This is not a new
release but in the light of the ongoing Jecklin-Chris Walton
series devoted to Schoeck it is by no means unwise to draw attention
to it. As Walton’s extensive notes point out the survival of
a recording of a Schoeck operatic premiere is a unique event.
This one was made in 1943 and was discovered by Walton in the
Zurich Radio Archives, having probably migrated there from Strasbourg’s
radio station. It is presented “as is.” There is about three-quarters
of an hour of music interspersed with a frequently dramatic
and stentorian studio announcer-actor’s scene setting. Conjecturally
the music derives from both the first and second performances
– in any case the run was short and it lasted four performances
before being withdrawn. It’s believed that Goering, whose comments
on the libretto are unrepeatable here, had something to do with
it.
German Radio recordings
were often of astonishing fidelity. As cities were razed to
the ground the Blatterphone kept recording miles of tape of
superb quality, large swathes of which have now been released.
It would be nice to say that this broadcast reaches that level
but it wouldn’t be true, though I should add in fairness that
the sound is at all times very listenable indeed. Voices are
distant though, the stage perspective veiling them and the orchestra
doesn’t emerge with any great clarity. Of the splendid cast,
a really top class one bristling with star names, it’s Peter
Anders who cuts through most, though only when he’s down stage.
We hear just enough of Maria Cebotari to recognise her superb
operatic presence.
There are six tracks,
of varying lengths, so that what was broadcast is something
of a compression, a torso of the complete opera. Nevertheless
we can hear, amidst the rather overblown and stock Romantic
plot, some typically astute Schoeck touches. The ethos is broadly
Wagnerian-Straussian, though there are plenty of moments of
lied-like simplicity, folkloric intimacy when characters break
into heartfelt song. There are also some ripe duets, some lusty
hunting motifs, a fair amount of typically dank Germanic forestry,
a trio, thinning of the orchestral textures to reveal a supportive
piano part, Revolutionary bands, recollections of earlier material,
and self immolation and death. One can imagine that a libretto
that consciously calls upon “A Man of Blood and Fire” in 1943
could fairly be said to have called upon some emblematic National
Socialist fantasies – and indeed the librettist was the unlikeable
Nazi sympathiser Hermann Burte. It’s not so surprising that
a Revolutionary opera that reveals an increasingly deranged
murderer and ends with a cataclysmic explosion and immolation
should be troubling – not that composer or librettist necessarily
saw the connection at the time.
The opera is augmented
by Schoeck’s privately recorded and very long song Besuch
in Urach from the cycle Das holde Bescheiden, written
in 1948. Schoeck proves a formidable accompanist and his wife
Hilde a devoted interpreter and the recording stretched over
several 78 sides. Such survivals are rare, and though we do
fortunately have other material with Schoeck at the keyboard
this is a most important find.
Jecklin’s booklet is a splendid thing with
full libretti, in English and German, and Walton’s usual high
standards of documentation.
Jonathan Woolf
see also Review
by Rob Barnett
Armand – Peter Anders
(tenor)
