Baritone Matthew Worth is excited to make a return appearance on Sunday at La Jolla’s Le Salon de Musiques for several reasons.
He’s happy to reunite with Le Salon founder and pianist Francois Chouchan, after their successful collaboration last year on Schubert’s “Winterreise.”
A professor of voice at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Worth is especially pleased he and his children, an 8-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, will get to visit San Diego, where their uncle, aunt and cousins live.
“And, of course, there’s the music,” Worth said, speaking from his home in Marin County. “Le Salon is a fantastic performing arts organization. I think people are thirsty for — versus AI — chamber music that’s viscerally human in such an intimate setting.
“Francois is an exceptional partner. He’s not only a fantastic pianist, but he’s also a kind and empathetic soul. It’s so important that we both listen to each other’s ideas and each other, with a clear goal in mind. He’s one of the best at that,” Worth said.
In addition to Worth and Chouchan playing together again, the concert program has a lot of interweaving threads.
They will perform “Dichterliebe” by Robert Schumann, who set Heinrich Heine’s poetry to music for this song cycle.
“The way that Schumann crafted the story through Heine’s poetry was just exceptional,” Worth said. “The way that we hear in the words about the rise and fall of the protagonist is echoed and amplified by everything the piano does. It’s astonishingly good music.”
Chouchan has chosen to begin and end the concert with works by Schumann. As a curator, he likes to mix genres, despite knowing song cycles are seldom featured with instrumental chamber music. The final piece will be Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E Flat Major.
“The two works are very connected to each other,” Chouchan said, speaking from his La Jolla home. “They turn on Schumann’s love for Clara Schumann. ‘Dichterliebe’ expresses ion and despair, while the piano quintet is a celebration of his love for Clara. It’s also a gorgeous piece.”
Robert Schumann wrote it for his pianist/composer wife Clara to perform. It’s believed to be the first of the Romantic-era quintets,
At the concert, up-and-coming musicians will play alongside Chouchan on piano. They are violinists Kyle Gilner and Strauss Shi, violist Carson Rick and cellist Juliette Herlin.
Before the performance, musicologist Dr. Kristi Brown-Montesano from the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music will provide context to help attendees better understand the material. English translations of “Dichterliebe” will be provided.
As always, Le Salon will offer a soiree-style concert, closing with Champagne and a gourmet buffet. It provides opportunities for the audience to ask questions of the musicians.
Chouchan will bookend the Schumann pieces around Austrian composer Carl Frühling’s Piano Quintet in F Sharp minor.
A U.S. premiere, this quintet represents another one of what Chouchan describes as a “forgotten piece” by an under-sung composer. Le Salon’s audience has expressed an appreciation for these hard-to-find musical gems.
“Frühling was born to a Jewish family in Ukraine in 1868,” said Chouchan, a French-born American of Jewish descent. “He was a fantastic pianist and prolific composer. Because of discrimination against Jewish people, he converted to Christianity. He even changed his birthplace to Vienna.
“Because of the disaster of World War I, his career was destroyed. Because of the Nazi regime, much of his work disappeared. We still have a few scores. This piano quintet was written in 1892, but it disappeared by 1914, to re-emerge in 1992. It’s so well-written, rich and romantic.
“When you listen to Frühling’s quintet, you hear that it’s inspired by Brahms, which connects it to the other pieces in the program. Brahms was also in love with Clara,” Chouchan said.
The connecting thread of the evening, Chouchan said, is love. “Dichterliebe” explores its highs and lows.
Worth, 45, did his undergraduate senior thesis on parts of “Dichterliebe.” He has been performing it off and on for more than 20 years. For him, it stands out as an almost perfect pairing of lyrics and music.
But what are the challenges in singing it?
“It stretches the vocal range exceptionally,” the baritone said. “The fans of the seventh song of the cycle took forward to hearing the two-and-a-half octave range throughout it — especially when you go up to this high A.
“It’s this heart-wrenching moment. There’s any number of them — the emotional difficulties of navigating the ups and downs of love. And then, 16 full songs of German text for a native English speaker is no small feat, as well,” Worth said.
Chouchan noted that it’s hard to locate American singers skilled in performing German song cycles, as opposed to German operas. In Europe, most singers do both.
“It’s difficult to find a sensitive singer capable of expressing these special emotions throughout this repertoire,” Chouchan said. “Matthew and I should have a blast together performing these songs.”
Le Salon de Musiques: ‘Schumann, A Hymn of Love’
When: 4 p.m. Sunday
Where: La Jolla Woman’s Club, 7791 Draper Ave., La Jolla
Tickets: $45-$95
Phone: (310) 498-0257
Online: lesalondemusiques.com
Wood is a freelance writer.
