Miller time

Polenzani and Drake take on Schubert’s lovesick stalker.

David Shengold, Time Out New York, 28 March 2011

Schubert’s 1823 song cycle Die schöne Müllerin (“The Beautiful Mill-Girl”) is one of Romanticism’s musical pillars. The piece is also achingly small-r romantic, its poetic voice as vulnerable as that of any indie-rock balladeer. In 20 amazingly varied songs, a young man leaves home, falls for his boss’s daughter at a rural mill, is convinced he’s loved in return, sees a macho hunter win her hand, and succumbs to despair and—seemingly—suicide. The mill brook evoked by Schubert’s inventive, endlessly fluid piano writing accompanies the whole saga; finally, the singer becomes the stream, which promises the saddened lover lulling rest.

“It has a very truthful feeling,” says Matthew Polenzani, a superb lyric tenor who’s performing the cycle on tour with ace British pianist Julius Drake. Their voyage culminates in a performance on Sunday 3 at Alice Tully Hall. “Look, we’ve all been there: seeing the person across the room you’d like to talk to, you’d like to be with—but how to get there?” says Polenzani. “Unrequited love. In today’s society, the guy might even be called a stalker. We don’t know how much is real in what he describes of the relationship.”

Polenzani has become a world-class leading tenor the old-fashioned way, via fluent, beautiful vocalism and scrupulous artistry, plus a fine command of style and language. His Ernesto (Don Pasquale) and Alfredo (La Traviata) have enriched Metropolitan Opera seasons. But performing songs has always been a goal: “Crazy about Schubert’s music,” as he puts it, Polenzani last sang Die schöne Müllerin when he was just out of grad school.

“These days, to get an audience for this particular art form—involving intense, intimate communication with no orchestra between you and the public—you need to earn a reputation in opera,” Polenzani explains. “I can see people’s faces…kind of disconcerting if they’re friends or family and you lose concentration. Die schöne Müllerin is a real journey; if you lose focus, you’re out.”

Drake and Polenzani were brought together by shared management, an arrangement Polenzani deems serendipitous; rave reviews for their recent CD of Liszt songs on the Hyperion label supports his view. The pianist deems the cycle the work of “an overwhelming musical genius”: “Even though he was only 26, he was in full flow,” the pianist says. “It isn’t overtly virtuoso, but the pianistic demands are still very great: control, the nuance of color to match harmony, bringing to life the poems and, of course, the rhythm.”

“We know one another’s sensibilities, which helps,” says Polenzani. “Julius is a strong, individual player who offers great ensemble; the accompaniment in Schöne Müllerin really comments on what’s happening.” The admiration is mutual: “Like all really outstanding singers, Matthew is intensely musical and feels the harmony in the piano as strongly as I do,” says Drake. “He knows that together we are the sum of our parts, making a whole. He also has a beautiful voice.” Add to that concord the unfettered directness of a recital, which some concertgoers find more appealing than all the trappings of opera, and the result should be a memorable journey filled with ravishing music.

Classic journeys

Check out these evergreen accounts of Die schöne Müllerin on record.

Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin has attracted the attention of tenors and baritones alike. Says Polenzani, “It lends itself to a younger, sweeter sound, a tenor.” His collection contains only two recordings: “Aksel Schiøtz for the artistry, not the vocalism, and Fritz Wunderlich for the vocalism, not the interpretation.” Polenzani also cites Peter Schreier “for phenomenal pronunciation.”

TONY would also opt for Schiøtz, as well as a sleeper both sonorous and moving: the account by sibling tenor-and-pianist duo Ian and Jennifer Partridge.

Drake’s recorded collaboration with Ian Bostridge has won acclaim; the pianist professes loyalty to the performance by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore that he grew up with, but reminds us, “There is no definitive performance of any great work.”