The Naxos Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition is beginning to rival
the 40-CD Hyperion Edition in size - these are volumes 33 and
34 - if not always in quality. The tone, set by the very first
volumes, such as number 6, which John Quinn thought very good
value, if not quite the best available (8.554740 - see
review)
is continued in these latest CDs.
These two volumes continue the work of Volume 32 in collecting
the part-songs, still a little-known part of Schubert’s
song output. Arthur Hutchinson’s
Schubert in the
Dent
Master Musicians series (1945), the first book on
Schubert which I read and still a useful work of reference, contains
one brief mention of “the male-voice
Song of the Spirits
over the Waters, or the vocal dance
Welcome Spring” (p.140)
and nothing else on the part-songs. His comment that these works
are “unaccountably neglected” still largely holds
good. The
Gesang der Geister is a part-song with orchestral
accompaniment and, therefore, beyond the remit of the Naxos edition.
Naxos has chosen to present the part-songs separately in three
volumes, whereas Hyperion have intermingled them with other repertoire.
Thus, for example,
Gott in der Natur, D757, the first
item on Volume 2, appears on Volume 35 of the Hyperion edition
in the company of other part-songs but also of Lieder for solo
voice, all written in the last years of the composer’s
life, 1822-1825.
The presence of acknowledged masterpieces such as
Lachen und
Weinen, D777, and
Du bist die Ruh, D776, together
with other less well-known but excellent songs, on that Hyperion
disc (CDJ33035) will make it a more attractive proposition for
most listeners. The Hyperion comes at twice the price of the
Naxos but, if the price seems an insuperable problem, it can
be downloaded from the new Hyperion download site for £7.99
(mp3 or lossless flac), a facility which I have recently highlighted
in choosing my top 30 Hyperion downloads in an article which
should have appeared by the time that your read this review.
If price is a real issue, Hyperion’s superb sampler from
the first 27 CDs in the series, HYP200, at £3.99 is a bargain
to be snapped up a.s.a.p. - it’s advertised as limited
in availability and it isn’t yet available for download.
A friend who has seen my choice of the Hyperion Top 30 has justly
criticised my omission of the Schubert and Schumann Song Editions;
I felt that they were just too large an enterprise for me to
be able to do justice to them with one or two highlighted CDs,
so I hope to include some items from both collections in forthcoming
Download Roundups.
On CDJ33035 Hyperion line up a formidable array of interpreters:
Patricia Rozario, Lorna Anderson, Catherine Denley and Catherine
Wyn-Rogers in
Gott in der Natur; John Mark Ainsley, Jamie
MacDougall, Simon Keenlyside and Michael George in
Der Gondelfahrer,
D809, another part-song included on Naxos Volume 2 (tr.14).
I have already indicated that two whole discs devoted exclusively
to the part songs would not be my ideal way to present the music:
charming as many of these pieces are, there are no masterpieces
here. Opening Volume 2 with a setting of Kleist’s poem
Gott
in der Natur did little to endear this CD to me. I have seen
it suggested that Schubert seems to have wished to imitate the
manner of Mozart’s
Die Zauberflöte in this
piece but the result appears rather overblown, even pompous by
comparison with the normal Schubertian manner. Add the fact that
the text is rather overdone, and that some of the performers
are not in best voice - it’s almost as if they used this
piece to warm up; matters improve later - and I begin to understand
why my Arcam Solo refused to play this first track. My other
decks were more obliging.
I have to admit that Kleist is hardly my favourite German poet
- he doesn’t even figure in
The Oxford Book of German
Poetry on which my tastes were formed over fifty years ago
- so I’m happy that Schubert reduced his seventeen stanzas
to a mere four, but all in all this track gets the CD off to
a poor start. Even Hyperion’s excellent team of performers
fail to convince me, though their performance is more secure,
not least because of the strong lead given by Graham Johnson
at the piano in the opening bars. The more leisurely tempo on
Hyperion also helps, but I am surprised that both Naxos and Hyperion
chose to open their respective CDs with this piece.
Much more sensible was the decision to conclude Naxos’s
Volume 2 with the attractive
Ständchen, D920, with
words by Schubert’s friend Grillparzer, a better poet,
though hardly a first-ranker - he’s better known for his
plays. The words are no masterpiece - Grillparzer is also conspicuous
by his absence from the
Oxford Book of German Verse -
but it’s what Schubert does with them that counts and he
does some fine things here.
Schubert’s setting of Moses Mendelssohn’s translation
of Psalm No.23 (tr.2) is a fine piece; the singing is better
here than on track 1, but I prefer Wolfgang Sawallisch’s
slightly faster account on EMI Classics 7474072, which also contains
versions of the
Deutsche Messe and Mass No.2 and which
I preferred in another recent review to versions on Naxos. That
EMI recording is deleted on CD, except in a very inexpensive
box set of Schubert’s
Complete Sacred Works (5860112,
7 CDs for around £20) and as a download from
passionato.com (mp3
and lossless flac).
I’ve already indicated that matters improve in the later
pieces; tracks 14-16 compare more favourably with their equivalents
on Hyperion than did
Gott in der Natur. Whereas the Hyperion
performers took that first track slightly more leisurely than
their Naxos rivals, in
Der Gondelfahrer, D809 (Naxos tr.14)
the boot is on the other foot, with Johnson setting a slightly
but significantly faster pace from the outset. I think that the
music benefits from this and the piece certainly benefits from
Michael George’s contribution; good as Thomas Bauer, the
Naxos bass is, he is out-performed here.
Coronach (tr.15) is a song of mourning but, again, Hyperion’s
slightly faster pace is no disadvantage to the music and the
line-up of Rozario, Anderson and Wyn-Rogers again proves to be
more impressive than Naxos’s Schwarz, Jakobi and Danz.
The latter trio are far from completely outshone, however; I
could happily live with either and both make this strange combination
of two sopranos and mezzo/alto work well.
I’ve already indicated that the final track,
Ständchen,
D920, provides a fine conclusion to Volume 2; not only is the
music much more amenable than
Gott in der Natur on the
opening track, but the singers seem much more at home with it.
It’s a late piece (1827, not published until 1891) and
it’s a real gem, deserving to be better known - just about
the nearest to a masterpiece that anything on these two CDs comes.
Even Sarah Walker on Hyperion, with a fine line-up of male-voice
supporters and Graham Johnson, doesn’t put the Naxos performance
to shame (CDJ33008, tr.16) though her performance is rightly
thought good enough to feature on Hyperion’s sampler for
the series (HYP200, tr.22) and again on Hyperion’s general
sampler,
The Essential Hyperion 2 (HYP20, CD2, tr.4).
Volume 3 opens as auspiciously as Volume 2 ended, with a fine
performance of
Trinklied, D75. This youthful piece makes
a powerful opening to a programme of exclusively male-voice songs
which I find marginally preferable as a whole to the repertoire
on Volume 2. Only Graham Johnson’s slightly more decisive
lead-in and Michael George’s more powerful bass give the
performance on Hyperion CDJ33033 the edge in this piece.
The little-known nature of the music on CDJ33033 means that the
CD is available only from the Archive Service or as a download
(mp3 or flac) or in the complete edition. The music on Naxos
Volume 3 is a little better known - the male-voice songs have
proved more popular than those for female and mixed voices -
and it contains some very attractive songs.
Die Nachtigall, D724 (tr.3) is one such and
Frühlingsegang,
D740,
(tr.11) another, to take just two at random; both receive a performance
as appealing as the music. I listened to the extract from
Die
Nachtigall on the Hyperion website and didn’t feel
that there was much to choose between the two versions. Though
the Hyperion is slightly faster on paper, the Naxos performers
keep the momentum going just that little more effectively; if
there’s anything in it, I think they have the edge here.
Die
Nachtigall is performed on
An 1822 Schubertiad, CDJ33028,
a CD which also contains a few of the other part-songs on Naxos
Volume 3. It’s an attractive programme, including a marginally
faster performance of
Frühlingsgesang than that on
Naxos Vol.3, but not, I think, preferable to the latter. Just
occasionally, one of the Naxos tenors - I’m not sure which
- lets the side down slightly.
The Naxos recording is good throughout. The notes, by Ulrich
Eisenlohr, the accompanist and directing force behind this enterprise,
are very good. His gloss on
Gott in der Natur, suggesting
that Schubert was here setting a text whose vision of God differed
from his own, helped me understand my lack of response to this
song. The cover portraits are of two of the poets whose work
Schubert set - Friedrich von Matthison and Gottfried Bürger
respectively.
You will have to download the texts and translations from the
web; they are certainly worth having, especially as they give
the dates of all the pieces, few of which are indicated in the
notes in the booklet.
If you prefer to have Schubert’s part-songs collected together,
these Naxos CDs will offer you a set of mostly good, often very
good and always adequate, performances, well recorded and attractively
presented. Volume 3 (8.572110) is especially recommendable. Turn
to the Hyperion recordings, however, and you will find a slightly
but significantly better quality of performance, notably so in
the case of Volume 2 (8.570962), but the part-songs are scattered
across several Hyperion volumes. Those content with a single-CD
selection will probably be happy with Marcus Creed’s recording
on Harmonia Mundi HMC90 1669 - I haven’t heard it, but
it has been recommended in various quarters.
Brian Wilson
Naxos Schubert Lied Edition review page
Full Track-Details
Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Part-Songs, Vol. 2
Gott in der Natur, D757 (wds. Kleist) [5:38]
Psalm 23, Op. 132, D706 [5:03]
Das Leben, D269 (wds. Wannovius) [1:37]
La pastorella al prato, D513 (wds. Goldoni) [2:00]
Naturgenuß (second setting), D422 (wds. Matthisson)
[3:55]
Beitrag zur fünfzigjährigen Jubelfeier des Herrn
Salieri, D407 (wds. Schubert) [5:05]
Licht und Liebe (
Nachtgesang), D352 (wds. Collin)
[4:26]
Antigone und Ödip, Op. 6, No. 2, D542 (wds. Mayrhofer)
[5:32]
Linde Weste wehen, D725 (wds. Anonymous) [0:41]
Kantate zum Geburtstag des Sängers Johann Michael Vogl (
Der
Frühlingsmorgen), D666 (wds. Stadler) [9:45]
Klage um Ali Bey (first setting), D140 (wds. Claudius)
[4:34]
Der Gondelfahrer (second setting), Op. 28, D809 (wds.
Mayrhofer) [3:36]
Coronach (
Totengesang der Frauen und Mädchen),
Op. 52, No. 4, D836 (wds. Scott/Storck) [5:32]
Bootgesang, Op. 52, No. 3, D835 (wds. Scott/Storck) [4:04]
Ständchen, Op. 135, D920 (wds. Grillparzer) [5:49]
Sibylla Rubens, Silke Schwarz (sopranos); Regina Jakobi, Ingeborg
Danz, Hildegard Wiedemann (altos); Markus Schäfer, Marcus
Ullmann (tenors); Thomas E. Bauer, Markus Flaig, Marcus Schmidl
(basses); Ulrich Eisenlohr (piano)
rec. August-Everding-Saal, Grünwald, Germany, 16-23 April
2008. DDD.
A co-production with Bayerischer Rundfunk
Sung texts and English translations can be found at the
Naxos website.
NAXOS 8.570962 [67:17]
Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Part-Songs, Vol. 3
Trinklied, D75 (wds. Schäffer) [2:41]
Geist der Liebe (2nd setting), D747 (wds. Matthisson)
[4:32]
Die Nachtigall, D724 (wds. Unger) [4:07]
Trinklied, D267 (wds. Anonymous) [0:59]
Bergknappenlied, D268 (wds. Anonymous) [1:10]
Das Dörfchen, D641 (wds. Bürger) [4:31]
Punschlied, D277 (wds. Schiller) [3:35]
Im Gegenwärtigen Vergangenes, D710 (wds. Goethe)
[6:04]
Trinklied, D148 (wds. Castelli) [4:22]
Die Advokaten, D37 (wds. Rustenfeld) [7:54]
Frühlingsgesang (2nd setting), D740 (wds. Schober)
[4:15]
Zur guten Nacht, D903 (wds. Rochlitz) [3:17]
Das Grab (3rd setting), D377 (wds. Salis-Seewis) [3:19]
Mondenschein, D875 (wds. Schober) [5:23]
Widerspruch, D865 (wds. Seidl) [2:26]
Nachthelle, D892 (wds. Seidl) [5:53]
Markus Schäfer, Marcus Ullmann (tenors); Thomas E. Bauer,
Markus Flaig, Marcus Schmidl (basses); Ulrich Eisenlohr (piano)
rec. August-Everding-Saal, Grünwald, Germany, 16-23 April
2008. DDD.
Sung texts and English translations can be found at the
Naxos website.
A co-production with Bayerischer Rundfunk
NAXOS 8.572110 [64:29]
Sibylla Rubens, Silke
Schwarz (sopranos); Regina Jakobi, Ingeborg Danz, Hildegard Wiedemann
(altos); Markus Schäfer, Marcus Ullmann (tenors); Thomas E.
Bauer,
Markus Flaig, Marcus Schmidl (basses)
