inaudible). In point of
fact, in the famous Solti Wagner Ring Cycle from the 50s, they only used about
15 minutes of that which they had recorded per day (I believe, I am still
checking this fact (I remember reading this in the liner notes of the remaster
but I do not own the recording. I am having people double check for me)).
And
so, when you record, it has to be perfect. Any error (wrong word, wrong note,
extraneous noise, etc.) will be an annoyance upon repeated listening (e.g. I
once had a leather belt that creaked upon each inspiration of breath. It was
discarded quickly, but that meant that that particular take was useless).
With
this recording, the demands on both the singer and pianist asked for by Mahler
are such that a mistake is quite easy to make (the amount of practice time
pianists need for this piece is exceptional).
For
the tenor, there are multiple moments that offer challenges. However, the first
song, "Das Trickled von Jammer der Erde” (The Drinking Song of the
Lamentation of the Earth), poses particular difficulties with its length,
tessitura, and the last two pages which are just hard as nails to get done. To
get more technical, Mahler has the tenor singing in the passaggio (in the case,
specifically between E and G# with chromatic intervals) repeatedly over a 5
measure phrase (“…hin aus gellt in den süßen Duft des Abends!”) which ends
(without a break) on a high Bb held for 4 measures. You have to be in great
shape to get it right on the first take. Fortunately for me, I was.
Unfortunately, due to a problem, we had to do the take twice. Somehow, I
managed to improve on the first take. I’m not sure if I could have done that a
third time, though.
The
expectations of perfection on a recording are so high that it becomes an
obsession (an unhealthy one, in my opinion) of both musician and recording
engineer/producer.
To
add to all of the above, the different types of microphones and how they
capture sound (for my voice, the older Neumann mics seem to offer a better
representation than some of the newer mics) makes for a first day mostly made
up of experimenting with different microphones and different distances from
them (for example, because of the weight and power of both my voice and what I
was singing, I had to stand a few feet back from the mics so as not to blow
them out, whereas the Mezzo could stand closer and really milk the piano and
pianissimi of the piece).
Q. Thank you,
Peter. Best of everything and I hope
this recording is a terrific success.
Here is a link to Peter’s website. http://peterfurlong.com/
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