WAXING LYRICAL

Violist Timothy Ridout’s recording of Schumann and Prokofiev transcriptions was the perfect opportunity to reconnect with a favourite vocal work from his childhood, as he tells

Toby Deller

‘In general,’ says the British viola player Timothy Ridout, ‘the way I like to work – with practising, recording and everything – is not to spend three hours banging my head against a wall, but to spend an hour and a half or two hours maximum and then to take a break. I’m happy to work all day and right into the night, but I need that kind of reality check every once in a while to reset things mentally and physically.’

Conditions were ideal, then, for recording the multiple short movements of his latest album in July 2020 at music venue La Courroie, a converted factory with artists’ accommodation near Avignon in the Provence region of France. The album pairs Schumann’s song cycle Dichterliebe, in Ridout’s own transcription, with Vadim Borisovsky’s arrangement of movements from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet suites. His third album as a headline artist, it is his first for Harmonia Mundi, and also his first with pianist Frank Dupree, a regular recital partner.

‘Our producer Alban Moraud worked so hard. He would get up and be doing things before us. He would be happy to record until midnight and would still be listening back and double-checking things after that. Having that sort of freedom – of recording from 9am until midnight – meant we could take breaks and swim in the river for 15 minutes between takes as it was getting really hot. That was the only downside of being in a beautiful place in the south of France: the temperature was almost unbearable at points. Having a river a three-minute walk away was a life saver.’

KAUPO KIKKAS

‘IT IS MUSIC I LISTENED TO A LOT AS A CHILD, AND THE REGISTER FITS THE VIOLA SO WELL’

Ridout had been toying with the idea of including the Prokofiev on a Russianthemed disc and had also been considering an all-Schumann album that would have featured Dichterliebe, before deciding to pair the two. They are both transcriptions of works centred on the theme of love, and while the Prokofiev uses a somewhat grander canvas, even in its reduced form, the works share a tragic note.

‘I can’t remember the conversations with the label and how we arrived at this exact repertoire but at some point there was a eureka moment about how well the stories line up,’ says Ridout. ‘And it’s nice to have different composers on a disc. My first disc was dedicated entirely to the music of Vieuxtemps, and I really enjoyed being immersed in one composer – it can make a wonderful collection. But it’s also nice for audiences to have contrasts in what they listen to.’

There is a personal link in the choice of pieces, too. ‘As a kid, I sang more than I played the viola. It wasn’t really until I was 14 or so that I flipped to focus more on the viola. And of course I never sang the Dichterliebe cycle as a twelve-year-old! But it is music I listened to a lot and a few years ago it occurred to me that the register would fit the viola so well. The sixth song, “Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome”, fits perfectly on the C string, to encapsulate the lower registers of the male voice. Other songs, like the first one, “Im wunderschönen Monat Mai”, I play in the higher octaves on the D or A string. It was really interesting playing around with the vocal register and trying to fit that to the viola.’

To come up with a recorded version, Ridout spent time alone working out how to mimic or adapt the word-setting for his instrument, and how to introduce variation where the music returns with different words. ‘Singers have so many consonants and vowels,’ he explains, demonstrating the extravagant w’s, r’s and h’s of the song titles just mentioned.

‘I can’t replicate all of those exact sounds, but actually there are so many different ways to start and develop notes that it was a kind of juggling act: working out how to slur and articulate things. I tried not to get bogged down too much in word-by-word details, but to get the picture of what each song is about, and to capture the fragility and devastation in the different songs.’

Above and below violist Timothy Ridout and pianist Frank Dupree record at La Courroie, near Avignon, in France

PHOTOS JAN DYVER

Just as importantly, he played the set several times in concert, with different pianists. ‘It all changes straight away when you have that context with the piano.’ He also wanted to avoid gimmicks for the sake of it. ‘I tried to affect the music as little as possible.

I wanted people to hear Schumann, not me, so I really tried to work out how to communicate the meaning and sound of the text, as well as that of the music.’

He did, however, allow himself the occasional liberty: ‘In the ninth song, “Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen”, the right hand of the piano seemed to evoke a violin part, so I played that line of running semiquavers throughout. That was one of the few arrangements where Frank played what the singer would normally sing and embellished it with octaves or added a chord for the climax of the phrase.’

Borisovsky’s Prokofiev arrangement, by contrast, has become something of a popular piece for viola players, and Ridout made only the slightest of tweaks to it. Unlike the Schumann, however, its presence on the recording does not hint at a childhood talent.

‘I have two younger sisters who were both very good at ballet when we were kids, but I never really took up the mantle with that one!’ he laughs. ‘But I have very vivid memories of playing the suite in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain –I think we did it at the Proms. That was a really important musical experience, and all the experiences I had with youth orchestras fed into this recording: the memories of that breadth of sound and enjoyment, of collective music making in big Romantic works.’

It was as a teenager, too, that he first learned the viola version, and he has returned to it in recital many times since, picking out one movement as an encore or perhaps three to make up a ‘suite within a suite’. As a virtuoso showpiece for both viola and piano that can be tailored to fit different circumstances, it is a useful work to be able to include in programmes. ‘I think it has a certain allure for the public as well. Hopefully it piques people’s curiosity and gets them thinking: a whole ballet suite on the viola and piano? How could that work?’

WORKS Schumann Dichterliebe op.48 (arr. Ridout); Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet Selected Pieces (arr. Borisovsky)

ARTISTS Timothy Ridout (va) Frank Dupree (pf) RECORDING VENUE La Courroie, Entraigues-sur-la-Sorgue, France RECORDING DATES 21–24 July 2020

CAT. NO. Harmonia Mundi HMN 916118

RELEASE DATE 20 August 2021