It is perhaps little known that Kirsten Flagstad’s repertoire
also encompassed a large quantity of sacred works: Bach cantatas,
Handel oratorios, Haydn’s The Creation and Mendelssohn’s St
Paul. We have to be eternally grateful to Decca and John
Culshaw that they gave her the opportunity to record some of
this and related music during her Indian summer sessions in the
mid-1950s. She also included a couple of operatic arias by Handel,
reflecting that in 1932 she actually sang the title role in Rodelinda in
Gothenburg; the aria Art thou troubled (in the original: Dove
sei) has now at last been issued. Why it was not included
on the original LP I don’t know. Maybe squeezing in 50
minutes playing time was considered audio-technically undesirable
fifty years ago. As can be seen in the header the sacred songs
on CD 1 clocked in at just over forty-two minutes, which was
pretty much normal on my earliest LPs.
Mendelssohn’s Hear my prayer leads off with a monumental
opening, but don’t worry: Kirsten Flagstad was never the
full-throttle kind of singer. She had an instinctive feeling
for fine nuance. The dialogue with the chorus (not credited in
the booklet) shows her dramatic expertise and O for the wings
of a dove is warm and sensitive. Jerusalem is sung
with serene clarity and beauty.
Gruber’s Silent night, like everything else on these
discs sung in English, is folksong-simple to a sparse accompaniment,
which grows to greater complexity with unexpected harmonies and
counterpoint.
The opening recitative of O Divine Redeemer is impassioned
- but simple - and the main melody, one of Gounod’s most
inspired, is restrained and scaled down. Flagstad’s soft
singing was still marvellous in 1957. It struck me that the cello
solo at the beginning of the work must have been a model for
John Rutter when he wrote his Requiem.
George V is said to have preferred Parry’s Jerusalem to God
Save The King. Whether it was the words or the music that
attracted him I don’t know but musically at least Jerusalem is
definitely in a higher division and here it is further refined
through the serene clarity and beauty of Flagstad’s singing.
Bortnyansky was one of the foremost Russian composers in the
generations before Glinka. His setting of The Lord’s
Prayer has for many years been a great favourite of mine
but I can’t remember hearing Jubilate before. It’s
a fine piece and Flagstad sings it with steady tone and innate
feeling. Her final notes show that her steely power was still
unbroken.
Wade’s O come, all ye faithful, is firmly established
in the repertoire, not only in the English-speaking world. Flagstad’s
version is less jubilant, more warm and simple with a celestial
harp providing angelic atmosphere.
Most people are familiar with Monk’s Abide with me. Samuel
Liddle’s version is more lyrical and inward and Kirsten
Flagstad loves it - or so it seems: it is so simple and free
from external disturbances. This is Kirsten Flagstad at her greatest.
Overall this disc finds her in uncommonly good shape.
The Bach/Handel programme on CD 2 is less of a treat - for several
reasons. First of all the last half century has seen a revolution
in our attitude to baroque performance practice. The transparency,
lightness and springy rhythms we have become used to since August
Wenzinger and later Nicolaus Harnoncourt showed the new direction
are completely absent here. Instead we have a thick romantic
carpet of sound. We are also accustomed to a different way of
singing baroque music: leaner, lighter voices with little or
no vibrato. Not that Flagstad’s voice is greatly affected
by vibrato but her matronly tone and heavy portamenti belong
to another age. What is even worse: her intonation is often suspect
and technically she seems rather unwieldy. The aria from St
Matthew Passion is particularly unsuccessful and the other
three Bach favourites exist in much better readings. I think
the value with these recordings mainly lies in their historic
interest. This was the way this music was often performed in
bygone days. But even Elisabeth Schumann’s recording of If
thou be near from 1934 is much closer to the mark, her silvery
voice light and pearly.
The Handel arias are better and the recording of Art thou
troubled is not unlike Kathleen Ferrier’s, which was
one of my earliest records. He shall feed his flock, where
she shows her impressive range, is possibly the best item on
this disc, secure and sensitive. Sir Adrian Boult, though no
baroque specialist, also seems more attuned to Handel than Bach;
he recorded Messiah twice. It was through his second recording,
from the early 1960s, with Joan Sutherland and Grace Bumbry that
I learnt the work.
Swings and roundabouts no doubt, but CD 1 and several Handel
arias are definitely worth a listen and the contents give further
evidence of Kirsten Flagstad’s comprehensive repertoire.
What a pity there are no recordings of her Italian repertoire.
Imagine hearing her as Aida and Tosca!
Göran Forsling
Track details
CD 1
Felix MENDELSSOHN (1809 - 1847)
1. Hear my prayer - O for the wings of a dove [11:48)
2. Jerusalem (from St. Paul, Op. 36) [3:53]
Franz Xaver GRUBER (1787 - 1863)
3. Silent Night (arr. Woodgate, Young) [3:18]
Charles GOUNOD (1818 - 1893)
4. Ah, turn me not away … O Divine Redeemer [6:47]
Sir Hubert PARRY (1848 - 1918)
5. Jerusalem [3:03]
Dmitry BORTNYANSKY (1751 - 1825)
6. Jubilate (arr. Woodgate, Young) [2:32]
John Francis WADE (1711 - 1786)
7. O come, all ye faithful [4:15]
Samuel LIDDLE (1867 - 1951)
8. Abide with me [5:57]
CD 2
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685 - 1750)
1. Break in grief (from St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244, ed. Elgar, Atkins)
[6:36]
2. Jesu, joy of man’s desire (from Cantata BWV 147: Herz und Mund und
Tat und Leben, arr. W.G.Whittaker) [6:07]
3. If thou be near (from Clavierbüchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach;
English version edited by Tippett, Bergman) [4:12]
4. Sheep may safely graze (from Cantata BWV 20: Was mir behagt, ist nur die
muntre Jagd) [5:19]
George Frideric HANDEL (1685 - 1759)
5. Art thou troubled (from Rodelinda, HWV 19) [5:28]
6. Gods all powerful (from Radamisto, HWV 11) [3:10]
7. Oh sleep, why doest thou leave me (from Semele, HWV 28) [3:55]
8. He shall feed his flock (from Messiah, HWV 56) [5:20]
9. I know that my Redeemer liveth (from Messiah, HWV 56) [6:41]
10. Praise ye the Lord (Ochs, attrib. Handel, arr. Woodgate, McCormack) [3:17]
Kirsten Flagstad (soprano) 
