NYT's Review - 'Faust' - Botstein’s American Symphony in Schumann’s ‘Faust’
As a bookish young man born to a literary household, Schumann thought seriously of becoming a writer. In a diary entry he assessed his musical and literary gifts as “at the same level.”
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Daniel Barry for The New York Times“Faust”:The baritone Andrew Schroeder and the soprano Twyla Robinson in Schumann’s “Faust” at Avery Fisher Hall on Friday.
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Given his sensitivity to literature, it is a wonder that he was not drawn to opera. But he lacked a feeling for the stage. Compare him to, say, Puccini, who had nothing like Schumann’s literary sophistication but was a theater man through and through. Schumann wrote one opera, “Genoveva,” a dramatically hapless work with intermittently inspired music.
But Schumann did excel at the dramatic oratorio, especially with “Scenes From Goethe’s ‘Faust.’ ” He began composing this two-hour, three-part score in 1844 and completed it in 1853, the year before his death. For this Schumann year (the 200th anniversary of his birth), Leon Botstein conducted the American Symphony Orchestra in this seldom-performed work at Avery Fisher Hall on Friday night. They were joined, before a sadly small audience, by the Concert Chorale of New York (James Bagwell, director), the Brooklyn Youth Chorus (Dianne Berkun, artistic director) and an appealing roster of vocal soloists, headed by the baritone Andrew Schroeder as Faust.
Mr. Botstein conveyed the overall shape, flow and character of Schumann’s thick-textured, challenging music, and the radiant final choral scene had a shimmering, stately beauty. But the performance consistently lacked clarity and nuance. Several long, ruminative episodes came across as lumbering.
In a way, Schumann was theatrically astute enough to realize that as a source for an opera, Goethe’s “Faust” was too impossibly sprawling and philosophical. Part 1 of Goethe’s play relates the Romantic story of the disconsolate scholar who makes a pact with the devil and rekindles joys of the flesh with Gretchen, a trusting young woman. The allegorical Part 2 deals with Faust’s redemption, Gretchen’s salvation and the ideal of the eternal feminine. It is not surprising that Schumann was especially drawn to the metaphysical themes and poetry of Part 2.
Schumann dispatches Part 1 of Goethe’s play in just three scenes. The oratorio opens with a garden love scene for Faust and Gretchen in which lyrically beguiling vocal lines flow atop a contrapuntally thick yet undulant orchestra. In the devout second scene Gretchen prays to Mater Dolorosa; an agitated choral scene follows, in which Gretchen resists the taunts of an evil spirit. The Schumann of fantastical piano suites like “Kreisleriana” comes through in the restless orchestral shimmerings and magical choral refrains of this elaborate episode.
In Part 3 of the oratorio Schumann sets the same final passages of “Faust” that Mahler chose for the conclusion of his “Symphony of a Thousand.” Here the mingling of radiant choral passages, rhapsodic orchestra wanderings and lyrical solo flights is miraculous.
Mr. Schroeder, who also performed Dr. Marianus in Part 3, sang with robust sound, impetuosity and disarming tenderness in the love scene. The bright-voiced soprano Twyla Robinson (Gretchen), the stentorian bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen (Mephistopheles), the youthful tenor Michael Spyres (Ariel) and the rich soprano Hanan Alattar (Martha) all gave confident performances. Whatever his shortcomings, Mr. Botstein again provided a service by presenting an important and inexplicably neglected work.
The American Symphony Orchestra’s next program at Avery Fisher Hall, “Apollo and Dionysus,” is on May 9; (212) 868-9276; americansymphony.org.
Sign in to Recommend More Articles in Arts » A version of this article appeared in print on April 12, 2010, on page C6 of the New York edition.
Last week was one of my best week's as a freelancing violinist in New York City. One of the reasons was the pure joy of playing Schumann's Faust opera scenes with American Symphony Orchestra, where I am a member.
The week began with orchestra rehearsing alone for 2 rehearsals. At first, I thought Schumann was incredibly boring and too tiring to play because there were hardly any break. However, that quickly changed once the soloists and the chorus started rehearsing with us. The piece grew on me exponentially and I absolutely enjoyed performing it at Avery Fisher Hall.
