Performers: Juliane Banse (voice), Martin Helmchen (piano)
0:04 Geburt Mariä
3:26 Die Darstellung Mariä im Tempel
12:35 Mariä Verkündigung
16:50 Mariä Heimsuchung
19:35 Argwohn Josephs
21:19 Verkündigung über die Hirten
26:31 Geburt Christi
30:05 Rast auf der Flucht nach Ägypten
33:51 Von der Hochzeit zu Kana
38:28 Vor der Passion
45:24 Pietà
48:40 Stillung Mariä mit dem Auferstandenen
51:03 Vom Tode Mariä I
59:56 Vom Tode Mariä II (Thema mit Variationen)
1:07:15 Vom Tode Mariä III
From the programme booklet:
At the end of June 1922 Hindemith began composing a song cycle for soprano and piano based on the fifteen poems Das Marien-Leben by Rainer Maria Rilke. It was not until more than a year later, at the beginning of July 1923, that the cycle was completed. ‘This was not easy to do’, Hindemith wrote in his manuscript catalogue of works, and the note under the song that was composed last (no.14, Vom Tode Mariä II), ‘Dann sang er Lob’ (‘Then he sang praise’, a quotation from no.5 in the cycle, Argwohn Josephs), similarly reveals his relief at concluding the work. In mid-July 1923, he announced to his publishers in Mainz that he was sending the manuscript to them with the following words: ‘I like these pieces very much and I am glad that I have managed them so well. I’m sure they are the best of me so far - and what’s more, I don’t think a song cycle of similar proportions has been composed recently.’ The fact that Hindemith worked on the cycle for an unusually long time, by his standards, can be explained by the far-reaching stylistic change from musical Expressionism to the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) that he accomplished during this time. This process is perceptible in the multifaceted compositional style of the fifteen songs of Das Marienleben. The first song to have been written, Pietà (no.11), is an example of Hindemithian Expressionism, which manifests itself in the extreme frugality of the musical resources. The piano part is limited to a few sustained chords and throbbing repeated notes, while the repetitive vocal line, handled like recitative, produces the effect of a lamentation. In this way, the image articulated in the text of Mary standing motionless as she grieves before her crucified son is also given musical substance. As in this song, so too in Argwohn Josephs (no.5), written immediately afterwards, the suggestive power of the musical setting creates direct relationships between words and notes: it is pervaded by a hammering piano part in an almost uninterrupted unison that never comes to rest. One clearly hears how doubts and suspicion gnaw at Joseph, the husband who feels he has been deceived. Even in the hymn of praise he sings after the angel has told him about the circumstances of Mary’s pregnancy, his angry grumbling can still be heard. This song is at the same time an example of the asperity and motoric excess that can be found in many of Hindemith’s early works.
The songs in the cycle that were written later display a completely different style. The music now seems to be more distant from, sometimes even independent of the original text. The text-related musical expression is sublimated in specific compositional forms such as the basso ostinato (no.13, Vom Tode Mariä I) or the variation (no.14, Vom Tode Mariä II). The musicologist Hans Mersmann explained the distinctiveness of this novel concept of expression in the ‘Moderne Musik’ volume of the Handbuch der Musikwissenschaft, published in 1928, taking the example of the song Darstellung Mariä im Tempel (no.2), which was composed at the end of April 1923: "All those who had previously set Rilke to music did so in the spirit of Impressionism corresponding to his style. They sought to reflect the subtle, subdued colours and dark resonance of the poems. As a result, harmony took priority, as being the expressive symbol most appropriate to the Impressionistic poet. Hindemith approaches the material from the opposing side. As a musician he does not place himself beside the poet, but opposite him. He bends the line of these poems upwards into swaying arches; he transforms them into the Temple, giving them the tensions and the vast interior spaces of the church which their sacral world requires. And there is more: he also encompasses the spiritual content of the poems. If he builds a passacaglia out of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, then, once the contradiction of the surfaces has been overcome, the inner relationship between word and music lies not only in the hierarchical structure of the chaconne, which arches upwards at regular intervals, but also over and above it, in the structural principle. The construction of such a poem from the supporting surface of a polyphonic form touches upon the core of the poem, beyond all visible relations. Musician and poet meet each other here on a peak of intense spirituality, cool abstraction and expansive, sweeping design. Rilke has never been observed from this angle before."
Негізгі бет Музыка Hindemith: Das Marienleben, 15 songs for soprano and piano (1923 version), Op. 27 (with score)
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