Gudrun Knop, Regula Konrad, Cynthia Oppermann

CANTOS

KW 20028
Digipack

Cynthia Oppermanns aktuelles Harfen-Projekt CANTOS beschäftigt sich mit spanischen Liedern, die schön warm und klar von der schweizer Sopranistin Regula Konrad dargeboten werden, im Trio mit der Flötistin Gudrun Knop und mit Yasushi Ideue an der Geige. Werke von Ravel, Roussel, Granados, Ibert, Ginastera, Manuel de Falla. Zu Herzen gehende Musik des 20. Jahrhunderts, die Wärme und Emotion atmet.

The Chicken or the Egg?

by Cynthia Oppermann

According to Manuel de Falla,”the most ancient forms of Spanish song descend from the gypsies and the moors,” who sang and danced their way into Spain bringing rhythm and culture. This idea of the kinship of all folksong and dance presents us with the ultimate philosophical question. Did dancers stamp their feet and clap their hands to the rhythm of the music they heard, or were singers inspired to belt out a tune to accompany one of the many primeval, energetic dances? We’ve all heard of seguidillas, polos, jotas, tonadas and habaneras. These are synonymous terms for Spanish dances as well as musical forms. Which came first then - song or dance? Faced with that unanswerable question, we all would agree that folk song and folk dance belong together in Spain just like our little chicken in its shell. And the Spanish art song has been so enriched with folk sources that one can say it is born of the popular inspiration. Olé!

Enrique Granados and Manuel de Falla were born into the same generation and mid-nineteenth century world of Spanish classical music. Both played and studied piano and composition, even under the same composition professor, Felipe Pedrell. The Art of Evocación was at its peak in Spain, so learning the “nuts and bolts” of composition, those days, meant learning to use folk-like elements as a means of evoking a typical Spanish atmosphere in each new musical work (a kind of Spanish version of Impressionism).

As a young composer, Granados supported himself by playing the piano in private homes and cafés. He wrote a large number of piano works which were well loved for their Spanish flair. His collection of Tonadillas, in an Ancient Style,1914, (Track 18-22) is an excellent example for the fusion of popular song and art song. The accompanying piano part ( which I play on the harp) parodies the lyrics of the soprano voice closely, in the way that the latter-day French chanson accompaniment comments the words and moods of the chansonier. The themes of the Tonadillas were supposed to represent the eighteenth century Spanish aristocratic view of courtly love as a big, dramatic playground full of tragedies like: dying for love (Track 19), crazy in love (20&21), and singing through it all (22) Tra-la-la!
In 1916, Enrique Granados’ own life came to an untimely end, when he and his wife missed their boat back to Spain, after triumphantly celebrating the premiere of his opera Goyescas at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. They rebooked, tragically, on a passenger ship back to Europe via England - the Sussex - which was torpedoed by a German submarine in the English Channel.

Manuel de Falla frequently used the conflicting rhythms found in traditional folk dances as his means to achieve Spanish color and imagery. Another effect he chose, in both piano and orchestral compositions, was a harmonization and phrasing peculiar to the guitar. That’s why we always have the feeling, in Falla’s music, that a guitarist is strumming along. In the 1920’s, he organized Cante hondo, a festival of traditional popular song in Granada, where he introduced his Seven Popular Spanish Songs (Track 10-16). These seven very vital songs, give a soprano the chance to show a whole palette of emotions and have become a mainstay in the Spanish art song repertory. Carlos Salzedo, a French/Basque harpist and composer, who wished to give the harp a stronger temperament in the 20th century, had the ingenious idea of transcribing the piano part for two concert harps. With this instrumentation, each harpist is able to do some fancy dampening, slapping the wire strings like a guitarrero and to obtain a crisper, more stacato sound. The surprising, percussive effect in Polo (Tr 16), which accompanies Regula’s rapid, acrobatical tongue, is created by weaving strips of paper through the strings of both harps.

Although Alberto Ginastera composed mostly large-scale symphonic works, his Cantos del Tucumán (Tr 23- 26) belong to a group of chamber instrumentations written in a folkloristic style. Our instruments playfully imitate the South American sister instruments: pan flute, fiddle, andean harp and the percussive caja (wooden box ). The simple country song - a vidalita (Tr 25) - accompanied solely by the caja, summons up the vastness of the land. Indigenous riffs and poetic verses convey homesickness for a lost paradise.

Jacques Ibert composed the two instrumental pieces on our CD. A theater enthusiast, he wrote several short works which were to serve as incidental music - entr’ácte -between the acts of a drama. Deux Interludes (Tr 8-9 ) for flute, violin and harp, build a bridge between the French and Spanish music on our recording. The first Interlude elegantly takes a stroll through a courtly garden, while Interlude II teems with vigor, Spanish flair and guitaristic ornamentation in the harp part.
Pièce (Tr 17) for solo flute, begins with a slow dreamlike, seemingly improvised flute line. I think of a bird sitting on a branch, trying out its morning voice. The line becomes continually more daring, chromatic and virtuosic, coming to a close with a peaceful smile.

Albert Roussel chose the lovely poems by Pierre de Ronsard as inspiration for his duet for soprano and flute. The Nightingale (Tr 6 ) is a melodious conversation between the poet and a bird (once again portrayed by the flute ). Sky, Air and Winds (Tr 7) opulently besings Mother Nature, pleading for her help.
What luck that Maurice Ravel was asked to harmonize the Five Popular Greek Songs (Tr 1-5 ) ! He composed and played the accompanying piano part himself, in 1905, for an international lecture about the Greek Islands. Although the melodies and lyrics remain true to the Greek originals, Ravel succeeds in painting radiant atmosphere with sun-filled rooms and shimmering afternoon heat, all the while sounding absolutely like Ravel. We can easily visualize a young girl skipping down the narrow cobble stone steps from the church, past white washed homes and tiny shops, all the way to the aquamarine harbor, singing out “tout gai !”

About the artists

The swiss soprano, Regula Konrad, is a much celebrated soloist giving guest appearances and chamber music recitals throughout Europe. She teaches voice at the Academy of Music in Basel. Regula studied Music Sciences and Art History before embarking on a singing career. She earned her M.A. and soloist diploma in Basel under Kurt Widmer. She also participated in master classes given by Tamar Rachum (Tel Aviv ), Margreet Honig (Amsterdam), and René Jacobs (at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis).
Touring through Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Portugal and Spain, she has sung in important festivals and worked with highly esteemed conductors. She especially gained from her work under the baton of David Zinman, Christopher Coin and René Jacobs. Regula recently recorded two CDs with early music specialist Jordi Savall: H.I.F. Biber’s Requiem and Missa Bruxellensis.

Gudrun Knop, a free-lance flutist in Cologne, Germany, enjoys drawing out the dramatic elements and nuances available to the silver flute in the music of the 20th century. A sought after chamber music partner, she also delves intensively into the world of early music with her 18th century traverse flute.
She studied modern flute with Prof. Matthias Rütters at the Folkwang Conservatory in Essen, finishing with the soloist diploma, summa cum laude, in Basel under Felix Renggli. In Belgium, Gudrun intensified her understanding of baroque music, studying the traverso with specialist Barthold Kuijken at the Royal Academy.
She has performed regularly with The Baden-Badener Philharmonie, Badisches Staatstheater, Karlsruhe, and the German Opera on the Rhine, Düsseldorf.

Cynthia Oppermann is principal harpist of the Baden-Badener Philharmonie in Germany. Born in New York, she studied with Alice Chalifoux at The Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, Ohio. After working for the National Symphony Orchestras of Costa Rica and Venezuela, Cynthia made Europe her home.
As a chamber musician she enjoys playing works which allow the harp to show contour and color. Cynthia is a member of Duo Rilke, the Jolivet Trio, the Silberfluss Ensemble and Trio Cantos. She lives with her husband, free-style harpist Rüdiger Oppermann and their three sons in Alsace, France.

Previous recordings:

Silberfluss (Wundertüte)
Neues aus Harpistan (Wundertüte)
The Art of Harp (Shamrock/ Schott Verlag)
Rilke d’Amore (Shamrock / Schott Verlag)
Harpestry (Polygram)
Upon Enchanted Ground (KlangWelten Classics).

Acknowledgements

We especially want to thank our three guest musicians for playing with us on this recording.
Yasushi Ideue, Baden-Baden’s foremost musician personality and active soloist, is Concert Master of the Philharmonie. His elegant and lyrical violin playing captures the proud Spanish stance in Ibert’s Deux Interludes. Ginastera’s Cantos del Tucumán open with Yasushi’s wistful violin line, while he sets his bow to dancing for the indio rhythms of Algarroba, algarrobal. Thank You!
Dorothee Neu was Cynthia’s grooving harp-duo partner for Manuel de Falla’s Siete canciones populares españolas. Dorothee studied classical harp with Alice Giles, Francoise Friedrich and Gisèle Herbet in Frankfurt and Würzburg. She is a notable young soloist who enjoys orchestral playing and teaching as well as improvising on the Irish harp. Cynthia was Dorothee’s first harp teacher; they’re one heart and soul!

And thanks to Thomas Fink, solo timpanist in the Baden-Badener Philharmonie for helping us out on the Cajon- the percussion instrument from Tucumán.