Ever since she first
made herself a name during the latter
half of the 1980s, Barbara Bonney has
been one of the very best lyrical sopranos.
Hers is a voice ideal for Mozart’s Susanna
and Zerlina, roles that she recorded
for Harnoncourt and then again for Arnold
Östman at about the same time.
Even more of an international calling
card was her Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier,
and so it comes as no surprise that
she is also a splendid interpreter of
Strauss’s Lieder. All through her career
she has sung Lieder just as much as
opera, and not just German Lieder. Being
American she has done quite a lot of
music from her native land, quite recently
on the new Onyx label [review].
Having been married to baritone Håkan
Hagegård and lived in Sweden for
several years, she has also specialised
in Scandinavian songs. Here, on what
has to be one of her earliest solo albums,
recorded in 1989, she treats us to a
score of songs by the two greatest late-romantic
masters, Wolf and Richard Strauss. Although
they were of roughly the same age, the
two composers were quite different in
most respects. Strauss was well-organized
and orderly while Wolf, through mental
instability, was prone to long periods
of inactivity. Outside these doldrum
periods he composed almost frenetically,
producing several songs a day. Wolf
was also the one who was most sensitive
to the poems, always trying to shape
the music to fit every nuance of the
text while Strauss was often satisfied
to find the appropriate mood of the
poem and then create flowing melodies,
sensual or noble or sometimes intensely
dramatic.
A good Wolf interpreter
needs a wide palette of vocal colours.
While Barbara Bonney is far from monochrome
she can’t quite muster the expressive
means of a Schwarzkopf or a Seefried,
to mention two important singers from
an earlier generation. She compensates
however through the beauty of her voice,
the unforced lyrical quality of the
singing and her ability to control the
dynamics. She also has the late lamented
Geoffrey Parsons as her exquisite accompanist.
In the first song on this recital, Der
Knabe und das Immlein (The Boy and
the Bee), one of several Mörike
texts, we hear the silvery voice at
its most beautiful. Parsons finds the
tone to match the voice. He plays a
lovely introduction to the next song,
Das verlassene Mägdlein
(The Forsaken Maidservant), also a Mörike
poem, and Bonney’s light lyric voice
is at its freshest, youthful but mature,
if that isn’t a contradiction in terms.
Even in the agitated Begegnung
she keeps the dynamics within her lyrical
range and lets Parsons provide the drama.
In every song there
are so many fine details; the lovely
Eichendorff setting, Verschwiegene
Liebe, for instance, is sung on
a thin thread of tone perfectly controlled.
The two songs from Italienisches
Liederbuch (tracks 9 and 10) are
also gems.
As I implied earlier,
Strauss suits Bonney even better. The
choice of songs is good with several
of the most well-known ones juxtaposed
with a couple of rarities. My note-pad
is littered with exclamation marks;
it is hard to imagine these songs better
sung. In Du meines Herzens Krönelein
(track 11), one of Strauss’s finest
songs, one can revel in the beauty of
the voice, crystal clear and warm, with
that little flutter so instantly recognizable.
Meinem Kinde (track 12) has a
pianissimo ending that leaves the listener
breathless but not the singer. In the
little known Ich schwebe wie auf
Engelsschwingen (track 13) she literally
"hovers as if on Angels’ wings".
The prelude to Morgen is wonderfully
played and Bonney’s voice emerges, so
to speak, from out of the piano. She
has a brilliant forte in Allerseelen,
sacrificing beauty. In Ich wollt’
ein Sträusslein binden there
are echoes of Zerbinetta’s aria. They
end the recital with a twittering Ständchen,
Parsons painting the background with
a light touch and Bonney’s bright and
warm notes falling like shimmering pearls.
This is a generous gift to the audience
- they gave this song as a last encore
at their recitals.
Barbara Bonney has
made many outstanding discs with fine
pianists, among them a Mendelssohn programme,
also with Parsons. Through the years
she has acquired even deeper insight
into the songs, but I wonder if any
of her later offerings can challenge
the freshness and beauty of this Wolf/Strauss
compilation. The only thing I regret
about it is the presentation: as so
often in the budget field we are denied
texts and translations. Instead we have
"only" a good essay about
the music by John Williamson. Don’t
let this deter you from acquiring a
really lovely recital.
Göran Forsling
Barbara Bonney (soprano), Geoffrey Parsons (piano)
