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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Culture -> 
Mezzo-soprano to bring a night of Beethoven’s lieder gems
    2020-10-27  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

    Cao Zhen

    caozhen0806@126.com

    AMONG the many concerts in Shenzhen commemorating Beethoven’s 250th birth, a lieder performance scheduled for Oct. 31 at the Mountain View Theater is very unusual. Local music lovers will have a sober Saturday night enjoying the German composer’s delightful little gems presented by Chinese mezzo-soprano Bi Baoyi and Japanese pianist Kaori Kitamura.

    “In China, Beethoven’s lieder are not as popular as his instrumental music but in the lieder genre, his position should not be underestimated. In Europe, his art songs are widely appreciated,” Bi told the Shenzhen Daily.

    Titled “To the Distant Beloved,” the concert will feature “An Die Ferne Geliebte” (“To the Distant Beloved”), “Der Kuss” (“The Kiss”), “Ich Liebe Dich” (“I Love You”), “Adelaide,” “Mailied” (“May Song”), “Sehnsucht” (“Longing”) and “Drei Gesänge von Goethe” (“Three Songs of Goethe”), all of which are Beethoven’s popular songs.

    “‘An Die Ferne Geliebte,’ composed to poems by Alois Jeitteles, was created in Beethoven’s late period, so you won’t hear the heroism and splendor of the ‘Fate Symphony’ in this song but instead an inward expressiveness. On a personal level, the song was dedicated to Beethoven’s passed love in his youth, so the mood remains gentle, restrained and sober,” said Bi.

    She added that “An Die Ferne Geliebte” has earned a special place in music history by being the first major song cycle, eventually exerting a great influence on the lieder of Schubert, Schumann and many later composers. The six individual songs in a through-composed style in “An Die Ferne Geliebte” share some thematic relationships and are linked via the piano accompaniment, which delivers a sort of connecting interlude between songs.

    Another piece Bi would like to recommend is “Sehnsucht,” a song composed to lyrics sung by the character Mignon in Goethe’s novel “Wilhelm Meister.” Beethoven set these particular lyrics four times and Bi will sing the four songs at the concert. “This distinct section in ‘Wilhelm Meister’ is very elegant and philosophical, which exerted such a great fascination on many later composers: Schumann, Schubert and Tchaikovsky all composed their settings to it,” said Bi.

    Poems were the sources for most lieder, which should render a beautiful balance between words and piano music. Bi said that as long as you love reading and exploring the stories behind the lyrics, you can get close to lieder. “I’m Chinese and Kitamura is Japanese, but we both have a passion for German and Austrian art. We became friends from the time we were studying in Germany and have read a large amount of poems in the past 20 years,” said Bi.

    “The text in ‘Sehnsucht’ is very short but behind it is Goethe’s novel and it inspired many musical settings. In the West, the study of lieder is a subject in conservatories and I had studied this subject for six years. Lieder in the Classical and Romantic periods contain an abundance of musical beauty and offer a variety of insights into the intellectual, imaginative and emotional world of that time. The songs are not dramatic but reserved or introverted, suitable for audience members coming close to singers in salons, thinking after listening.”

    Few would dispute that Schubert’s lieder are the most influential in this genre and Bi said Beethoven’s contribution to lieder is in his foundation-laying. “In Beethoven’s lieder, he again stresses German music’s frame, including its aesthetic and structure. His lieder writing is very appropriate for the German textual content,” said Bi.

    “Mozart and Haydn also wrote lieder and Beethoven used different musical forms in lieder, but they were not regarded as lieder masters because at their time, the lieder genre was not mature; they were exploring. Schubert, who wrote more than 600 lieder, was clearly influential for expanding the potentials of the lieder genre,” Bi added.

    Graduating from the Moscow Russian Conservatory, the University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar and Lübeck Academy of Music, Bi signed with many opera houses in Europe and while there successfully played many classic female mezzo-soprano characters. An active German and Austrian music advocate, she holds master classes and lectures regularly in China along with Kitamura, now a professor at Zhejiang Conservatory of Music in Hangzhou.

    Bi is a distinguished professor of the Opera Center of Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and a resident opera director of Shenzhen Grand Theater, planning concerts, festivals and directing operas. In 2008, the operetta version of the opera “Bat” directed by her in Hanover, Germany was a great success on its tour around nine cities in China in 2009. In 2014, she helped to direct the Central Conservatory of Music’s version of Verdi’s opera “Aida” and won the outstanding performance award during the second Chinese Opera Festival.

    Bi is the director and professor of the Arts Center of Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen. The center, founded in 2016, offers optional courses in liberal arts education. Early this year, she launched the “Art and Science” course for students, exploring the role of AI and big data in music development.

    “I believe art and science are intertwined but I don’t think machines can replace human musicians. If a music piece is composed through AI and big data based on Beethoven’s oeuvre, you only get an ‘averaged’ Beethoven. Artists are improving and Beethoven’s music is so different in his different life periods. Exceeding and challenging themselves are the greatest merits of humans,” said Bi.


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