[Translated radio show] After us, the flood (Parallels between NFR! and Franz Schubert's Winterreise)

[Beautiful Loser 46,210]

I asked in the random Lana discussions thread if anyone would like a translation of this radio show where the host compares Lana Del Rey to Austrian nineteenth-century composer Franz Schubert. I got some response and, since we all know I have no life, I thought it might as well go bananas again and translate a whole radio show for anyone who's interested.

The host wanted to draw parallells between Lana's new album (NFR!) and opera singer Peter Mattei's new recordings of Schubert's songs in the piece Winterreise. I'm not an opera person at all but I could enojy his pretty interpretations and descriptions of the songs he played in the show and found it to be overall pretty interesting.

 

You can listen to the show here: https://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/1359653?programid=4914

 

 

 

*Gute Nacht plays*

 

This voice. Although it belongs to one of Sweden’s most famous singers, it took many years until I got to hear it for the first time for real. It was at the opera house in Stockholm, a performance of Parsifal, and then suddenly, he entered the stage lights as the tormented King Amfortas. From that moment, the stage was his – everything one saw was him, and everything one heard was the powerful yet soft baritone voice. That was my first meeting with Peter Mattei. And now, we heard him again in the introductory song in Franz Schubert’s Winterreise. This is a completely newly released album to come after Mattei’s successful tour with the same song cycle as some year ago. By the piano sat, then as now, Lars David Nilsson.

 

Winterreise starts so oddly, yes, you could say backwards. What you heard here, the very first song, is a goodbye: “Gute Nacht”, good night, everything is over now. Such a start must give invite to a quite dark journey, and Winterreise is just that. Schubert’s old friend, the poet Johan Maierhofer, has said this about his first encounter with this song cycle, which was written at the end of Schubert’s short life “His winter is now here. Here is the poet’s irony, born from despair and expressed in touching tones”.

But everything in Winterreise isn’t dark. The night is needed, as in all romanticism, but the night is also possible to explore. It is an entrance to other worlds, just how pain can sometimes make an artist see clearly. The first song, “Gute Nacht”, is therefore not only a farewell but also an invitation. “Good night”, it says, “close your eyes and you’re allowed to come along to another kingdom where the world, despite its flaws, will appear in all its beauty.”

 

Schubert wrote his song cycle towards the end of the 1820’s to a text by Wilhelm Müller, who also died young. As time passed by, this would become one of romanticism’s most important works, in class with Goethe’s texts or Caspar David Friedrich’s paintings. Here is passed time’s spirit summarized: pain and longing, the night and the winter, the ruins and the pilgrim walks, beauty and grief. All of this spoke to the nineteenth’s century human in an intense way. And I think it still speaks to us today, especially when Winterreise is interpreted in this sublime way as it is on Mattei’s new album.

 

But how might a modern day exploration of these large feelings of romanticism sound today? Well, I have a wild idea. I thought we would try to place this new recording of Winterreise next to one of our time’s most celebrated, puzzling and romantic pop artists. A songstress which, like Peter Mattei, has released her own record the past days. It is a record which has received enormous reviews, a record which sounds like this:

 

*Love Song plays*

 

* Der Lindenbaum plays*

 

First we had Lana Del Rey’s song “Love Song” from her completely new, critically acclaimed album. And that then shifted over to Peter Mattei’s and Lars David Nilsson’s interpretation of “Der Lindenbaum” from Franz Schubert’s Winterreise.

 

To place these two albums next to each other, to try to find mutual parallels between the American singer Lana Del Rey and Schubert’s song cycle, isn’t that a bit insane? Is it even possible? Isn’t the 1820’s human way too far away from the young pop singer by the sea in Los Angeles? I can see how the comparison might be frightful, but let us approach this in an open minded, searching way. Because although the musical expressions naturally differ at first glance, I believe that the romatic is something which is something equally valid in all times. Because in both Schubert and Lana Del Rey is there a lack of roots and the dreaming. Here we have the wanderer in Winterreise which moves through a frozen Europe, but the same movement is in Lana Del Rey’s lyrics and music. She’s traveling across an America which no longer exists. All that was once alive has been emptied of its charge and original meaning. All that’s left is nostalgia and mannerism, and the things she sings about is a dying high culture, the one which was once born here but will also die here. And the storyteller in Winterreise, he has carved his secret wish in a lime tree park. Lana Del Rey craves the same wish into the wood of the dirty bar counter. And just like in David Lynch’s movies and TV shows, is the only true story about America deeply imprinted in a romantic surrealism. Because the world is no longer comprehendible and Lana Del Rey is moving out to the unknown. All that she knows is that the words she carves into the bar counter are true. For sure, the same thing is written there as Schubert tried to say when he composed for Müller’s texts for almost 200 years ago. It is the romantic love as the last life elixir, the only way to transformation, the impossible love, which has united people through all times.

 

*The greatest plays*

 

*Wasserflut Plays*

 

Long Beach, Beach Boys, the bar where we last met and everything is in decay. Everything is on its way to leave, the living is on its way to leave, it’s beginning to turn into winter and snow. Surely, you can feel my longing? Just follow my tears and the flood will soon swallow you. It is my tears which are glowing, glowing when I’ve arrived at my love’s house.

By that way, we moved from the bright sun in a dried up California, home to Lana Del Rey, to the cold loneliness in the song “Wasserflut”, “flood” from Franz Schubert’s Winterreise, here performed by Peter Mattei and Lars David Nilsson.

 

And the whole show today is an attempt to find anything in common between these two records which, on the surface, might look pretty different. What combines them is of course the dream of romantic love, that love, that intimacy which always gets crushed and disappears. In that way, there is only one bleeding heart, only one longing to during only one moment in life to feel complete. That there is almost 200 years between Lana Del Rey and Winterreise is only triviality.

 

But if you look on a lyrically level, one can find more things in common.

The world is flooded in the 6th song of Winterreise. It is time for the flood, the rising water which is associated with doom. But in the song, it is not the rain from the sky which is drowning the world, it is the crying. It is the romantic era’s overflowing feelings which risk the teller to drown.

Such tears are much more difficult for Lana Del Rey to produce. Her story teller-me doesn’t have crying as her primary expression – in that way, the modern day longing person might have become tougher since the beginning of the 1800’s. No, she cannot cry, but she can still drown. That is why she so often looks over the water, that’s why she sings about waves and dreams about the boat, or is it the ark?, which will take her away from the shores of Los Angeles. Because the sea has always been there and will always exist. The sea, which stands for eroticism. The sea, which is associated with Death. The sea, which she loves, but not in the way we think because in the song which we will hear now, “Mariner’s Apartment Complex”, she turns the perspective. She is no longer Iseult which will be taken away over the sea; she is no longer Marilyn Monroe; no, she isn’t the burning light which the sea winds eventually put out. She is instead the wizard in Ursula Le Guin’s novels, because she can transform, and she will forever transform, maybe because she knows who she is now. She is the man whom Leonard Cohen once sang so confidently about, she is both lover and loving at the same time. And she will never fall.

 

*Mariner’s Apartment Complex plays*

 

*Einsamkeit plays*

 

First we heard Mariner’s Apartment Complex by Lana Del Rey and then the 12th song from Schubert’s Winterreise, “Einsamkeit”, “Loneliness”, performed by Peter Mattei and Lars David Nilsson.

 

“No one can feel another’s grief, no one understands another’s joy. People think they reach each other, but in reality, they simply pass by each other.” This is believed to be a note from Schubert’s diary, March 27th year 1824. I found the text from the singer and author Ian Bostridge which has written a whole book about Schubert’s Winterreise.

When it is as toughest, it may feel exactly like that: it’s hard to be understood, it’s difficult to come through. Perhaps this is why art, poetry and music often can give comfort. For a brief moment, we share that loneliness, that loneliness which, for Schubert, becomes the most distinct in the piece we just heard, the 12th song, which also has the title “loneliness”. Ian Bostridge connects the lyrics and song to a painting by Caspar David Friedrich. It’s the famous “Monk by the sea”.

 

And there was have the sea again. Here it is filled with storms, and in the song lyrics, we can find the description about the lonely one which just feels liberated by the storm and the wilderness. There, his inner and outer can melt together; he becomes one with the storm; one with the sea.

And I think it’s the viability which Schubert and the text author Wilhelm Müller want to get access to. And when I now have lived this past week with Winterreise and Lana Del Rey’s latest record next to each other, I see now what power there is in pop music. Perhaps it’s because I recently turned 40, but after encountering Lana Del Rey’s text and music, I feel like there is something which I have missed. Maybe I got too old too early, maybe I was unnecessary precocious. Maybe I was continuously looking for something passed where I thought the large feelings were chained, maybe I should’ve instead done like Lana Del Rey in the song “California”. It’s about getting access to the living, to completely try to become alive, not for lust or pleasure but maybe because that’s the only way to not become depressed.

And in that way, the storm in her becomes her party. And she dances through the whole night, just like the fossilized(?) Harry Haller in Hesse’s novel The Steppenwolf once danced. Wherever, as quickly as you can. To imagine there is such a powerful force in something which is so simple.

 

*California plays*

 

Lana Del Rey with the song “California”.

 

Franz Schubert’s Winterreise ends with the odd song “Der Leiermann”, “The hurdy-gurdy Man”. What does all of this mean? It all begins with a “good night” and ends long after with a simple description of the old man which turns the wheel on his instrument. It’s an ancient, not very beautiful, tune which he creates. What does Schubert want to tell here? Ian Bostridge is searching his way through in his book about Winterreise, he’s looking for the words at first, doesn’t know how to interpret the peculiar ending. And then finally he makes a try: perhaps is the hurdy-gurdy man Death, and perhaps it is with Death as foundation which the whole song cycle has been written about. But not about Death as in life’s end, but as Death as the dark stream which the human can push away from to time again and again seek away from the prison cell which sometimes is our lives.

Same thing with Lana Del Rey, which after “Die Liermann”, will close this show with the song “This is how to disappear”.

 

*Der Leiermann plays*

 

*How to disappear plays*

 

First we heard Peter Mattei and Lars David Nilsson which performed the closing song from Franz Schubert’s Winterreise, and after that, we had “This is how to disappear” by Lana Del Rey. And these were songs from two completely new records from two completely different genres which both, still in a similar way, have tried to describe to the human’s loneliness and her way away from it.

And now, today’s Text och musik has come to an end. My name is Eric Schüldt, technician was Krister Orreteg(?), the e-mail (address) to us is textochmusik@sverigesradio.se. This show is made/brought to you by production company Filt for Sveriges Radio P2.

 

 

[kitschesque 9,875]

Binch we do NOT deserve you

I'll read it in a couple of hours

I LOVE YOUUU!

 

 

[Platinum Greenwich 13,602]

the devil works hard but @@Clampigirl works harder, an icon

[AnarKissed 278]

This is really good, really interesting. Thanks for translating this and sharing it with us.

[Beautiful Loser 46,210]

Love how the host didn’t mention the name of Lana’s album at all lol, maybe he really tried to dodge any bullets there.

[Smoqueed 131]

Really insightful comparisons. Thanks for posting this

[Ultra Violet 18,452]

Wow this is the kind of stuff I wish was on the radio all the time. I guess that's why I turn to podcasts. 

 

When they played the song was it just snippets or the full song? 

 

And thank you lovely!!!

[Beautiful Loser 46,210]

Wow this is the kind of stuff I wish was on the radio all the time. I guess that's why I turn to podcasts.

 

When they played the song was it just snippets or the full song?

 

And thank you lovely!!!

Can’t remember completely right now, but I think they shortened most of Lana’s songs (if not all? but they did it in a good way/mixed them well) and I believe Schubert’s songs were full, but I’m not sure because I had never heard them before. I just noticed that they were on for longer so I simply assumed they’re in full.

 

Edit: Let me just add that this radio show airs on a channel where they play classical music, so that might be a reason why Schubert’s songs were on for longer.

[Ultra Violet 18,452]

Can’t remember completely right now, but I think they shortened most of Lana’s songs (if not all? but they did it in a good way/mixed them well) and I believe Schubert’s songs were full, but I’m not sure because I had never heard them before. I just noticed that they were on for longer so I simply assumed they’re in full.

 

Edit: Let me just add that this radio show aired on a channel where they play classical music, so that might be a reason why Schubert’s songs were on for longer.

 

Ahhh the taste!! Putting Lana's music on a classical channel 

[slang 1,509]

Thanks a lot @clampigirl!

 

I'm not sure if Schubert's sadcore is relevant to LDR's, but as Schubert is considered a very great songwriter (music-wise, back then lyrics were from poets), a comparison of LDR to Schubert is really quite complimentary, and not something you see often (ever?) for pop artists.

 

Schubert had plenty of reasons to be sadcore in virtue of dying, at 31, possibly of syphillis (and he knew this was gonna happen). He composed right to the end, and it was an enormous tragedy for himself and for us that he died so young (i.e., classical/romantic-period would have been even richer had he lived).

 

The radio programmers only compare five NFR songs to five of the Schubert cycle, while there are 24 Winterreise songs. One could ask oneself of each of the 24 songs, which NFR song is possibly similar (musically) to it and make a proper Schubert x LDR hyperalbum.*** Lyrics could be considered if you know German (or care to do that, as I'm thinking the radio programmers actually did). If you want the lyrics, they're available in English:

 

http://www.gopera.com/lieder/translations/schubert.html

 

(look for D. 911 or Winterreise)

***

For what it's worth, I've been listening to the sequence below, mainly on the basis of NFR familiarity (and strictly musical comparison), and not Winterreise familiarity (I'm more into Schubert's piano sonatas and instrumental chamber works):

 

no. 01 Gute Nacht
California 
no. 05 Der Lindenbaum
Love song 
no. 06 Wasserflut
The Next Best American Record
no. 07 Auf dem Flusse
Cinnamon Girl
no. 09 Irrlicht
hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have - but I have it
no. 10 Rast
Norman fucking Rockwell
no. 11 Frühlingstraum
The greatest 
no. 20 Der Wegweiser
Mariners Apartment Complex
no. 22 Mut
Doin' Time
no. 24 Der Leiermann
Bartender 
no. 15 Die Krähe
Happiness is a butterfly
no. 03 Gefrorne Tränen
How to disappear 
no. 02 Die Wetterfahne
Fuck it I love you
no. 13 Die Post
Venice Bitch [constrained to be at the end because of the instrumental outro]

 

 

 

So songs at 1 and 2 (and 3&4, 5&6, ...) of the sequence reflect a choice for a S-song "similar" to an NFR-song, and this is often quite a reach, as I'm asking myself of an unfamiliar S song--what NFR song could possibly be similar to it?--with a bias for choosing S songs that catch my interest). Pairs like songs at 2&3, 6&7 of the sequence are more random in flow (not determined by a choice). IMO, NFR can achieve a respectable (musical) flow and/or coherence with 14 of the Schubert cycle (but you have to like both artist to share that opinion). While my opinion of LDR hasn't really changed listening to this sequence, I'm now better at appreciating Schubert's songs (lol).

 

Big differences in loudness between S and NFR songs would have to be overcome for a CD version of a playlist (e.g., deamplifying NFR songs by working with MP3 conversions in a program like Audacity, which knows how to transform mp3s), but (perhaps) a youtube or spotify playlist would be auto-corrected for this.

 

BTW: I did something similar with Ella Fitzgerald (Best of the songbooks vol. 1) and LDR (Honeymoon) in order to compare the two generations of song styles and production (a more reasonable, if less ballsey comparison, than LDR to Schubert). However, that was more of an interleaving of the two albums tracknumber-wise.

 

http://lanaboards.com/index.php?/topic/6841-honeymoon-post-release-discussion-thread/?p=342266

 

corrected:

http://lanaboards.com/topic/6841-honeymoon-post-release-discussion-thread-poll/?do=findComment&comment=342266

 

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