These
are not new recordings, as can be seen in the header.
They were all issued between 2002 and 2008, but only
as part of Leif Ove Andsnes’s highly acclaimed series
with Schubert sonatas and other piano pieces, where songs
were so to speak sprinkled in for good measure. I think
it was a good decision by EMI to collect and issue them
separately, since I believe – however inexplicable it
may seem – that there may be a lot of listeners who love
Schubert’s songs but are not interested in the sonatas.
Anyway it is convenient to have them available in one
set.
Ian
Bostridge’s qualities as a Lieder singer have, to some
extent, divided opinions, even though the majority of
critics have been positive. He first came to notice through
his recording of
Die schöne Müllerin in Hyperion’s
complete Schubert Edition and was hailed for his sensitivity
and his intelligent approach. His light silvery voice
has also been admired for its flexibility. Some pundits,
on the other hand, have swooped down on exactly the same
things: his voice lacking weight and his readings being
sometimes over-emphatic.
Less
than a year ago I reviewed a reissue of a
Schubert
disc with pianist Julius Drake (EMI 5034242), recorded
in 2000 and then I wrote among other things ‘This is
not a recital with big gestures and thunderous fortissimos.
On the
contrary it is soft and restrained but with intensity
within a limited dynamic scope. It is more a matter of
letting the music speak without unnecessary pointing
of words.’ The same could be applied to the present set,
but with some qualifications. In my notes I wrote: ‘Ian
Bostridge’s art is intimate, held within dynamically
narrow frames but with a myriad nuances, colourings and
excellent enunciation. He never superimposes heavy accents,
he never breaks the flow of the music. His singing is
natural and unaffected.’ This remark goes well with my
view on the earlier record but in some songs, primarily
the latest of the recordings, I reacted to a more emphatic
approach with broader brush-strokes and greater emphasis.
It is a more expressionist reading and is no doubt valid
for particular poems but arguably not for this particular
voice. We have become used to this emphatic way of bringing
poems to life, not least through Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s
many deep-probing readings. F-D however had a voice of
enormous weight and darkness and even though he could
be hectoring and barking, even distorting the tone, his
larger-than-life personality could carry it through with
both feet firmly on the ground. With Bostridge I occasionally
feel that he has to rise on tiptoe to bring it off; even
then he is a size too small for his intentions. But – let
me qualify this criticism immediately – those moments
are very much exceptions; with his intelligence he knows
very well his limitations and keeps the readings within
those confines.
In
Leif Ove Andsnes he has a partner who is as strong a
personality possessing a dramatic potential that might
be overwhelming for a lesser singer. In
Auf der Bruck,
one of the most expressive of these songs, his intense
playing has one sitting on the edge of the chair, yet
he never swamps the singer. This is to a great extent
thanks to Bostridge’s keen projection, where volume isn’t
the carrier of the message but the vividness, the plangent
tone and the word-painting.
Der Winterabend is
enhanced through the exquisitely shaded piano interlude.
In
Der Unglückliche Bostridge begins almost inaudibly,
half hidden behind the piano. He then gradually rises
to his full height but still singing most of the song
at a melancholy pianissimo, making the whole composition
a work on equal terms, where the piano part is sometimes
even more important than the song line.
Auf
dem Strom is a parallel to the better known
Der Hirt auf dem Felsen – a
chamber music trio with French horn instead of clarinet
and only half as long. It may not have the same melodic
appeal as
Der Hirt but it is a fine work. Timothy
Brown plays his far from easy horn part skilfully.
Towards
the end of CD 2 there are some fragments – or sometimes
rather more than that, but they are unfinished in varying
degree. Why, for instance, Schubert left
Pflicht and
Liebe without setting the last work ‘Pflicht’ is
an enigma. He set only set two out of the four stanzas,
but the remaining two are printed in the booklet and
the same goes for
Lebensmut. The dramatic, hair-raising
Johanna
Sebus, a Goethe text, is set in full but he seems
to have lost interest when he got as far as the postlude.
Even so it is good to have these fragments as chips from
Schubert’s workshop and Bostridge and Andsnes take even
the chips seriously.
As
I commented on the disc with Julius Drake, there are
songs that are better suited to a baritone than a light tenor
but as a whole, this is another prime example of Ian
Bostridge’s
way with Schubert’s songs.
Göran
Forsling
