Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1887-1901, ten songs orch. Detlev Glanert)
Dietrich Henschel (baritone), Bochumer Symphoniker/Steven Sloane
rec. 2017, Anneliese Brost Musikforum Ruhr, Bochum, Germany
German texts and English translations included
AVANTICLASSIC AVA10522 [2 CDs: 85]
Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The youth’s magic horn) is a collection of German folksongs, ballads and other poems collected by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano in the early nineteenth century. It was part of the general revival of interest in traditional and oral poetry which spread across Europe at this time, of which another example was the collecting of fairy tales by the brothers Grimm. Poems from Des Knaben Wunderhorn were set by many composers and in particular by Mahler, on whom they were an important influence, especially in his early years. The ones he chose tend to be about soldiers and their sweethearts, separation and often death. Then some of the characters come back as ghosts. There are also a few more lighthearted ones and one or two which are sublime. Many of them are dialogues. He first set nine of them for voice and piano, and then ten for voice and orchestra, then three more, one in each of the second, third and fourth symphonies, and then two more, also for orchestra. So there are fifteen orchestral settings and nine piano ones, twentyfour in all. (The second symphony also took over one of the ten orchestral settings, Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt, in a version without voice, so I am not counting this.)
Recordings of the twelve orchestral settings, that is, without the three incorporated in symphonies, are reasonably common, and there is a classic version by Elizabeth Schwarzkopf and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau under George Szell on Warner (review) as well as more recent ones by Anne Sofie von Otter and Thomas Quasthoff under Claudio Abbado on DG (this latter also contains Urlicht from the second symphony) and by Christiane Oelze and Michael Volle under Markus Stenz on Oehms (this contains both Urlicht and Das himmliche Leben from the fourth symphony – review). All of these divide the work, and sometimes the individual songs, between two singers, which is appropriate for the dialogues, though Mahler did not specify this. This new pair of discs is both less and more. It is less, in that only one singer is employed, Dietrich Henschel, a versatile artist whose repertory ranges from Bach cantatas to Berg’s Lulu by way of Die Meistersinger and Busoni’s Doktor Faust, and who is also a noted exponent of lieder. It is also more, in that it offers all twentyfour Wunderhorn songs, with the nine not orchestrated by Mahler here presented in versions by the contemporary German composer Detlev Glanert. Glanert is primarily an opera composer, in which capacity he seems to have succeeded Hans Werner Henze as the leading German opera composer currently working, but he also made an excellent orchestral version of Brahms’s Vier ernste Gesänge which I admired (review).
The inclusion of the settings from the symphonies called for some adjustments. The song in the third symphony, Es sungen drei Engel, which is set for boys’ and women’s voices in the original, is here performed in an alternative version by Glanert for a single voice. This means trhat we lose the bimms and bamms which are such a delightful feature of the original. The use of only one singer also means that Das himmliche Leben, a child’s picture of heaven, the last movement of the fourth symphony and set by Mahler for a soprano, is here sung by a baritone, a bold move, emphasized by its position first in this programme. Similarly, Henschel sings Urlicht from the second symphony, originally set for contralto.
I should add that this recording is the soundtrack of a film by Clara Pons called Wunderhorn. There is a brief discussion of this in the sleevenote, from which it appears that Pons constructed a framing story to contain the songs, featuring two women, a man and a boy. I have seen clips from this film, which looks generally gloomy and atmospheric and in which Henschel wears the uniform of a soldier. The songs are not performed in the order of publication – which doesn’t matter since they are collections, not cycles – but in an order which presumably supports the framing narrative of the film. However, it makes sense to a listener too, as the whole programme begins with Das himmliche Leben and the second half with the contrasting Das irdische Leben, about a child dying of starvation, while the whole programme ends with the sublime Urlicht. In between the songs are disposed in an order which I find perfectly acceptable, although it mixes songs from different periods, and the nine orchestrated by Glanert with those orchestrated by Mahler. Indeed, had I not known which were the Glanert versions I could not have guessed, as he seems to me to have captured the idiom perfectly.
Henschel does wonders in characterising the voices, successfully managing the dialogue ones so well that I was almost reconciled to the absence of a second singer, and of the other voices in Es sungen drei Engel. However, such is his artistry that I never became tired of his voice or indifferent to his interpretations. He has the Lieder singer’s care for words and his voice is attractive, particularly in his resonant lower notes. Perhaps he occasionally gets strained in high notes, but not beyond what is acceptable. Although the Bochumer Symphoniker and their conductor Steven Sloane were new to me, they play well and the recording is fine. The booklet gives the complete song texts in German with English translations credited to Henschel himself.
There are no direct comparisons for this disc. I have noted above some of the collections of Mahler’s own orchestrations and there are many other recordings with selections from them. There are also other orchestrations of the songs for which Mahler did not make his own, notably by Luciano Berio, recorded by Thomas Hampson (Teldec), Andreas Schmidt (RCA) and Matthias Goerne (Harmonia Mundi). There are also versions by Harold Byrns, recorded by Bernd Weikl (DG). But this seems to be the only complete set, including all the earlier songs in the Glanert versions plus the three from the symphonies. Those who would like to have them all should be well satisfied with this version.
Stephen Barber
Previous review: Göran Forsling
Contents
Das himmlische Leben
Verlor’ne Müh’
Ich ging mit Lust durch einen grünen Wald
Starke Einbildungskraft
Aus! Aus!
Revelge
Der Tambour’sell
Rheinlegendchen
Selbstgefühl
Wer hat dies Liedel erdacht?
Scheiden und Meiden
Der Schildwache Nachtlied
Das irdische Leben
Um schlimme Kinder artig zu machen
Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt
Ablösung in Sommer
Lied des Verfolgten im Turm
Nicht Wiedersehen
Es sungen drei Engel einen süssen Gesang
Zu Strassburg auf der Schanz
Trost im Ungluck
Wo die schönen Trompetten blasen
Lob des hohen Verstandes
Urlicht