This reissue is a worthwhile addition to the Mahler catalogue,
but it inadvertently underlines the risks of vocal over-exposure,
even for a great singer.
The original LP of the
Kindertotenlieder - for which Decca
oddly provides no recording dates - appeared in the early 1970s,
at roughly the same time as Horne's acclaimed 1971 opening-night
Carmen at
the Metropolitan Opera. This cycle gives us the artist at the
peak of her vocal powers. Horne's voice sounds round and luscious;
she maintains a full tone even at medium dynamics, opening and
settling into a deep, satisfying chest-based mix on descending
lines, as at "
erlosch'ner Freudenschein" in
Wenn
dein Mütterlein. She scales the voice down nicely for
the softer passages in
Nun seh' ich wohl, though the
subito
pianissimo on "
Sterne" tightens. Most importantly,
Horne uses her voice and technique to serve the music and text,
inflecting the words with purpose, shaping the vocal phrases
accordingly. Only the unmarked, unmotivated pushes forward in
Wenn
dein Mütterlein seem questionable.
The other two collections were recorded less than a decade later,
yet Horne's voice is already showing signs of wear. The singer
tends to nudge long phrases along note by note, instead of sustaining
through in a steady legato stream. The top of the staff more
frequently betrays strain. The chest register is still impressively "deep," but
hard-edged rather than plush; the entire voice sounds thinned-out,
less solidly integrated than before.
Horne's interpretive instincts remain keen, but such vocal limitations,
while hardly critical, compromise the singer's ability to realize
her intentions. In
Ich atmet' einen Linden duft, the first
of the Rückert songs, the cadence at the end of the first
strophe ("
Wie lieblich war der Lindenduft")
sounds consoling, but the tone isn't as warm or enveloping as
one wants. The curving ascents of
Liebst du um Schönheit are
solid, but not expansive; the "big" one near the start,
at "
Liebe die Sonne," is effortful, and that
at "
Liebe den Frühling" distinctly climbs
up from below. The broad, almost symphonic scale of
Um Mitternacht plays
to Horne's strengths - she wasn't a miniaturist - and, indeed,
she brings a nice sense of exultation to the move into major
at "
in deine Hand gegeben," along with some
strain; there's also some iffy tuning and poky legato along the
way, with some midrange pitches not quite attacked head-on.
The
Wayfarer cycle was one of this singer's specialties
- I remember a lovely Carnegie Hall performance, with William
Steinberg and the Pittsburgh Symphony, in the early 1970s. Her
Ging
heut' Morgen has a nice ease and point, and she brings a
good rhythmic alertness and drive to
Ich hab' ein glühend
Messer. But the legato isn't evenly sustained, and the tuning
becomes questionable in too many places. The top is reasonably
full when approached by the right combination of pitch and vowel,
as at "
allerliebsten Platz" in
Die zwei blauen
Augen; otherwise the upward leaps are strained.
The conducting, more by accident than by design, parallels the
vocal quality in each case. In the
Kindertotenlieder,
Henry Lewis - an indifferent baton technician, but an expert
orchestral colorist - draws beautiful, plush sounds from the
Royal Philharmonic. But some of the
pianos and
pianissimos
are lost in the process - the horn in
Nun will die Sonn' produces
a healthy
mezzoforte - and one also vaguely feels that
Mahler's sparser textures perhaps shouldn't sound quite so full.
Zubin Mehta, leading the capable Los Angeles Philharmonic, has
a nice feel for the Mahlerian palette and musical gesture, notably
in
Um Mitternacht. But here, too, some of the playing
is simply too "present" and up-front; the stylish,
sparkling woodwinds aren't always quite in tune; and, save in
the vibrant coda of
Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,
the string sound is mostly dry. Nor is Mehta's control ideal:
the dramatic
Ich hab' ein glühend Messer hurtles
forward with insufficient rhythmic grounding; and in
Liebst
du um Schönheit, although the right orchestral voices
always emerge in the balances, the overall framework sounds vaguely
unkempt.
The recorded quality is mostly excellent, though I suspect close
orchestral miking contributes to the overripe sounds of the
Kindertotenlieder. In
Nun
seh' ich wohl in the same cycle, an excessive echo suddenly
blankets Horne's top F and E-flat at "
bereits zur Heimkehr
schicke." And one assumes that Horne's account of Wagner's
Wesendonck
Lieder - the
Kindertotenlieder's original discmate
- is, for now, lost in digital limbo.
I'll return to this as a memento of a beloved artist's career,
with the
Kindertotenlieder showing Horne at her best.
But for a "singing" - as opposed to heavily "interpreted" -
version of the
Wayfarer cycle, I'd go with one of the
baritones, perhaps Hermann Prey (Philips).
Stephen Francis Vasta
Marilyn Horne (mezzo) 
