Naxos has been doing well with Richard
Strauss lately. There have been some
impressive orchestral discs and just
months ago I consulted my dictionary
for suitable superlatives concerning
Hedwig Fassbender’s superb Lieder disc
"Songs of Love and Death"
(review).
Hers is a large, dramatic voice - she
has recorded Isolde! - and here comes
another singer with resources to take
on Salome or even Elektra. Ricarda Merbeth’s
biography mentions the Countess (Le
nozze di Figaro) and Donna Anna,
Daphne and the Marschallin in Rosenkavalier,
a role she is singing in Vienna in April
but unfortunately the day after I have
left, but also Elisabeth (Tannhäuser)
and the Empress (Die Frau ohne Schatten).
Judging from the present
disc she certainly has the measure of
all these heavy-weights. It is a vibrant
- some would probably say too vibrant
at places - and grand voice, not always
absolutely steady but expressive and
with impressive ability to grow and
soar above the orchestra. Not exactly
the qualities one first and foremost
expects from someone who is singing
Vier letzte Lieder, some readers
might say. This is true but it is also
true that the first performer of these
songs was the mightiest of all dramatic
sopranos, Kirsten Flagstad, and in later
years Jessye Norman and, especially,
Nina Stemme (review)
have both shown that there are gains
with a more dramatic approach. She chooses
measured tempos straight through, as
befits a heavier voice – even though
the constantly slowest version among
my baker’s dozen of recordings is by
the lightest and most lyrical of all,
namely Lucia Popp. The grandezza of
Ms Merbeth’s voice doesn’t exclude sensitivity;
quite the opposite. She can scale down
the voice to chamber music proportions
without losing in quality and her phrasing
is invariably musical and attentive
to nuance. What I miss is a clearer
delivery of the text. Even with headphones
I had difficulty catching the words.
That might be the price one has to pay
for such a grand reading but with Stemme
this was never a problem. She also conveyed
more of the resignation, or rather the
acceptance of the unavoidable, that
permeates especially the last song,
Im Abendrot. Merbeth is less
inward, more defiant. And there is more
than one valid reading of this music.
Going to the score gives no help: the
orchestral parts are littered with dynamic
instructions; the voice part has none.
While Vier letzte
Lieder are frequently heard and
recorded the six Brentano-Lieder
are relative rarities. Originally conceived
thirty years before Vier letzte,
according to Keith Anderson’s liner-notes
with Elisabeth Schumann’s voice in mind,
they were not orchestrated until much
later. Even though the six songs are
all settings of poems by Clemens Brentano
they are not strictly a song-cycle and
I can’t remember a recording of all
six before. Individually I have four
of them in other recordings. Heather
Harper recorded No. 1 An die Nacht
for EMI, Soile Isokoski includes No.
2 Ich wollt’ ein Sträusslein
binden, No. 3 Säusle, liebe
Myrte!, and No. 4 Als mir dein
Lied erklang in a Strauss recital
on Ondine and Barbara Hendricks sings
No. 2 and 3 on a recently reissued EMI
recording on ArkivCD. The last two,
Amor! and Lied der Frauen,
were new to me and they are possibly
the most remarkable of them all.
An die Nacht
is in all respects a great song, worthy
to set beside the Vier letzte Lieder
and the orchestration has similarities
too. [Extract]
Ich wollt’ ein Sträusslein
has echoes of Ariadne auf Naxos,
with which Strauss had been working
just a couple of years earlier. There
are even some flourishes of Zerbinetta-like
coloratura. Säusle, liebe Myrte!
is grandly romantic and Als mir dein
Lied erklang has an impassioned
tone. As in Vier letzte Lieder
Merbeth prefers measured tempos and
is in several cases considerably slower
than my comparisons. This is not unbecoming,
however, and her wholehearted approach
is compelling. She also lightens her
voice for these mainly brighter songs.
Amor! is less
of a song, more a virtuoso aria that
is second cousin to Zerbinetta. It is
filled with quite intricate coloratura
and it is indeed a marvel to hear this
grand voice negotiating these stratospheric
embellishments with superior agility
and lightness. Lied der Frauen wenn
die Männer im Kriege sind,
as the full title reads, is even less
of a song. This is a long dramatic scene
with an expressionist orchestral backing
in the Salome or Elektra
mould. Thundering timpani, glaring brass,
tumultuous eruptions and a voice part
that ranges from the deepest contralto
notes to (almost) The Queen of the Night’s
upper region. This is fascinating music,
rarely heard, possibly due to the superhuman
vocal requirements, but Ricarda Merbeth
has the full measure of the piece and
this alone is worth the modest price
of the disc. That Richard Strauss could
have had Elisabeth Schumann in mind
when he wrote this – even in the original
version with only piano accompaniment,
is beyond my comprehension.
The ‘fillers’ are,
suitably enough, two orchestral excerpts
from Ariadne auf Naxos. In the
overture Michael Halász draws
fine romantic playing from the orchestra
with silken string tone and fine wind
solos. The dance scene is spirited and
light-hearted, luxuriously played. All
through the preceding vocal numbers
the Weimar Staatskapelle play splendidly
and this orchestra more and more emerges
as one of today’s foremost ensembles.
There is also in the Vier letzte
Lieder some outstanding solo playing
by unnamed instrumentalists: the horn
solo in September is magical
and the violin solo in Beim Schlafengehen
is in the same league.
The sung texts and
translations are, as seems to be the
norm nowadays, only available on the
internet.http://www.naxos.com/libretti/570283.htm
My first recommendations
for Vier letzte Lieder are still
a handful, including the now historical
recordings by Lisa Della Casa and Elisabeth
Schwarzkopf, Kiri Te Kanawa’s second
version – with Solti – and Soile Isokoski
(Ondine ODE982-2) plus Nina Stemme’s
superb version from last year. However,
Ricarda Merbeth’s readings are undoubtedly
thrilling and the complete set of the
Brentano-Lieder with her tremendous
reading of Lied der Frauen lends
further importance to this disc.
Göran Forsling
Ricarda Merbeth (soprano) (1-10) 
Extract
