LIFE is a cabaret, old chum, and to prove
it the Royal Northern College of Music’s Day of Song this year is all about
cabaret. It’s on April 26.
Invited by Head of Vocal Studies Lynne
Dawson, its artistic director is Jonathan Fisher, RNCM staff pianist with a
specialism in song – but the idea for the cabaret day originally came from the
RNCM singers themselves.
“The whole day was offered to our
final-year undergraduate performers, to choose their own repertoire,” says
Jonathan. “And they came up with the idea of cabaret and its influence on the
art song.
“There are some famous examples of cabaret
songs written by classical composers – including Benjamin Britten and William
Walton. Britten set lyrics by W H Auden, including The Truth About Love and
Funeral Blues (‘Stop all the clocks …’).
“There’s quite an emphasis on Auden in
these programmes, because he was in Berlin
in the 1920s, the time of Kabarett portrayed in the musical, Cabaret.”
Jonathan has been working on the project
since last October with the final-year students, and five concerts start at
1.15pm with ‘Hommage to Le Chat Noir’ – Paris’s
first modern cabaret club, including music by Satie and Poulenc.
‘The Truth about Love’ (2.15pm) highlights
Britten and Walton, with some new cabaret songs written by RNCM composers, and
at 3.30pm there’s Berliner Kabarett (music by Kurt Weill, Hans Eisler and
Arnold Schoenberg), followed by the RNCM Cabaret Band playing for excerpts from
The Threepenny Opera and Cabaret the musical (6.30pm). From 8pm there’s a
relaxed, free-admission evening in the RNCM Café and bar,
transformed into a cabaret-style venue.
“The Parisian cabaret of Le Char Noir was
where you would find the painter Toulouse-Lautrec, the poet Paul Verlaine,
along with composers Debussy and Satie,” says Jonathan. “And we’re extending
that to include Edith Piaf and Marlene Dietrich.
“The Britten cabaret songs include some
apart from the four published under that title, which were not published until
after his death.
“The Berliner Kabarett brings in Schoenberg
– he wrote eight songs (Brettl-Lieder) in cabaret style – and Kurt Weill … and
we have his music for The Threepenny Opera in the 6.30pm concert. Most of the
day is with piano accompaniment, but we have the band for that one.
“And for the last event we’ll have
something from Chicago
and hopefully people will come in, have a drink and just enjoy the experience!”
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