This looks like a good
idea if you have perfect German (I haven’t).
The problem with Brahms’s one song cycle
has always been that the poems offer
a commentary on the various stages of
a fairly involved story of love, magic
and chivalry set in the middle ages,
but you cannot follow the story just
through the poems, as you can those
of the great cycles of Schubert and
Schumann, which in any case deal in
much more direct, personal emotions.
With a CD, of course, you can read the
story in the booklet, and of the various
alternatives around, that by Andreas
Schmidt and Helmut Deutsch in CPO’s
complete Brahms Lieder Edition (Vol.
3), for one, provide this.
Alternatively, you
can have somebody to read the text of
the novella by Tieck so that the songs
are slotted into context. Unfortunately,
just to limit the attractions of this
present disc fairly and squarely to
the German-speakers-only club, Orfeo
have had the bright idea of publishing
the texts and translations of the songs
but not of the recitations, preferring
to devote the available space in the
booklet to a detailed review of the
performances (I must point out again
that it is not credible for a
CD booklet to include a rave review
of the performance if only because it
would be unthinkable to express in such
a place the opposite view. If you can
find me a single CD booklet which contains
commentary on the lines of "Messrs.
X and Y were well below form on a cold
and foggy morning and became increasingly
grumpy as the sessions wore on. Only
the skilled diplomacy of the producer
in the face of increasing demands to
‘call the whole bloody thing off’ ensured
that a performance of sorts was set
down", well then, I’ll eat my hat).
However, if non-German
speakers have by now concluded that
this is not for them, I am not so sure.
Obviously, a certain interest lies in
hearing the voice of Inge Borkh, a retired
Swiss soprano once famous for her involved
interpretations of the more dramatic
roles of Richard Strauss and still active
as a teacher. There is music still in
her voice, even if she is not singing,
and her expressionist manner certainly
makes you wish to know what it is all
about.
But even more, because
the performance of the songs is quite
extraordinarily fine. I realise that
Orfeo themselves have also issued the
legendary Salzburg performance in 1970
by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Sviatoslav
Richter and on one level this may be
impossible to match – Richter’s tonal
shading at the beginning of no.3, for
example, is the sort of thing other
pianists, even great ones, may despair
of ever approaching – and the great
baritone’s voice retains its rare beauty
even under dramatic pressure. But Jarnot
and März are also fine artists
and they remind us that this cycle was
the work of a still youthful Brahms,
intent on recapturing the spirit of
a romantic fairy story he had loved
since his childhood. While other performances
make the usual serious Brahmsian sounds,
this one avoids being shackled to the
image of the adult composer. The booklet’s
comparison of Brahms’s world here with
that of the Magic Flute sounds credible
in this performance, less so with others.
So in the end, even if you are not a
German speaker (and you can always programme
just the music), I have to recommend
this version above the others. But try
to find the story on Internet somewhere.
Christopher Howell
.
Inge Borkh (reciter), Konrad Jarnot (Baritone),
Carl-Heinz März (piano) 
