Unlike Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise Schubert’s
Schwanengesang is not a song-cycle. It lacks a narrative
thread. Thematically and musically they still have much in common
but we don’t know if Schubert ever intended the songs to be
performed as a unity. When they were published early in 1829
Schubert had been dead for some months and Tobias Haslinger,
the first publisher, named the collection Schwanengesang
(Swan Song) presumably to stress the fact that these were the
last fruits of the composer’s genius.
The sequence consists of seven settings of poems by Rellstab,
six of poems by Heine and as an encore Seidl’s Taubenpost,
allotted an individual number by Deutsch for his catalogue and
supposed to be the very last song Schubert wrote. This has for
long been the established order when Schwanengesang has
been performed in recital or on record.
Now, here comes rising baritone star Thomas Oliemans, partnered
by the ever reliable and inspirational Malcolm Martineau with
his version, and this is a version with a difference. In the
middle of the ‘cycle’, between the Rellstab and Heine groups,
Oliemans has inserted four songs to poems by Schulze. The liner-notes,
a conversation between Oliemans and Calmer Roos, puzzlingly
say not a world about this amendment. The Seidl songs are all
late Schubert and I can only guess the theoretical background:
Maybe if Schubert had lived a little longer he might have considered
a cycle after all and since Müllerin consists of twenty
songs and Winterreise twenty-four, he would have wished
the new cycle to be about the same duration. Rummaging through
his latest production of songs he would have found the Seidl
songs and said. ‘Exactly what I need! There is a lack of tension
leading over to Der Atlas, and this should be the true
climax of the cycle.’
If that was the reason for improving the cycle I think it was
a brilliant one. The four new songs are among the finest – and
darkest – of Schubert’s late songs and they fit admirably into
Schwanengesang, not as ‘fillers’ but as an integrated
part of the whole, providing even more drama and darkness.
A while ago I wrote that Thomas Oliemans seems to be the best
Francophone baritone since Gérard Souzay. Souzay was a great
interpreter of the central German repertoire. Being an excellent
linguist he could handle the language idiomatically and Oliemans,
being Dutch, is even closer. Like Souzay it’s not just a question
of pronouncing the words but understanding them and conveying
their underlying meaning to the listener.
His first recital with mélodies by Fauré and Poulenc made me
exclaim towards the end of the review:
‘I am convinced that this is a Lieder and Mélodies artist of
rare talent’ and then award the disc a Recording Of The Month
header plus, some months later, including the disc in my
selected Recordings Of The Year. Expectations were high
when I put the new disc in the CD-player. I wasn’t disappointed.
He makes each and every one of these delectable songs come alive,
makes me listen anew to music I thought I knew inside out and
find new details, new insights. He doesn’t impress through staggering
exclamations and hairpin diminuendos – even if he has the capacity
for both. As I jotted down about Kriegers Ahnung: ‘The
intensity expressed both in decibels and finely graded nuances.’
One notices the ebb and flow of Frühlingssehnsucht, the
simplicity of Ständchen and the withdrawn character of
In der Ferne, where in the last stanza he colours the
tone lighter and thinner but with dramatic intensity up to the
last thundering chord.
Abschied is on the surface a jolly song, but in reality
it is a man who tries to keep smiling while saying a painful
farewell. The darker undercurrents come well to the fore in
Oliemans’ reading.
The four Schulze settings, well known on their own, stand out
as even more masterly in this surrounding. About Im Walde
I wrote: ‘Marvellous reading! Worthy to stand beside Fischer-Dieskau!’
Regular readers may know that I am an inveterate admirer of
the latter who, incidentally, was one of Oliemans’ teachers.
Der Atlas, always the apex of Schwanengesang,
also gets a magnificent interpretation. Then there is a lot
of hushed intimacy in some of the following Heine songs, only
to grab the listener by the throat in the frightening Der
Doppelgänger with a tremendous build-up and the voice filled
with pain. Die Taubenpost is a winning postlude.
By this issue Thomas Oliemans confirms the great impression
he made with his previous recital. There is also a Winterreise
that I haven’t heard. He is now one of the most thrilling young
baritones around.
Göran Forsling
Masterwork Index: Schwanengesang
Track-listing
Lieder nach Gedichte von Ludwig Rellstab D 957:
1. Liebesbotschaft [3:11]
2. Kriegers Ahnung [4:54]
3. Frühlingssehnsucht [3:37]
4. Ständchen [3:44]
5. Aufenthalt [3:04]
6. In der Ferne [6:24]
7. Abschied [4:34]
Lieder nach Gedichte von Ernst Konrad Friedrich Schulze:
8. Im Walde, D 834 [6:33]
9. Im Frühling, D 882 [4:44]
10. Über Wildemann, D 884 [1:53]
11. Auf der Bruck, D 853 [3:24]
Lieder nach Gedichte von Heinrich Heine D 957:
12. Der Atlas [2:02]
13. Ihr Bild [3:08]
14. Das Fischermädchen [2:30]
15. Die Stadt [2:46]
16. Am Meer [4:06]
17. Der Doppelgänger [4:14]
Lied nach Gedicht von Johann Gabriel Seidl D 965:
18. Die Taubenpost [4:07]
Thomas Oliemans (baritone), Malcolm Martineau (piano) 
