Though none of these 1943-50 sides is new to the CD discography
they make for good programming in Preiser’s intelligently ordered
selection. Rothmüller was apt to be taken for granted in his day
and he still seems to be rather under-estimated even now. Maybe
the lack of obvious charisma or of histrionic declamation saw
to that. But his was the kind of voice that served music with
great honesty and simplicity. It was a light baritone, even of
production and even throughout the scale. It was well supported
and rose effortlessly, though there was nothing florid about his
singing. It was eminently musical, thoroughly sane, with fine
diction, and if that sounds just a touch dull, well, let me add
that it wasn’t at all.
His Mozart, with the now forgotten James
Robertson conducting the Philharmonia in 1950, is elegant and
fluent, rhythmically buoyant. True there was never too much
sheer electricity in his Magic Flute but maybe the actual weight
of the voice counts against him here. What’s not really in doubt
is the sheer elegance of his legato. His Wagner is shaped with
care, with considerable attention being paid to the paragraphal
curve of the line and to an acute verbal awareness. This regard
for textual matters is typical of him – unforced, unmannered,
expressive within limits. And as he shows in the second of the
two extracts from Tannhäuser this is conveyed with a winning
simplicity and a rapt directness that doesn’t exclude an interiorised
theatrical impersonation. It’s the art that hides art – a subtlety
that he frequently exudes.
His Pari siamo shows something of
the vocal heft he could summon when required but the second
Rigoletto extract whilst sensitively done is arguably rather
undernourished. His singing of Schubert doesn’t subject the
texts the kind of scrutiny that Fischer-Dieskau did nor does
it begin to match the histrionic impersonations of, say, Ludwig
Suthaus – whom I mention because Preiser has a live Moscow
Schubert recital by him on their books. Rothmüller prefers a
more equable middle-way, elegant, refined, synchronising the
three voices in Erlkönig where others can tend to exaggerate
them. His Schubert then is predicated on strong musical values,
care for the text and expression, subtle shifting vocal weight
and shading. But he can reach deep down as well – try the stark
Der Doppelgänger. To end we have a couple of lovely Mussorgsky
songs in one of which, ‘Germanned’ to Wiegenlied, he
gently croons a child to sleep.
The fine transfers complement an intelligent
selection of sides. This disc and his Winterreise, which
is on Symposium 1098/99, give a penetrating insight into the
art of this fine and important baritone.
Jonathan Woolf
Marko Rothmüller
(baritone) 
