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Herbert Alsen, who
studied in Berlin, originally intended
to be a violinist. It became increasingly
clear though that not only was his voice
an intrinsically fine one but it was
also one potentially capable of considerable
stature. So he retrained as a singer
and joined a succession of fine, if
provincial, opera houses to learn his
trade and the repertoire. It was on
the strength of his Gurnemanz that he
was taken on by the Vienna State Opera
in 1936, the same year in which he sang
for Toscanini at Salzburg. After which
of course there was no going back. Despite
his many successes at the Met, Covent
Garden, Glyndebourne, Rome and in Vienna,
where he remained for over twenty years,
it was above all his Sarastro that impinged
itself on the musical consciousness
though he was an equally fine Osmin.
And he certainly did move outwards into
other areas of repertoire – Schmidt’s
Notre Dame and plenty of Russian
roles for which his rich and resonant
bass was clearly well suited and for
which he equally clearly had affinities.
On this disc from Preiser
we have a series of radio broadcasts
spanning the years 1943-49 though in
fact only the Siegfried comes from 1949;
everything else derives from the one
year period toward the end of the War
when the accomplishment of radio broadcast
fidelity had reached a particularly
high level – especially in Germany and
Austria. This is certainly true in the
case of Die Entführung, which has
been issued before in poor sound on
a Melodram LP back in the early 1980s.
This is from a complete broadcast with
Schwarzkopf as Konstanze but we only
hear an excerpt with Anton Dermota who
is in impressive form. The sound here
is unrecognisable from that LP manifestation
and is thoroughly enjoyable. It’s difficult
to get a complete picture of Alsen from
these extracts but we do hear his strong
but not buffo Osmin and in O! Wie
will ich triumphieren the sheer
warmth of his voice, albeit one susceptible
to a little spread. The Fidelio is in
rather splintery sound but it’s not
too problematic and Konetzni is, if
anything, even finer than Alsen here.
In default of his Russian repertoire
we have his Italian; his Verdi is sonorous
if not quite in the finest ranks of
German basses who espoused this repertoire
(and sung in German of course as was
the custom). The long extract from Mastersinger
gives us a slew of his eminent colleagues
whilst the Siegfried is a vivid
example of his histrionic powers. Perhaps
the highlight however – for me at least
- is Daphne. It’s not simply
that this is a ravishing piece of music,
though it is, but that Alsen sings it
with such simplicity and directness.
It also reminds us that he was notable
Kammersänger in Intermezzo.
It’s a notable way to end a refreshing
disc.
Jonathan Woolf
Herbert Alsen (bass)
