Sheila's Recital

The Source Song Festival, which takes place every year in August, consists largely of workshops and tutorials at which already accomplished singers and accompanists further cultivate their talent in a field of music that's about as popular as free jazz, namely, the art song. I've never been to one of these workshops—I have neither the training nor the talent—but I do enjoy the recitals that the festival's participants give in the early evenings at Antonello Hall in downtown Minneapolis.

Every summer Hilary and I make it a habit to drop in at the happy hour at Zen Box Ichikawa, which is right across the street, and then settle in for a dazzling evening of Faure, Schubert, Wolf, or whoever happens to be on the program.

You can imagine our delight, therefore, when we learned that our friend Sheila Wolk was planning to give a recital at Antonello Hall. She's been a professional musician for most of her adult life, singing in Germany for more than a decade, mounting (and appearing in) operas at the University of Minnesota, and teaching opera production at universities in Washington State, Texas, and other artsy locales.

The recital was a come-back of sorts—Sheila hadn't sung in public for four years—and it was a knock-out. (Incidentally, the same program will be presented again on Friday, December 1, at St. Joseph's School of Music.)

The program was brilliantly shaped to include some strange poems by Holderin set to fittingly astringent music by Hans Werner Henze  and also a more agreeable, but still challenging and slippery, set by the French composer Ernest Chausson.

Another savvy stroke was to devise a program that made it possible for the husband-and-wife team of pianist Heather MacLaughlin and guitarist Alan Johnston, equal partners with Sheila in the event, to split the accompaniment. Johnston also played a number of solo guitar selections (I especially liked his interpretation of  Ombre by Francis Kleynjans) and he and MacLaughlin went to town on Sonata for Piano and Guitar, an ebullient piece they commissioned a few years ago by local hero David Evan Thomas.

Alban Berg's Sieben Frühe Lieder served as a fitting wrap-up, a soaring and lyrical romanticism propelled by an edgy Germanic thrust filling the hall with strong emotion.

One element of the performance that escapes many, including me, is the poetry. Before the recital got underway I noticed some charming lines by the poet Armande Silvestre in the program. For example:

When your glance fell on me, I felt my soul melting,
But what that emotion could be, at first I could not discern. 

And what about these lines by Holderin?

Would I like to be a comet? I believe so. For they have the swiftness of birds, they blossom with fire, and are like children in their purity. To wish for more than that is beyond the measure of human nature.

We may presume that the sentiments are heightened by the music, but without at least a rudimentary command of French and German, there is no way to tell what's being said at any given time.

  

In the lobby after the performance Sheila, Heather, and Alan chatted with old friends and well-wishers. A few of us eventually made our way to the Crooked Pint, where Sheila told stories about her years performing (and drinking) in Germany, and reminisced with two grade-school friends with whom she used to ride the bus downtown from North Minneapolis, back in the days when Kresge's, Woolworth's, and Ben Franklin were every young girl's prime shopping destinations.