I wonder if Brigitte
Fassbaender ever made an uninteresting
record. She could be wayward and, towards
the end of her career, her voice could
take on a hard edge and a heavy vibrato
that didn’t always please the ear. Then
again she always had something to say
about the music, something unexpected.
Take for example her highly individual
Azucena in Giulini’s Trovatore
or her utterly moving interpretation
of that bleakest of song-cycles, Mahler’s
Kindertotenlieder. No, she didn’t
interpret it, she lived the emotions.
I remember her singing those songs at
the Royal Castle in Stockholm in the
early 1990s. It was very much a communication
with herself, an inner monologue, where
the audience were able to experience
her feelings almost as voyeurs, looking
and listening from without to her innermost
thoughts. That was a hair-raising experience.
We get the same sense
of inner monologue when listening to
her in Frauenliebe und Leben
on this disc. There are no big gestures,
no histrionics, just an inwardness that
becomes the more touching by being so
toned down. Through the eight songs
in the cycle she goes through so many
different emotions: she can be jubilant
(track 2), she can be calm and contemplative
(track 4) or nervously eager (track
5). In the last song, Nun hast du
mir den ersten Schmerz getan (track
8), the voice is darker with a streak
of despair, but it is still an inner
monologue where gradually the voice
becomes almost drained. Irwin Gage’s
postlude is just as deeply felt. This
is a masterly rendering of the cycle
and it is comparable to my old benchmark
recording with Irmgard Seefried from
the early 1960s.
In the same way she
puts her individual stamp on the wonderful
songs in Liederkreis Op. 24.
There is in Fassbaender’s singing something
of Callas’s intensity and identification,
and she has the same ability as the
older singer to colour the voice to
suit each song. She can also, just as
Callas, sacrifice beauty of tone to
express the meaning of the words. When
she chooses to sing beautifully, few
singers of her own or any generation
can be more hauntingly beautiful. Try
track 14, Ich wandelte unter den
Bäumen, one of Schumann’s most
exquisite creations, or Schöne
Wiege meiner Leiden (track 16) and
of course the last song of the cycle,
which is also the most well-known of
them: Mit Myrten und Rosen. This
is indeed Lieder-singing on the most
exalted level. There have been few artists
of this calibre during the post-war
period.
An important contributor
to the success of these readings is
the playing of Irwin Gage. The two artists
worked together for many years and one
can feel how instinctively they think
in the same direction. Besides the two
song-cycles we also get the rarely heard
three-part Tragödie, also
very well done and, as encores, another
three Heine-songs, the longest of them,
Mein Wagen rollet langsam from
the end of Schumann’s life, with a fine
postlude that rounds off the collection.
First released by DG
in 1985, it is good to have this disc
back in circulation again, and at budget
price. We have to do without texts and
translations. These should always be
provided with song records. Nevertheless
we do get what I believe to be the original
liner notes by Siegmar Keil and they
go some way to compensate for the lack
of texts. No lover of great Lieder-singing
can afford to be without this disc.
Göran Forsling
Brigitte Fassbaender (mezzo) 
