Thomas Hampson will return to David Matthews’ orchestrations of songs by Mahler, Wolf, and Schubert for baritone and strings on 7 February with the Erstes Frauen-Kammerorchester von Österreich at Vienna’s Lorely-Saal.
Their programme features Mahler’s Rheinlegendchen – an anonymous lyric from Des Knaben Wunderhorn – Three Schubert Songs (the stormy ‘An die Leier’, the tender ‘Memnon’ by Meyrhoffer, and Goethe’s ‘Geheimnis’) and Four Wolf Songs – Mörike’s ‘Fußreise’ and ‘Auf einer Wanderung’ and Goethe’s ‘Der Rattenfänger’ and ‘Anacreons Grab’.
Hampson and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta commissioned the arrangements for a twelve-concert European tour in 2014, taking in venues including Teatro Real, the Concertgebouw, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Dublin’s National Concert Hall, Munich’s Prinzregententheater, and Ludwigsburg Forum am Schlosspark. For the tour, Matthews also orchestrated Brahms’ Vier ernste Gesänge.
Matthews’ orchestrations recall the nineteenth-century vogue for bringing intimate songs into the concert hall with larger forces, with composers such as Brahms, Berlioz, Weber and Reger honouring their predecessors Schubert and Schumann with such arrangements. Matthews’ ingenuity as an orchestrator is on full display. Intertwining solo violins create a special atmosphere of enchantment at the opening of Wolf’s Anakreons Grab; squeaking strings conjure up the scurrying rodents of Der Rattenfänger. Muted, pulsing strings give Schubert’s Geheimnis a dreamy albeit uneasy character. The orchestrations were recorded by Hampson and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta for the Tides of Life album in 2017.
Rheinlegendchen is one facet of Matthews’ career-long fascination with Mahler’s music – not least as a major English symphonist himself, drawing direct inspiration from Mahler’s work. Matthews collaborated with Deryck Cooke on the performing edition of the 10th Symphony in 1972 (along with his brother Colin). In 2021 Matthews created his own reduced orchestration of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder for the BBC Philharmonic, Sarah Connolly, and Martyn Brabbins. He has also orchestrated Alma Mahler’s songs with his brother Colin.