Good lyrical tenors seem to be thirteen a dozen in the German-peaking
world at the moment. Singers like Lothar Odinius, Marcus Ullman,
Jan Kobow have made their marks in lieder as well as in other
repertoire. To their illustrious company young Daniel Behle can
now be added. I heard him almost exactly a year ago – on 31 May
2008 – as Prince Ramiro in the Stockholm Royal Opera production
of Rossini’s La Cenerentola (see review)
and then I described his voice as ‘mellifluous, agile, beautiful,
technically spotless and with enough heft to make his top notes
ring out – in fact some of the most refined and vital Rossini
singing I have heard in the theatre for quite some time’. These
plaudits are equally applicable to his singing on this debut recital
disc, recorded only weeks after the performance I saw. Born in
Hamburg he studied singing with his mother, the soprano Renate
Behle, whom I heard as a superb Leonora in Fidelio at Savonlinna
more than fifteen years ago. Daniel Behle has been awarded several
prizes at international singing contests, among them the Queen
Sonja Contest in 2005 in Oslo, where he also received the Troldhaugen
Grieg Prize – no wonder then that he wanted to include some Grieg
songs in his debut recital, which is a mix of established favourites
and some unhackneyed repertoire.
There is no lack
of competition in the field of Schubert and Beethoven songs
and no newcomer can be expected to stand out against all the
greats who have recorded the same songs. Schubert’s Der
Musensohn is not easy to bring off, especially for a lyric
tenor, when so many powerful baritones have already etched
their readings into the memory of most jaded listeners. But
Behle surprises with a force and energy that puts him far
ahead of many fellow tenors and make them seem bloodless by
comparison – and he doesn’t lack nuances. Ständchen
is sung with exquisite legato, softly and beautifully and
without imposing very much of ‘interpretation’. He trusts
Schubert and lets the music speak. Ungeduld from Die
schöne Müllerin is nervous and eager and he impresses
greatly with his fine voice production and his top notes ring
out effortlessly as they did at the Rossini performance mentioned
above.
The Beethoven
songs are fine with an impassioned – but slightly restrained
– Adelaide to play as a calling card to music loving
friends unfamiliar with the singer. However, Beethoven as
well as Schubert emerge as more or less preamble to what follows.
I have stated before that the six songs Op. 48 is Grieg at
his very best as song composer. Apart from Ein Traum
they are not as well known as some of his other songs but
they certainly grow in stature for each new hearing and they
also find Daniel Behle at his very best: the inward
and soft Dereinst, Gedanke mein, the energetic but
nuanced Lauf der Welt, the beautiful Die verschwiegene
Nachtigall and the concluding Ein Traum, building
up from the softest possible opening to a glorious climax
on the last Wirklichkeit. This was incidentally the
song that won him the special Grieg Prize at the Oslo competition
and it is easy to understand why. Grieg was a fluent German
speaker and these songs came into being in 1884 when he and
his wife Nina had reconciled after having split up for a year
– as strong a source of inspiration as any.
Whether Benjamin
Britten also was fluent in German I don’t know. His Hölderlin-Fragmente
from 1958 are anyway his only settings of German. They are
certainly among his best creations, the sparse textures laying
bare the texts, and I believe that no one hearing them for
the first time can have any doubts as to the deep involvement
on the part of the composer. In an interview Britten even
called the cycle his ‘best vocal work ever’. It is also hard
to imagine the songs being more beautifully sung than by Daniel
Behle. Peter Pears was no doubt unique in his understanding
of Britten’s music and thoughts and his recordings will never
be redundant but Behle also seems to have absorbed them and
made them very much his own.
This can be said
with even greater certainty about Manfred Trojahn’s four Goethe
settings, which were premiered by and dedicated to Daniel
Behle. The background is interesting: At the Liederwerkstatt
in Bad Reichenhall established composers like Wolfgang Rihm,
Aribert Reimann and Manfred Trojahn met with young singers.
Every year they devoted themselves to one poet and in 2007
it was Goethe. Due to other commitments Trojahn had only finished
two out four planned songs. When he heard Daniel Behle singing
them he was inspired to compose the remaining two as well.
The songs are emotional, concentrating on ‘the painful process
of departing love’. Manfred Trojahn has transferred these
200-year-old poems to the present day without loss of the
universality and timelessness and found a musical language
that builds bridges to bygone days. The songs should be accessible
also to a wider public, not particularly specialized in ‘modern’
music. Abschied is enormously beautiful and the concluding
Am Flusse, sung so beautifully and sensitively, shouldn’t
leave anybody unmoved.
With good recording,
a sensitive pianist and good notes by Malte Krasting this
is a disc that should win the young singer hordes of new admirers.
A pity though that only the German texts are printed without
translations. A recording of Die schöne Müllerin is
scheduled for June this year (2009). I can hardly wait for
its release.
Göran Forsling
Daniel Behle (tenor); Oliver Schnyder (piano)
