Today we wish Hugo Wolf (13 March 1860 – 22 February 1903) a happy birthday with a long tribute reminiscent of an eighteenth-century satire in heroic couplets. Such couplets have a tendency to proliferate like rabbits, and that is exactly what has happened here.
Chased by a Wolf Pack
The Liederabend like a sacred service
Will make the uninitiated nervous.
A ritual performance not confined
To those on stage, but is in fact designed
So everyone can play a role assigned.
To hear the true performance you should listen
To patrons holding forth at intermission.
Each cognoscente loudly has their say
On Schwarzkopf, Fischer-Dieskau or Souzay.
“Of course there’s not much voice left, but her style!”
“But don’t you think her high notes are a trial?”
“Miss Price has sung it better by a mile”
“But have you heard it sung by Hermann Prey”
“You like it sung by Bostridge?! Good Lord, why!”
“There’s really not a thing that’s as rewarding
As Ludwig’s Salzburg Festspiel live recording”
Nor does the talk turn only on the voice;
Each speaker has composers of their choice.
While Schubert, Brahms, and Schumann have adherents,
There’s ecstasy when Wolf makes his appearance —
Most esoteric of the Lieder throng —
Archbishop at the altar of the song.
The songs of Hugo Wolf consist of sets
Of perfectly interpreted vignettes
Arranged into a small anthology
Of extra subtle musical psychology.
Each poet chosen for what could be brought
By sung elaboration to the thought.
There’s Goethe, Michelangelo, what’s more,
There’s Möricke and Eichendorff (top drawer!).
Italian songs whose folk-inspired source
Provided texts both serious and coarse.
And Spanish songs as solemn as a sermon,
Perhaps because, though Spanish, sung in German.
Not Lieder for the casually inclined,
They call for an attention so refined
They leave th’untutored hoi polloi behind.
So heed this warning note when you see Hugo
Wolf is programmed any place that you go.
