Female singers have only occasionally tackled Schubert’s
greatest song-cycle, but those who have, usually have been able
to convey deep insights - sometimes shedding new light on some
of the songs. The first woman, to my knowledge at least, to
adopt Winterreise was Elena Gerhardt, who sang it from
the late 1920s and also recorded eight of the songs. Lotte Lehmann
recorded the majority of the songs for two different companies
in the early 1940s. Christa Ludwig and Brigitte Fassbaender
performed and recorded the cycle to great acclaim. My wife some
fifteen years ago heard another German mezzo-soprano, Doris
Soffel standing in for an ailing Thomas Hampson.
Now here, in an eight-year-old recording, come French contralto
Natalie Stutzmann and Swedish pianist Inger Södergren with
a reading that challenges all of those mentioned and many of
the best male interpreters as well. The recording was originally
issued on Calliope but it obviously slipped by without my noticing
it. Thus it is a blessing that it has been restored to circulation
by Saphir.
Let me address the sole drawback at once, and it has nothing
to do with the music-making. It is my old obsession: the lack
of song texts! Jaded collectors must have multiple versions
of the poems - and translations - and younger readers, who might
be inspired to acquire their first recording of this ever fascinating
work, needn’t worry too much. A visit to the local library
or a quick search on the internet should set things right. Why
not following this link
and get the complete German texts with English translations
- easy to follow. Then you can just sit down in front of your
speakers and inhale the atmosphere, the moods, the colours,
the chill, the despair, the final resignation.
When setting off on a journey, in particular in unfamiliar surroundings,
it is a great help to have an experienced guide, but not one
who has told her story too many times and has become blasé.
She must know every yard, every bend, every little detail but
have the ability to relate her story as though it was her first
visit and that she is just as curious and expectant as the people
she is guiding. Natalie Stutzmann is that kind of guide, well-informed
but full of enthusiasm. By her side she has her assistant guide,
Ms Södergren, who interposes her own comments, stresses
a detail and points out: ‘look at that’ ... A radar
pair, indeed!
Natalie is the possessor of a true contralto voice, warm, rich
in colours, beautiful and with a myriad of nuances. She also
has power to make the more dramatic songs tell. Less attractive
to some listeners may be a slightly ‘hooty’ quality.
Sometimes the tone hardens at forte but all this pales and becomes
insignificant when everything else is so right. As can be concluded
from the previous paragraph she sings off the words and catches
the moods without sweeping gestures. She is a wonderful narrator
who also happens to have a marvellous singing voice.
‘Without sweeping gestures’, I wrote, and this is
an important distinction. Some guides like to take command,
to force the information on the listener; Ms Stutzmann
invites the listener to take part and carries through
her narration in a low voice, reflective, thoughtful. The whole
story, all twenty-four songs, are knit so closely that it feels
almost blasphemous to point out certain songs, certain details;
the cycle as Natalie Stutzmann and Ingrid Södergren have
conceived it should be heard in its entirety and not piecemeal.
To give some clue to my admiration I would still urge readers
to sample a few songs - just to be caught by the deeply considered
reading:
Start with probably the best known of the songs, Der Lindenbaum
(tr. 5): it is warm and inward initially but the dark clouds
that descend over the middle section are almost frighteningly
wintry. Then go to tr. 11 and another song often heard separately:
Frühlingstraum. It opens so lightly and airily but
this is deceptive: the darkness of the present soon obscures
the memories of spring. Here rubato is expressively employed
in a way that, isolated, would be regarded as self-indulgent
- listen to the last stanza! In this reading the rubato is an
integrated part of the whole and feels absolutely right. It
leads over to a deeply emotional Die Einsamkeit (tr.
12) - gloomy but beautiful. I read somewhere that here, halfway
through the cycle, some singers in the past used to stop. The
second part seemed too bleak and forbidding. After the lively
and deceptively jolly Die Post (tr. 13) the journey goes
inexorably downwards. The pain, the distress grows deeper and
this is mirrored superbly in Stutzmann’s facial expressions.
I know, this is not a DVD, but I can still sense every variation
in her face, nowhere more so than in Das Wirtshaus (tr.
21). It is sung - and played - so movingly and every word is
uttered with the utmost effort - every word hurts. Nobody can
possibly be unmoved when listening to this song in isolation,
but the impact is far stronger when it is heard as part of the
whole cycle.
In the concluding two songs, Die Nebensonnen (tr. 23)
and Der Leiermann (tr. 2 (tr. 24) we meet a naked soul,
everything is over, the voice falters ... This is the most self-exposed
depiction of the eternal winter, where the narrator is doomed
to suffer.
I have listened to uncountable performances of Winterreise,
many of them exceptionally good, but none has touched me as
much as this one. It is, by some margin, the Recording
of the Month and will be one of my Recordings of the Year as
well.
Göran Forsling
Masterwork Index: Winterreise
Track listing
1. Gute Nacht [6:14]
2. Die Wetterfahne [1:45]
3. Gefrorne Tränen [2:31]
4. Erstarrung [2:46]
5. Der Lindenbaum [4:41]
6. Wasserflut [4:31]
7. Auf dem Flusse [3:44]
8. Rückblick [2:27]
9. Irrlicht [2:44]
10. Rast [3:25]
11. Frühlingstraum [4:43]
12. Die Einsamkeit [3:11]
13. Die Post [2:19]
14. Der greise Kopf [3:03]
15. Die Krähe [2:31]
16. Letzte Hoffnung [2:02]
17. Im Dorfe [3:02]
18. Der stürmische Morgen [0:50]
19. Täuschung [1:31]
20. Der Wegweiser [4:12]
21. Das Wirtshaus [5:26]
22. Mut [1:24]
23. Die Nebensonnen [2:48]
24. Der Leiermann [4:31]
Natalie Stutzmann (contralto), Inger Södergren (piano) 
