RODERICK WILLIAMS IN RECITAL 10 MAY 2022, 7:30pm VICTORIA CONCERT HALL
10 MAY 2022: RODERICK WILLIAMS IN RECITAL PROGRAMME Roderick Williams, baritone Paul Cibis, piano FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797 – 1828) From Die schöne Müllerin (words by Wilhem Müller) • Das Wandern GEORGE BUTTERWORTH (1885 – 1916) Selections from A Shropshire Lad (words by A.E. Housman) • Loveliest of trees • When I was one-and-twenty • Look not in my eyes • Think no more lad • The lads in their hundreds • Is my team ploughing? REBECCA CLARKE (1886 – 1979) 8 o’clock (words by A.E. Housman) Aufblick (words by Richard Dehmel) ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810 – 1856) Album für die Jugend, Op. 68 – piano solo • No. 21 From Liederkreis, Op. 24 • Morgens steh’ ich auf und frage • Es treibt mich hin • Ich wandelte unter den Bäume REBECCA CLARKE Stimme im Dunkeln (words by Richard Dehmel) ROBERT SCHUMANN Album für die Jugend, Op. 68 – piano solo • No. 8 • No. 16 From Liederkreis, Op. 24 (words by Heinrich Heine) • Lieb’ Liebchen, leg’s Händchen • Schöne Wiege meiner Leiden
FRANZ SCHUBERT From Die schöne Müllerin • Wohin? • Halt!
- INTERMISSION -
FRANZ SCHUBERT From Die schöne Müllerin • Am Feierabend • Der Neugierige • Ungeduld RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872 – 1958) Selections from Songs of Travel (words by Robert Louis Stephenson) • The Vagabond CHARLES WILFRED ORR (1893 – 1976) Selections from A Shropshire Lad (words by A.E. Housman) • Along the field FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN (1810 – 1849) Prelude No. 10 – piano solo VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Selections from Songs of Travel (words by Robert Louis Stephenson) • Roadside Fire • Whither must I wander? • Bright is the Ring of Words CHARLES WILFRED ORR Selections from A Shropshire Lad (words by A E Housman) • When I watch the living meet FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN Prelude No. 23 – piano solo CHARLES WILFRED ORR Selections from A Shropshire Lad (words by A E Housman) • The Lent Lily
FRANZ SCHUBERT From Die schöne Müllerin • Die liebe Farbe • Die böse Farbe • Der Müller und der Bach
CONCERT DURATION: approximately 2 hrs (with 20 mins intermission)
MESSAGE FROM RODERICK WILLIAMS “When I was One-and-twenty Now of my three-score years and ten, Twenty will not come again...” – Housman Oh, to be young again! Now, when I sing those words from the first of George Butterworth’s Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad, I’m well aware that, in my mid-fifties, I am far closer to the end of my allotted time on Earth than I am to the age of the lad in question. Yet when I perform works such as this, or Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, at least for the duration of the songs I can play the young man once more, reconnecting with my own youth and savouring the joys of being a teenager and young adult. But was it really a joy? When I actually try to recall what it was like at that age, I have to admit that it was a period of bewildering emotions, naiveties and contradictions. My younger self lacked experience, selfconfidence, an ability to articulate what was honestly going on in my head and heart. Instead I grew to realise that the world did not actually exist for my sole edification and gratification, rather that I had to learn how to cope with its many confusing behavioural codes and etiquettes.
The music and poetry of this programme reminds those of us who are in our later years what it was like to be young, to experience life in vivid, binary colours, where emotional highs are triumphantly passionate and corresponding lows totally devastating. So much wonderful art song is dedicated to this period of life and it can be intoxicating and often terribly poignant to delve into it headlong. Meanwhile, there is something else at work in this recital programme. The music historian and academic Natasha Loges has recently been researching nineteenth century recital programmes and observes that the custom of presenting some of the great song cycles, especially those by Schubert, complete in a single evening was an invention that came after Schubert’s lifetime. Die schöne Müllerin was first attempted complete by the baritone Julius Stockhausen in 1856 and it attracted quite some negative comment, even outright derision from certain critics. The more usual practice of Schubert’s time, and for much of the rest of the century, was to cherry-pick songs from his cycles and intersperse them with totally unrelated material – perhaps a movement from a string quartet or an instrumental sonata. Whether Schubert would ever have expected audiences to sit through the entire cycle in rapt silence, as we do today, is unknown.
This recital programme may not pursue the point quite that far but it does explore what it means to remove the need for complete performances of song cycles or song sets and asks all of us, performers and audience alike, to listen to these songs in a different way. Rather than feel the need to ‘collect’ songs, as Loges describes it, ticking them off as they pass by, the present juxtaposition of lyrics and brief piano solos allows coincidences and collisions of narrative thread, key, temperament and intent. Admittedly, this programme is not an attempt to emulate the variety turns of previous centuries; each half will be presented as a continuous sequence and we ask that you withhold any applause until the end of both parts. This has as much to do with time management as it does with artistic planning! After all, none of us is getting any younger… “But at my back I always hear Time’s winged chariot hurrying near...” – Marvell
RODERICK WILLIAMS Roderick Williams is one of the most sought-after baritones of his generation. He performs a wide repertoire from baroque to contemporary music and is in demand as a recitalist worldwide. He was Artistic Director of the Leeds Lieder Festival in April 2016, and Artist in Residence for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra from 2020/21 for two seasons. He enjoys relationships with all the major UK opera houses and has sung opera world premieres by David Sawer, Sally Beamish, Michel van der Aa, Robert Saxton and Alexander Knaifel. Recent and future engagements include the title role in Eugene Onegin for Garsington, the title role in Billy Budd with Opera North, Papageno for Covent Garden, and productions with Cologne Opera, English National Opera and Netherlands Opera. Roderick sings regularly with all the BBC orchestras and all the major UK orchestras, as well as the Berlin, London and New York Philharmonic Orchestras, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Cincinnati Symphony, London Symphony and Bach Collegium Japan amongst others. His many festival appearances include the BBC Proms (including the Last Night in 2014), Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Bath, Aldeburgh and Melbourne Festivals.
Roderick has an extensive discography. He is a composer and has had works premiered at the Wigmore and Barbican Halls, the Purcell Room and live on national radio. In December 2016 he won the best choral composition at the British Composer Awards. From 2022/23 season he takes the position of Composer in Association of the BBC Singers. He recently completed a three-year odyssey of the Schubert song cycles culminating in performances at the Wigmore Hall and has subsequently recorded them for Chandos.
PAUL CIBIS Educated in Hanover, Berlin and London, pianist Paul Cibis has performed solo and duo recitals at festivals in his native Germany, France, UK, US, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Following his interest in presenting classical music in unique and innovative ways, Paul has created PIANO BATTLE, an exciting concert series co-developed with pianist Andreas Kern. PIANO BATTLE has been invited to perform at major venues and festivals including Beethovenfest Bonn, Berlin Philharmonie, Seoul Arts Centre and National Concert Hall Taipei. His CD recordings include an album of French mélodies and piano works by Berlioz, Fauré and Debussy, with German mezzo-soprano Barbara Senator. His latest album features a collection of solo pieces by Taiwanese composer Kai-nan Huang. As an educator, Paul Cibis has been involved in masterclasses and workshops in Germany, UK, US, China, Hong Kong, and South Korea. He is also co-director of the annual Philomel Music Academy summer course, and a founding member and current Chair of the International Peter Feuchtwanger Society.
Paul Cibis studied piano with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, Peter Feuchtwanger and Graham Johnson; and read musicology and philosophy at universities in Berlin and at Royal Holloway, University of London. From 2005 to 2009, Paul was a vocal coach at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance in London. He also conducted piano and Lieder workshops at music academies Hongkong and Guangzhou, China, and was an adjudicator at the Hong Kong Music & Speech Festival.
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