Exploring Beethoven Lieder — Stephanie Houtzeel Interview | Op. 13
Beethoven Lieder, or art songs, are an underrepresented body of classical music repertoire. Guest Stephanie Houtzeel, mezzo-soprano from the Vienna State Opera, discusses what she learned by performing these songs during the Beethoven 2020 celebrations.
In this episode, you’ll:
Get rare insights about an often-neglected genre of Beethoven’s output
Question why Beethoven’s songs are not performed as often as other songs
Hear three of Beethoven’s Lieder performed by Stephanie Houtzeel and Daniel Adam Maltz
For the best experience, please watch the video at the top of the page.
Episode Transcript and Timestamps
DANIEL ADAM MALTZ: Grüß Sie from Vienna, Austria.
Welcome to Opus 13 of “Classical Cake,” the podcast where we discuss topics relating to Viennese classical music and Austrian culture while enjoying one of the Vienna's delicious cakes. I'm your host, Daniel Adam Maltz.
If you're new here, welcome!
When most people think of Lieder, also called art songs, they think about the golden age of Schubert and Schumann. But, today, we are going to talk about an underrepresented body of work: Beethoven's Lieder.
My guest today is Stephanie Houtzeel, a mezzo-soprano who has appeared on opera stages such as the Bayreuther Festspiele and the Opéra de Lyon, and in concert around the world.
And, she is a member of the Vienna State Opera ensemble, where — as part of the Beethoven Year 2020 celebrations — she performed in a recital series of the complete Beethoven Lieder.
Ms. Houtzeel, thank you for joining me.
STEPHANIE HOUTZEEL: My pleasure.
Featured Cake: Zitronentorte [1:00]
MALTZ: Our cake today is Zitronentorte, or lemon cake, which consists of light and tangy lemon cream on top of a thin layer of almond cake.
It's covered with a generous amount of caramelized meringue.
So let's dig in.
HOUTZEEL: Let's dig in. I've been holding myself back… [Laughter]
Delicious.
Differences between singing Lieder vs. opera [1:22]
MALTZ: How does your approach change when singing Lieder vs. opera?
HOUTZEEL: Well, actually, you can almost reverse the question with me because I was actually a very reticent opera singer. The music that attracted me when I first started singing was Lied – song – and oratorio.
It wasn't until I went to Juilliard… there, based in Lincoln Center, New York, where they essentially said, ‘if you want to make any money and if you want to have a career, you're going to need to check out this opera world, too.’ So I kind of went into it kicking and screaming.
I really came from the idea — because I had been singing lots of songs — of making colors, of singing in an intimate way, of not just projecting, it always being about having a very large sound on an opera stage.
And, I've actually tried to think about my opera roles in a Lied sense whenever I can, because I just don't think just loud singing is interesting. I'm just not somebody – and I get it — people will go and to hear this brilliant, booming tenor voice that just shakes the rafters… There's something thrilling about that. Me? That's not something that I wish to do. So, I’ve always, to some extent, tried to find the intimacy in an opera role. And, the question in reverse would be going from opera to Lied is to always remember that super-concentration on the text, on the dynamics, on the nuances, on the colors.
MALTZ: You mentioned the intimacy, which is something I think about a lot because the music from the 18th century was essentially salon music and was not for the big stages that I think most of us associate with classical music and don't think about the other end. Do you find that the smaller or more intimate nature of Lied allows you to do more with the music?
HOUTZEEL: I think you have a fourfold responsibility as a Lieder singer, which in a way you don't have as an opera singer. You know, in opera you have: you, the stage, the set, the costume, and the orchestra, and your colleagues, so there's a whole lot of stuff going on to create a musical experience. With Lied, it's you and the pianist or you with chamber musicians. So, you have the responsibility of creating the entire environment.
[Music playing]
You take a song like I did on the Lieder matinee, the Beethoven Lieder matinee, I did called An die Hoffnung, which is a huge song, somewhat operatic in scale and goes through so many emotions of this very torn individual.
And yet you don't have a costume to help create this character or a set or something. Your imagination… you have to find a way to transfer all of this through your voice, through your expression, maybe through a gentle gesture, although gesture in Lied is always a thing. So in a way it's much harder and hence that much more interesting.
MALTZ: Yeah, I think that the history of opera or stage in general has been one of increasing extravagance. So, to bring it back to just the performer on stage really makes it your responsibility to communicate.
HOUTZEEL: Yes.
Beethoven’s Lieder in conservatories [5:26]
MALTZ: Had you sung Beethoven Lieder before the concerts last month?
HOUTZEEL: Very little. So this was a real discovery for me. And, I think I can speak for the eight singers who did this project, I think it was a huge discovery for all of us.
Beethoven is done kind of an injustice also in music conservatories. It starts there, if I may generalize a little bit. But, I've now heard this from several colleagues.
You learn all kinds of repertoire while you're at music school and your voice teachers — your first point of study — will direct you into repertoire they think is good. Generally speaking, you'll get, ‘Check out this Brahms song, this Schubert song. Oh, this – maybe Mahler…’ although Mahler tends to be for more mature. But the thing is Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, there's your Lied repertoire, go for it.
Oh, Beethoven? ‘Yeah, he's a little square, you know.’
And so maybe the baritones will look at An die ferne Geliebte or at Adelaide.
But, unfortunately, it's a little bit inherent in the training that unless you're super intellectually-curious yourself, you're not going to go out there and look for Beethoven.
The reality is, having had this opportunity, we had to sit down and — his 80 to 100 songs — to divide up amongst the eight of us. And, we needed to seek out those that we found spoke to us, were the most appropriate for our voice. We tried to do it based on gender. Many of the songs are actually for male voice, so you have to kind of find ones that are neutral or female, in my case.
So I had sung Zärtliche Liebe, Ich liebe Dich, which is also kind of a top 10 Beethoven hit. But, honestly, beside that I really have to kind of dust off my senile shelves to find out where the last time was that I sang Beethoven songs. And, sadly, his one major operatic work is also not for my voice type.
MALTZ: Or also not, even in the world of opera, as often performed.
HOUTZEEL: Exactly, exactly.
So it was an enormous discovery and journey. And honestly, since having done this this matinee, you know, I have songs that I am sure to want to program in the future and ask myself, ‘What have I been doing? Why have I missed these all these years?’
[Music playing]
Reputation of Beethoven’s vocal writing [8:23]
MALTZ: So do you think, as you mentioned, the conservatory… Is that the sole reason why they're not as often performed as Schubert and Schumann or more popular later romantic songs? Or is it something in the music itself?
HOUTZEEL: Well, one could argue — and I hesitate to generalize — but, Beethoven has gotten a bad rap for not being particularly good at vocal writing...
MALTZ: Or lyric writing in general.
HOUTZEEL: ..or lyric writing.
And apparently – I've been sort of reading up on this – he was a very tortured songwriter, actually. Apparently, he had a terrible voice himself, and so he didn't enjoy singing and he couldn't approach song the way… Schubert was just this melodic guy who was filled with these Lied melodies and, in fact, transposed those to his symphonic works. Whereas Beethoven came from this instrumental world and was trying to bring that into vocal writing.
You know, the classic example is Leonora and in all the Fidelio versions… Who can sing that, right? You have to have a dramatic voice and yet you have to have this lyric coloratura, and, and, and. It's really hard to cast.
I think, because his songs were so personal, a lot of them were for a male middle voice. As a mezzo, it was relatively easy to find repertoire that suited my voice, too, because I'm also a middle voice, per say.
It was interesting, the few sopranos who did this program had a tougher time of it because either they were written super dramatic and they didn't know where to begin or they were all kind of written a little bit low.
But, I've sung a lot of Bach and Bach is also very instrumental. Baroque music, in general, is incredibly instrumental with these huge leaps and these sort of register changes in the voice. So, in that sense, I actually found Beethoven a better fit than I expected.
MALTZ: I never really understood the criticism of [Beethoven] not [being] a great melody writer because how many memorable Beethoven melodies are there? I mean, it's not the same type of melody as Schubert, but to say that it is not melodic is kind of silly.
HOUTZEEL: Absolutely. Absolutely.
The learnings gained from exploring Beethoven Lieder [10:35]
MALTZ: So, what did you take out of the experience of learning so many Beethoven songs?
HOUTZEEL: Well, it was a lot of work because – I had to practice them a lot. Again, because it wasn't this easy, kind of bel canto-esque, vocally suitable kind of writing. So, just technically one had to practice it a lot and one had to get around an awkward text setting.
That's one thing. Actually, and you could argue even Schubert there. There were the early big song greats and their way with text setting wasn't necessarily always natural. That's something that evolved. There were many places in some of the songs I had where I had to constantly look at the notes, the music, because it was going in a place with a text that wouldn't have been logical to me. I speak German fluently. I'm not a native speaker, but our pianist was a native speaker. And I said ‘Is this me? Am I just being silly with the text?’ He's like ‘No, this is just set in an awkward way.’ So that's something, to work much harder on that.
The final thing is that the chromatic language — especially in the later songs — gets pretty funky. So you're constantly thinking in these harmonies and in this intonation.
Differences between Beethoven Lieder and Schubert, Schumann or Brahms Lieder [12:00]
MALTZ: So, compare singing Beethoven Lieder to more popular repertoire like Schubert or Schumann or Brahms. Did it feel different in you to sing it?
HOUTZEEL: It did, just simply again because of the more extreme instrumental writing. So it is in that sense was harder to get into the voice. I think that would probably be the biggest challenge.
Everybody always says, ‘Oh Beethoven's so serious.’ But many of his songs which came from an incredibly personal place – he always wrote these songs because they were reflecting some personal thing he was going through.
And I'm going to bring up the idea of An die Hoffnung again. He wrote he wrote two versions of An die Hoffnung.
I sang the later version, which starts out in B-flat minor. I mean, it's a pretty complex journey that he goes through. He was at a point in his life where he was also suffering through many, many things – a loss of a family member, unrequited love — which was his thing all the time — his deafness. It was in 1815 he wrote that song or 1814, so it was a pretty rough time. And this song goes through this.
So this seriousness of his songs, the depth of the emotion… It's not easy to find a lot of light songs. There are light songs, Der Kuss, we had a couple on our program, but not many. I think that's also a challenge. The concentration and the sort of levity that you — as a performer and as an audience member — need isn't always there with Beethoven and that you'll find more in Schubert, for example.
Vom Tode and its unusual key [13:50]
MALTZ: Since the concert, I've been looking through the music and learning some things here and there, exploring it myself.
And one that you sang, [Vom Tode] from the six songs: you mentioned the key. This one is interesting to me because it's in F-sharp minor. And, you struggle to find any other piece of this era written in F-sharp minor. It's very interesting on the fortepiano because of these unequal temperaments. This is the most unstable key and, obviously, for a subject like death, it really makes a difference.
HOUTZEEL: It does. And it's interesting. You're talking about the Gellert Lieder, the Opus 48. Vom Tode was a super-interesting song because… So they were written somewhat earlier. I believe they were in the earlier 1800s, and he was diagnosed with declining hearing, I think, in 1802. I think his sketches for Vom Tode were slightly before that. But, the song was finally published after he knew of his hearing issues. And there were some thoughts that he might have been flirting with some suicidal tendencies, with deep depression. So, you see how he turns to this kind of a key.
You know that's a heavy song. I was really drawn to that song. For me that appears suddenly in song repertoire that you think would come much, much later.
MALTZ: Der Leiermann or something.
HOUTZEEL: Exactly.
MALTZ: But really across the concerts, that was one of the special ones, I think.
HOUTZEEL: Absolutely.
[Music playing]
Advocating for Beethoven Lieder [16:03]
MALTZ: So what could other singers or vocal students gain from paying more attention to these Beethoven songs?
HOUTZEEL: Well, I think, I walked away from this being pleasantly surprised and happy to reprogram any of the songs that I did, which is really neat.
I think I would probably recommend the songs for singers who are further advanced. I don't think his music – because of the technical demands and the awkwardness with the text sometimes – in that sense, I do get that a voice teacher would say, ‘OK. Let's look at a lighter Schubert song as a way to study legato or rhythm or whatever.’ But, graduate students who hopefully have all of those issues under their belts to take this music and, if this level of emotionality speaks to them, then I would absolutely strongly encourage that.
The human behind Beethoven’s songs [17:00]
MALTZ: Because of the Beethoven 2020 celebrations, people are digging into aspects of Beethoven that are otherwise overlooked. So, did you discover anything new about Beethoven's artistic personality through his Lieder that's maybe not so easily gained through other repertoire that he wrote?
HOUTZEEL: Well, it's interesting because, yes, he chose these texts and these texts were personal to him. The poets were personal to him. He had letter writing relationships with many of them. He kind of had bromances with many of these poets. He wrote these quasi-love letters to Goethe about his poetry. He took these songs that meant an enormous amount to him.
But his first call in music was instrumental and orchestral. So it's an interesting balance.
Josephine von Brunsvik, Beethoven’s Immortal Beloved
We all think of his great symphonies. We think of the string quartets, we think of his chamber music and we think, okay, that's his home base. That's where he was best able to express his artistic impulses. But, by really studying these texts and understanding his personal trauma… I mean, his life was pretty traumatized. So much went on, so many ups and downs. And if you look at various periods in his life… So, in his middle phase and after his middle phase, especially like An die ferne Geliebte was 1815/16. An die Hoffnung, too. This was a really troubled time in his life. And yet he reached out and wrote all these – a lot of his best songs in that time.
So, I think that's a discovery to find this personal connection with a composer more than one would necessarily expect. So that was, I think for me, very interesting.
MALTZ: Yeah. No, I think it's very important to realize the human behind the music.
HOUTZEEL: Yes.
MALTZ: And what was, like for An die ferne Geliebte you mentioned, that it's now widely believed that these were written for his Unsterbliche Geliebte — Immortal Beloved — which we, at least now, can take for Josephine von Brunsvik. And I've always loved these songs. But then you learn about the story of Josephine von Brunsvik and the relationship between the two of them and Beethoven's really actual eternal devotion to her. And then you hear the songs in a completely new light.
HOUTZEEL: Yes.
MALTZ: And you get a sense of how direct and personal they are.
HOUTZEEL: Yes. It's interesting, I believe, An die Hoffnung was also inspired by his love for her.
His first version of An die Hoffnung, which is – it's not simpler. It's also complicated. It’s strophic, it's less through-composed. But, he dedicated it to her and they had this friendship that was held in a positive light. And then she told him essentially to back off. And, apparently, he then took the dedication away. [Laughter]
But it's interesting to know these stories and, for singers, this idea of the unreachable Beethoven, ‘Oh his music is too hard to sing’ or ‘it's too square to sing.’ I think, if you bring his human element into it, suddenly these songs make much more sense.
MALTZ: Learning about lesser-known Beethoven works can help us better understand the human and the creative genius behind them. I hope singers choose to perform more Beethoven Lieder in the future.
Thanks Ms. Houtzeel, for sharing this Classical Cake with me.
HOUTZEEL: Thank you, it was my pleasure.
Suggested resources to learn more
You can see Ms. Houtzeel at the Vienna State Opera and on other opera and concert stages around the world. Visit stephaniehoutzeel.com to see her performance schedule.