Verklärte Nacht
Franz LEHÁR (1870-1948)
Fieber, Tone Poem for Tenor and Large Orchestra [12:29]
Oskar FRIED (1871-1941)
Verklärte Nacht, Op. 9 [8:22]
Arnold SCHOENBERG (1874-1951)
Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4 [28:50]
Erich Wolfgang KORNGOLD (1897-1957)
Abschiedslieder, Op. 14 (Version for Voice & Orchestra) [13:36]
Stuart Skelton (tenor)
Christine Rice (mezzo-soprano)
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Edward Gardner
Rec. 14-15 March 2020, Phoenix Concert Hall, Fairfield Halls, Croydon, UK
Reviewed in surround sound
CHANDOS SACD CHSA5243 [63:36]
Here is an intriguing piece of programme-building around
a key work of fin-de-sičcle Vienna. Schoenberg’s Verklärte
Nacht, in its full string orchestra version, is the departure point
and the only well-known work here. It is also the only non-vocal one.
Oskar Fried’s 1901 Verklärte Nacht is a setting for mezzo,
tenor, and orchestra of the same Richard Dehmel poem that had inspired
Schoenberg’s 1899 instrumental piece. The vocal disposition reflects
the structure of Dehmel’s poem, which has five sections. Thus
the scene setting opening, describing two lovers walking at night, is
for both singers. Then the woman ‘speaks’, and the mezzo
sings “I am with child, and not by you”. The middle section
is another short narration for duet, then the man ‘speaks’
and the tenor sings of how the shimmering night “will transfigure
the stranger’s child, you will bear it for me”. The final
section describes them walking on through the night.
Fried provides music for this text of a quality that makes one wish
he had not abandoned composing for conducting (even though this website
must honour the man who conducted the first recording of a Mahler symphony).
The five part structure is mirrored in the music, not just by the allocation
of voices to sections, but also in the harmonic progress, as the gloom
of the opening minor mode is ‘transfigured’ into a glowing
major by the man’s transformative response. Stuart Skelton and
Christine Rice sing their respective aria-like solos very well, and
blend effectively in the narrative duet passages. The BBC Symphony Orchestra
have plenty to contribute to the scene also, and while Gardner’s
conducting acknowledges the sometimes hothouse post-Wagnerian manner,
he keeps this short scene in emotional proportion.
Lehár ‘s Fieber (“Fever”) was initially part
of a song cycle Aus eiserner Zeit (“From the Age of Iron”)
of 1915 – this orchestral setting came a year later. It seems
Lehár’s soldier brother was recovering from war wounds and in
some danger, and Lehár commissioned the text, a monologue by a dying
soldier in hospital. Lehár called Fieber a Tone Poem for Tenor
and Large Orchestra, and there are plenty of motivic signposts for the
orchestra, including a waltz, bugle calls and marches including references
to both the Radetzky and the Rakoczy marches. This vocal monodrama depicts
a final delirium, each stage vividly evoked by these performers, in
which the soldier recalls his girlfriend, his military life, imagines
his mother is with him, until the final bleak line - spoken not sung
- “the cadet in bed eight is dead”. Of course when we hear
Stuart Skelton sing this piece so intensely, we recall the delirium
of one of his major roles, that of Wagner’s Tristan. Fieber
has something of that intensity at times, a world away from the composer’s
The Merry Widow. Perhaps the difficulty of programming this
splendid twelve minute piece, or the misleading expectations aroused
by the composer’s name, keep it off concert programmes. That is
regrettable, but it makes this excellent recording all the more valuable.
Korngold’s Abschiedslieder (Songs of Farewell) comes
from 1920-21, before he had fled Vienna for Hollywood, and around the
time of his opera Die tote Stadt. The first song Sterbelied
(“Song of dying” translated from Christina
Rossetti’s “Requiem”) sets the gentle , even
wistful tone of much of the cycle. The second, Dies eine kann mein
Sehnen nimmer fassen (“This my longing will never grasp”)
has a text which protests about enforced parting a bit more, and is
a touch more animated. The superb nocturne Mond, so gehst du wieder
auf (“Moon, so you rise again”) is at times a duet
with the celeste, one of many fine orchestral touches. Here and in the
closing Gefasster Abschied (“Resigned farewell”)
Skelton catches the elusive manner of this cycle surprisingly well.
This is not music that plays to his strengths especially, as there is
little scope for his Heldentenor upper range, or his dramatic projection,
so valuable in Lehár’s Fieber . Instead he has to draw
on his more baritonal middle and lower notes, and his affecting quiet
singing, which suits the intimacy of the cycle. I prefer his account
to the only other one I know, which is also very good, from the alto
Linda Finnie (Chandos, 1993).
Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, in its full string orchestra
version, is a concert hall staple, but gains much from coming straight
after Fried’s vocal setting, since the structure of Schoenberg’s
work is as much determined by that of the poem as is Fried’s song.
The Schoenberg is helpfully tracked on this SACD to reflect the sections
of the score. The BBCSO strings are an excellent group, and the scoring
calls on the skill of just a few of them at times, as well as the full
band for big climaxes. Egon Wellesz said this work “suffered from
an excess of climaxes”, so the conductor needs to graduate and
relate them to each other, which Gardner does to the degree that we
do not feel that “excess”. He above all has that sense of
ebb and flow that holds the attention in this continually evolving work.
Even he cannot fully illuminate all of the denser counterpoint - one
perhaps needs the sextet original for that - but the fine SACD recording
keeps the key strands of the argument easy to follow.
This is a most recommendable disc, and one with a unique programme,
so that comparisons hardly apply. The value of the disc lies in the
context it gives to the best-known work, and the discoveries that most
of the vocal items will be for collectors. For myself, the Fried and
Lehár items were quite new, and I shall return to them in particular.
Stuart Skelton is in very good voice, taxed only in a couple of passing
moments by the demanding writing, but bringing real feeling, even identification,
to these pieces. Gardner here continues to demonstrate his mastery of
the musical style of the period, as shown before in his Chandos discs
of early Schoenberg with his Bergen forces; Gurrelieder, and
Erwartung and Pelleas und Melisande. The very good
booklet note by Paul Griffiths gives all the background you will need
for the more obscure works.
Roy Westbrook
See also review by
Gwyn Parry-Jones
