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James Newby & Joseph Middleton

Black and white photo of James Newby smiling at the camera with his arms folded

Jessica Duchen explores how the themes of restlessness, longing and isolation translate into great art.

James Newby and Joseph Middleton’s recital journeys through inner worlds that interrogate myriad shades of loneliness, restlessness and longing. Words and music are spread through the centuries, but the human emotions involved are perennial. 

First come two songs by Benjamin Britten, who began to forge folksongs into art songs to perform in recital with his partner, the tenor Peter Pears, while the pair were in the US during the Second World War. I wonder as I wander is a wistful exchange between piano and voice; unfortunately it turned out that the original was not actually a folksong, but written by John Jacob Niles in 1933, so Britten could not broadcast or record it for copyright reasons. The Scottish There’s none to soothe is from Britten’s third volume of folksongs: the composer’s distinctive voice is clear in the hypnotic harmonies of the accompaniment. 

Ludwig van Beethoven’s vocal writing is often considered ungainly, yet his songs were enormously popular in his own time. ‘Maigesang’ is a setting of a poem by Goethe; a celebration of joy in nature and love, it contrasts with the lonelier devotion to the beloved in Adelaïde, which became a perennial favourite in the Viennese salons. 

An die ferne Geliebte (‘To the Distant Beloved’) is the first known song-cycle, a form invented by Beethoven, who termed it a ‘Liederkreis’ (circle of songs). He wrote it in spring 1816, to a commission from his patron, Prince Lobkowitz, whose wife had recently died. The words are by Alois Jeitteles, a Czech Jewish medical student whose poetry, published in local journals, had impressed the composer.

The protagonist longs for his faraway beloved amid the beauties of nature, evoked with lyrical, folksong-like idioms. Music plays a vital role in the narrative. He offers her his songs: ‘Take them, then, these songs that I sang to you… and you will sing what I have sung … the distance which separated us will recede …’ While the identity of Beethoven’s mysterious ‘Immortal Beloved’ is still disputed, the academically approved front-runner, Countess Josephine Brunsvík, has some relevance: the distinctive rhythm that recurs in the cycle seems to trace her name. It is present, in a multitude of variants, in many of Beethoven’s other works, especially those associated with her.

Beethoven had some connection, too, to Des Knaben Wunderhorn (‘The Boy’s Magic Horn’), a collection of folk tales and poetry assembled by the poets Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim. The pair were aided and abetted by Brentano’s half-sister, Bettina, who married von Arnim, became a celebrated writer and enjoyed a lively friendship with Beethoven. The several-volume collection, published between 1805 and 1808, was a seminal text in German Romanticism. 

Between 1887 and 1901, Gustav Mahler set around two dozen of its poems, his cycle of the same name containing 12 of them. ‘Zu Strassburg auf der Schan’ (On the battlements at Strasbourg) depicts a soldier condemned to execution; ‘Revelge’ (Reveille) tells the tale of a young soldier’s departure for war and his subsequent tragedy; and ‘Urlicht’ (Primordial Light) finds the protagonist poised as if between life and death. It became the mezzo-soprano solo in Mahler’s Symphony No 2, the ‘Resurrection’.

This evening’s recital also features a UK premiere, the song-cycle Casanova in Lockdown by Judith Bingham, based on the memoirs of Giacomo Casanova himself. 

Judith Bingham writes:

‘One of the most entertaining parts of the memoirs is Casanova’s description of how he escaped from the notorious attic prisons in the Doge’s Palace – “I Piombi”. This chapter became an entertaining two-hour performance that got him into many of the salons and courts of Europe. Over the years it was doubtless much embellished, but the official records of the Palace show that the damage he did escaping over the roof did actually happen. 

This piece imagines such a performance, with Casanova painting himself very much as the victim of a misunderstanding, though it was far from the only time he was to find himself in prison. The music follows an 18th-century pattern of recitative and aria, or arietta, though spontaneity is never far from the surface.’

Franz Schubert’s vast output of songs often provided him with a vehicle for contemplating isolation. Although he contracted syphilis in his mid-twenties, this darkness of spirit was not solely a result of that. The yearning Der Wanderer, D493, a scena in several sections, was drafted in 1816, when Schubert was only 19; his preoccupations with loneliness were clearly with him for longer than the disease. The Adagio section’s theme became the basis of his Wanderer Fantasy for piano, written in 1822.

Auf der Donau (On the Danube), D553 sets a poem by Schubert’s friend Johann Mayrhofer, in which, as the vessel travels down river, ‘And in our little boat we grow afraid/waves, like time, threaten doom’. Auf der Bruck, D853 finds its protagonist riding homeward on horseback to his loved one; and Abendstern, D806 is another Mayrhofer meditation on nocturnal loneliness, switching poignantly between minor and major. 

The recital closes with two more folksong settings by Britten, both originating in Ireland. In At the mid hour of night a lover mourns his deceased beloved. Finally, The last rose of summer blooms alone, only to be scattered after her companions by the equally solitary poet. 

© Jessica Duchen

Details

Event date 7 Oct 2022
Start time 7.30pm
Running time
120 minutes
There will be an interval
All timings are approximate and subject to change

Programme and performers

Benjamin Britten I Wonder as I Wander

There's none to soothe

Ludwig Van Beethoven 'Maigesang' from 8 Lieder

Adelaide

An die ferne Geliebte

Gustav Mahler 'Zu Straßburg auf der Schan', 'Revelge' and 'Urlicht' from Des Knaben Wunderhorn

-

Judith Bingham Casanova in Lockdown (UK premiere)

Franz Schubert Der Wanderer, D493

Auf der Donau

Auf der Brücke

Abendstern

Anon/Benjamin Britten At the mid hour of night

The Last Rose of Summer (arr Benjamin Britten)

James Newby baritone

Joseph Middleton piano

Translations

I wonder as I wander out under the sky,
How Jesus our Saviour did come for to die.
For poor or’n’ry people like you and like I,
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.
When Mary birthed Jesus ’twas in a cow stall,
With wise men and shepherds and farmers
and all.
On high from God’s heaven the star’s light did
fall,
And the promise of the ages it did then recall.
If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing,
A star in the sky, or a bird on the wing;
Or all of God’s angels in heav’n for to sing,
He surely could’ve had it for he was the King!


John Jacob Niles (1892–1980),
possibly after an Appalachian carol

Recitative
It was only a misunderstanding – honestly! 
I was wooing the wife of Signor Zorzi – 
successfully I might add. How was I to know 
I had a rival? And of all the rivals a man
could choose – Condulmer – Condulmer, the 
Inquisitor! Of course he knew he’d never get the 
lady with me on the scene, not with my charm, 
my looks – my skill! So he had me arrested 
on trumped-up charges – contraband salt! – 
ridiculous! And then they found my Kabbalah.

Arietta
I was an affront, they said, to decency 
and religion: probably true! Blasphemer! 
Degenerate! For a while I thought they’d burn 
me at the stake.

Recitative
Condulmer had me just where he wanted, 
on my knees, begging, pleading. They didn’t 
even charge me, or tell me my sentence. As 
they dragged me out, Condulmer smiled: we
both knew what that meant!

Aria
Across the Ponte dei Sospiri, Bridge of Sighs,
to the Doge’s Palace. Under the roof were the
cells called I Piombi. Cells as dark as night,
freezing in winter, an oven in summer. Rats as
big as rabbits. Chimerical hopes give way to
a terrible despair: the midnight bell: madness,
howling, cursing, cursing the world.
Ah pieta, signori miei, ah pieta, pieta di me!
(Ah pity, my lords, have pity on me!)

Recitative
I longed for Hell, just to have some
companionship. I yearned for the company of
a murderer, a maniac, a man with a stinking
disease – a bear! Solitude drives one to
despair; only sleep brings relief. Oh Dei, è
giorno ovver notte? (O God, is it day or night?)

After many months, escape was the only
option. I was swapping books with another
prisoner: Balbi, a Venetian nobleman.
Scurrilous rogue – sleazy! I managed to send
him an iron hook, sharpened to a point. It was
most amusing, how I got the hook to him – ha
ha – gnocchi swimming in butter – ha ha – but
I’ll tell you that another time.

Balbi was able to take out some bricks from
the ceiling of his cell and then make a hole
through the wall of my cell. On the 31st of
October 1756, we climbed up into the roof,
peeled back a lead pane, and climbed out.

Oh, the sea air from the lagoon – we were
free! And then the midnight bell from San
Marco rang in All Saints’ Day.

Down we went, the descent terrifying – sheets
and napkins served as ropes. We should have
broken our necks, but the saints were with us.
Finally we reached the ground, and ran for a
gondola. As the oars turned, I wept.

Aria
Not for ever is the sea turbulent,
Not for ever is the sky overcast,
In time life will smile again,
In time, all things will change,
The wind will alter, the tide will turn,
Life will get better or worse – who knows?


Text by Judith Bingham, taken from Histoire de
ma Vie by Giacomo Casanova © 2020 by Peters Edition Limited, London
Reprinted by kind permission of the publishers.

Artist biographies

James Newby is a former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and Rising Star with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. He was nominated by the Barbican for the European Concert Hall Organisation’s Rising Star scheme and gives ECHO recitals throughout Europe during this season, of which tonight’s concert is a part. 

He received the Richard Tauber Prize for best interpretation of a Schubert Lied at the 2015 Wigmore Hall/Kohn International Song Competition and has since enjoyed a close relationship with the hall, a recent highlight being a performance of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin with Simon Lepper. Most recently, he was awarded a Borletti–Buitoni Trust Award, in recognition and support of his emerging status as one of the most outstanding musicians of his generation. 

His debut solo CD, I Wonder as I Wander, released on BIS in 2020 with Joseph Middleton, won the Diapason d’Or Découverte and was highly critically acclaimed. 

In September 2019 he joined the Ensemble of Hanover State Opera where in 2021 he garnered particular praise for his debut as Eddy in Mark- Anthony Turnage’s Greek. Other important role debuts in Hanover have included Guglielmo (Così fan tutte) and the title-role in Eugene Onegin. 

Forthcoming highlights in the opera house include his French opera debut as Der Junker in Schreker’s Der Schatzgräber at Opéra National du Rhin; his debut at the Komische Oper Berlin in the role of Guglielmo; Aeneas in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at The Grange Festival and Valentin in Gounod’s Faust at the Liceu Barcelona. 

Concert performances this season include Haydn’s The Creation with the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bart Van Reyn and Messiah with Harry Christophers and The Sixteen. Past concert appearances include Berlioz with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Mozart with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Handel with Britten Sinfonia. He has also appeared in Baroque repertoire with conductors such as David Bates, Jonathan Cohen and John Butt, toured in Europe with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and made his US debut with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under Juanjo Mena. 

James Newby studies with Robert Dean.