Seldom can a two-word title have encapsulated a wider-ranging
content. The whole of romantic Germany is here, from landscape-painting
to simple and not-so-simple love, from deep religious feeling to ancient
folk-legends of elves and the like. Here is the whole of romantic Germany,
it must be said, less the simple love of melody, for which we have to
turn to Brahms. There is no denying that Wolf is "difficult",
requiring repeated hearings in order to appreciate the subtlety of his
word-painting both in the voice-part and the accompaniment; the more
so if your knowledge of German is limited. At the end this music can
lodge itself in the memory, it is as great as its admirers have
always claimed it to be, but you have to work to realise this.
The battle-lines were drawn back in the 1930s, by which
time Ernest Newman’s classic 1907 study had obtained cult status. Newman
himself declared in 1918 "I venture to think that the supreme master
of form in music is not Beethoven or Wagner but Hugo Wolf" (The
New Witness, 1918). This was the period of the Wolf-edition (an
extensive subscribers-only series of discs on HMV featuring some of
the greatest lieder singers of the day) and the rise of Walter Legge
who later put all his weight behind the great LP editions with Schwarzkopf,
Fischer-Dieskau and with Gerald Moore at the piano. The critic who didn’t
lap up his Wolf passed off as a simpleton indeed, one of those vulgar
types who likes a bit of tune. And yet such a critic (was there
one?) was only voicing what any babe or suckling could have told him,
that if the music doesn’t get across the first time or the second
time or the third time and needs to be explained and studied
then one essential ingredient of great music is surely lacking. When,
at the end of a long Wolf recital at La Scala, Fischer-Dieskau announced
his second Wolf encore, to be greeted by a cry from the loggione,
"Let’s have a bit of Verdi!", was that loggionista
quite as incompetente as the other members of the public loudly
said he was? Put your hand on your heart; after a dozen or so of these,
wouldn’t you love to hear a rich bass voice sinking into some heart-tugging
melody like "Il lacerato spirito"?
I’m playing the devil’s advocate, obviously. On the
side of the angels we have Hyperion and all its works: magnificent presentation,
perfect recording, two superb lieder singers in their early maturity
and a pianist who, together with Graham Johnson and John Constable,
has carried on the great line of British accompanists which goes back
to Harold Craxton and continued through Gerald Moore (actually Canadian,
of course).
First the presentation. A fine 1995 essay on Mörike
by Richard Stokes, who also contributes translations of those texts
of which a good translation was not available (the names of Eric Sams
and Paul Hindemith stand out among the other translators), and an equally
fine introduction to the songs by Roger Vignoles, who then provides
a virtually bar-by-bar analysis of the individual songs. The style is
so interchangeable with that of Graham Johnson in Hyperion’s Schubert
and Schumann (and much else) editions that one would be hard put to
know which taught the other the importance of being earnest. As the
results are excellent either way it hardly matters. Lucky Hyperion,
that has both Tweedledum and Tweedledee at its beck and call!
The performances also follow an honourable tradition.
We have been taught by Schwarzkopf and you-know-who to expect to hear
these songs alternated between a light, high soprano and a resonant
baritone, and so they are here. One day it might be interesting to alternate
a mezzo-soprano and a tenor, or even record with four singers (it wouldn’t
increase the costs if the same four were simultaneously engaged to do
other projects). But this is not intended as a criticism of what is
here, only a suggestion for another time.
Joan Rodgers has a light, golden-toned voice which
moves effortlessly in the upper register, where it acquires a vibrato
that is for the moment rather attractive, though I hope it won’t get
any wider. But she can also give her voice an attractively plangent
timbre in its lower register. Listen to her in the two consecutive songs
"Nixe Binsefuss", all high, dulcet tones, and "Gesang
Weylas" with its more grave delivery. She copes finely with "Lied
vom Winde", not by hectoring but by characterisation (and Vignoles
helps by supplying masses of drama without degenerating into noise).
She also characterises the comic songs well – hear her acting out the
bleary-eyed morning- after in "Zur Warnung". But, to tell
the truth, I’ve got copious notes in front of me made while listening,
and they’re all in the same positive vein so I think I’ve said enough
to give a good idea.
Up to about two-thirds of the way through I was equally
enthusiastic about Genz; the doubts I began to have are a matter of
opinion. He has a lovely warm voice, absolutely even throughout its
range, always true in intonation and communicative with the words. It’s
this latter which gives rise to my doubts. Sometimes he separates the
individual syllables of a word at the expense of a legato line. Take
the second line of "Heimweh", which begins "Den ich weiter".
Do you separate the syllables – "Den (stop) ich (stop) weiter"
– or do you do something like this: "De-nee-shweiter"? Genz
does the former. Ms. Rogers, in her songs, does the latter, which makes
for a long legato line which the words do not break yet they are perfectly
clear. This is one of the fundamentals of bel canto. Fischer-Dieskau
knew all about bel canto and applied this legato when he wanted
to, but on other occasions he chose to bring out the separate syllables,
and Genz follows him in this. I always remember reading an interview
with a young, upcoming Wagnerian baritone (I don’t remember who, alas)
in which he described how he had sought a consultation with the great
Hans Hotter and had learnt from him the importance of true legato singing.
There is always the danger that what isn’t bel canto might end
up as brutto canto – ugly singing. Genz’s is not that and much
of it is really lovely, but I hope he will do some work on this point.
I didn’t get out the revered models because I basically
found this set so fine as to suggest that comparisons would only be
between different forms of excellence. Or not so different. As I have
suggested, this set follows an honourable tradition. All those who care
about the continuance of great lieder singing in our own times will
hear it with rejoicing. I only wish, and only a little bit, that tradition
might have been a mite less honoured.
Christopher Howell
Joan Rodgers (soprano),
Stephan Genz (baritone), Roger Vignoles (pianoforte)