Paul HINDEMITH (1895-1963)
Nusch-Nuschi-Tänze (1921) [10:03]
Sancta Susanna, Op.21 (1921) [23:25]
Symphony Mathis der Maler (1933-34) [27:26]
Aurine Stundyte (soprano), Renée Morloc (contralto), Annette Schönmüller (mezzo-soprano), Caroline Baas and Enzo Brumm (speakers)
Women of the Wiener Singakademie
ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop
rec. 24-25 October 2019, 26 August 2020, Konzerthaus, Vienna.
NAXOS 8.574283 [61:01]
The short, one-act opera, Sancta Susanna is described here as “Hindemith’s first real masterpiece”, and listening to this powerful and absorbing performance, it is hard to disagree. Marin Alsop made her debut as Chief Conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra with a concert presentation of the work (this recording is of that live performance) and a very impressive debut it was. She shows a strong understanding of Hindemith’s musical language as well as an inescapable sense of involvement in the work, and is magnificently supported by her new Viennese players. If there is a weakness with hearing this performance on disc, it is that the two principal roles have not been ideally cast. While both Aurine Stundyte and Renée Morloc have fine voices and deliver their respective roles with unfailing control, aurally, there seems little to differentiate them, with the former rather more fulsome than we might expect in the young novice nun Susanna, and the latter a little too bright and energetic for the elderly Sister Clementia. But as Dominic Wells points out in his excellent booklet notes, Sancta Susanna is more about the genius of Hindemith’s orchestral writing, and how he uses the orchestra to illustrate more graphically than mere words, the devastating eroticism of the plot. In short, the story tells of Susanna who, disturbed in her prayers by the sound of a couple making love outside, becomes herself sexually aroused and throws herself, naked, at the shrouded figure of Christ on the cross. When I’ve seen the opera staged, it has always rather played down the X-rated elements of the story, but listening to it and letting Hindemith’s music fire the imagination, I realise from this dramatic performance, that the real power lies there, rather than in the words of August Stramm’s libretto.
Sancta Susanna may be a “masterpiece”, but the headline work on this disc is also probably Hindemith’s finest orchestral score, and is certainly his most popular. Also recorded live at Alsop’s inaugural concert with the Vienna orchestra, this, too, receives an amazingly powerful and vividly detailed performance. Alsop certainly reveals an innate feel for Hindemith which, hopefully, might go some way to restoring the reputation of one of the 20th century’s finest composers (there was a time when he, along with Bartók and Stravinsky, were regarded by many as the three greatest composers of the century) which, in recent years, has become somewhat dimmed by an unjustified reputation for writing dry, acerbic and austerely neo-classical music. For many years
my strong preferences for recorded versions have been Paul Kletzki’s 1970 recording with the Suisse Romande and Herbert Blomstedt’s 1987 one with the San Francisco Symphony (both on Decca). Both may take a well-deserved rest now from my turntable and CD drawer; this new Naxos version outshines them in almost every respect. Alsop’s reading is full of colour and beautiful pacing, and while the Vienna orchestra may not have quite the polish or well-rounded sound of their Swiss and American counterparts, the slightly raw edge of their strings gives a very welcome bite to the overall sound. And the brass players lack for nothing when it comes to that magnificent brass chorale postlude to the Symphony’s last movement.
Filling up some available space on the disc, Naxos include a studio recording of three dances derived from an opera Hindemith wrote in 1920 for “a play for Burmese marionettes”, Nusch-Nuschi (a title which translates as “nuts-nuts”, with nuts used as a slang word for parts of male genitalia). It’s all very high-octane stuff, full of nervous and frenetic energy and rarely pausing for a breath. Yet it makes the ideal opener to this disc, setting the scene for performances of powerful and colourful music which are matched by performances every bit as compelling and dramatic.
Marc Rochester
