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Paul Hindemith's Das Marienlaben is no ordinary song-cycle. Its lofty text (poems by Rilke) and the dramatic appeal of its music make it a work of great esthetic value. Its unconventional treatment--its complex interrelationships and its attempts to induce deeply spiritual reactions--makes it a work of historical significance. And its magnificent performance last Thursday night by Phyllis Curtin, soprano, and Gregory Tucker, pianist, made it an excellent conclusion to the Longy School's Music of Today series...
...Tucker began by reading part of Hindemith's preface to the 1948 revision of Das Marienlaben. With the aid of a diagram and a dozen pages of technical discussion, the composer points out how this version differs from the original 1923 score. The improvements resulted in a more unified piece, and each of the fifteen songs included were fashioned into parts that together produce an integrated and carefully calculated effect. For instance, the first and seventh songs (Birth of Mary and Birth of Christ) use the same melodic and harmonic material, thus demonstrating the similarity between the two events...
Despite Hindemith's avowed intention always to keep in mind the limitations of the human voice when composing, Das Marienlaben requires a virtuoso soprano with an acute sense of rhythm, unerring breath control, and a versatile, disciplined voice. Phyllis Curtin possessed all these, as well as what appeared to be a profound knowledge of the work's structure. Her intimate style is well suited to the darkly lyrical numbers, and in expressing the stark misery of a song like the Pieta, she sounded desolate, cerie, and thoroughly convincing...
...final presentation of the series, on March 6, will present Paul Hindemith's song cycle, "Das Marien Leben." Would it be too much to hope that Mr. Hindemith himself will be there beforehand to tell the audience what to expect...
Defeat into Victory. In World War II, allied bombs just about demolished the Ullstein block along the Kochstrasse, but printing presses in a skyscraper near the Tempelhof airport were little damaged. They continued to pour forth Goebbels' Das Reich and the screaming Der Angriff until the end. The Red army carted off two of the plant's finest presses, but when the U.S. took over the sector, the remaining presses still made it the biggest printing plant in Europe. It rolled out the U.S. Army's Allgemeine Zeitung and later five other West Berlin dailies...