Episode 428. Alfreda Hodgson Sings Brahms

Episode 428. Alfreda Hodgson Sings Brahms

The English contralto Alfreda Hodgson (07 June 1940 – 16 April 1992) has been featured numerous times on Countermelody and when I recently acquired a copy of her 1980 solo recital recording originally released on Pearl Records, I decided that the time was right to do a full episode on this rich-voiced, profoundly musical singer. Though she was equally superb in Bach, Mahler, Handel, and Elgar, I have chosen to focus on her performances of the music of Johannes Brahms, including superb recordings of the Alto Rhapsody, the Songs for Alto and Viola, the Vier ernste Gesänge, and a posthumously-assembled collection of his Lieder published under the title Mädchenlieder. Artists accompanying Hodgson include Bernard Haitink, Edward Downes, violist Ludmila Navrath, and her long-standing pianist, the late Keith Swallow. I begin the episode with brief examples of Hodgson singing (in English) the music of her countrymen Lennox Berkeley, Edward Elgar, and John Ireland in the company of Peter Pears, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Steuart Bedford, and Alan Rowlands.

RECORDINGS HEARD IN THIS EPISODE

All selections sung by Alfreda Hodgson.

Lennox Berkeley, Eric Crozier: Let me beg you to forgive your countrymen… Oh, let not anger fill your eyes (Ruth). Peter Pears, Alfreda Hodgson, Steuart Bedford, BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra [BBC recording first broadcast 18.VIII.1968]

Edward Elgar: Who stilleth the raging of the seas? (The Apostles, Op. 49). Alfreda Hodgson, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, BBC Symphony Orchestra [live London, Royal Festival Hall 17.II.1982]

Traditional tune and text, arr. John Ireland: The Three Ravens. Alan Rowlands [1979]

All remaining selections composed by Johannes Brahms.

Sechs Mädchenlieder. Keith Swallow [1980]

• Paul Heyse: Mädchenlied, Op. 95/6
• Siegfried Kapper [adapted from a folk text: Mädchenlied, Op. 85/3
• Paul Heyse: Mädchenlied, Op. 107/5
• Otto Friedrich Gruppe: Das Mädchen spricht, Op. 107/3
• Siegfried Kapper [adapted from a folk text]: Mädchenfluch, Op. 69/9
• Siegfried Kapper [adapted from a folk text]: Das Mädchen, Op. 95/1

August Heinrich von Fallersleben: Von ewiger Liebe, Op. 43/1. Edward Downes [unknown date]

Johann Wolgang von Goethe: Altrhapsodie, Op. 53. Bernard Haitink, Symphonieorchester und Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks [1982]

Zwei Gesänge, Op. 91. Ludmila Navrath, Keith Swallow [1980]

• I. Friedrich Rückert: Gestillte Sehnsucht
• II. Emanuel von Geibel [after Lope Felix de Vega Carpio]: Geistliches Wiegenlied

Martin Luther [German translations of Biblical texts]: Vier ernste Gesänge, Op. 121. Keith Swallow [1974]

• I. Text from Ecclesiastes. Denn es gehet dem Menschen
• II. Text from Ecclesiastes. Ich wandte mich und sahe an
• III. Text from Sirach. O Tod, wie bitter bist du
• IV. Text from First Corinthians. Wenn ich mit Menschen- und mit Engelszungen redete