Hugo Wolf (1860-1903)
Penthesilea (1883)
Orchestral Songs
Benjamin Appl (baritone)
Jena Philharmonic Orchestra/Simon Gaudenz
rec. 2020, Volkhaus, Jena, Germany
CPO 555 380-2 [60]
I begin this review by welcoming the appearance of CPO’s regular writer of booklet essays Dr Eckhardt van der Hoogen, whose serendipitous command of the most obscure recesses of the German and English languages have long delighted those of us who relish the infectious redolence of his verbosity. Here he provides us with a lengthy dissertation of some 23 columns (in decidedly small type) which manages to get through two-and-a-half columns before the first mention of Hugo Wolf, whose music is after all the subject of this issue. Before this we have been treated to an eloquent discussion of the motives of Goethe and the nature of artistic personality, including “the incontrovertible fact that behind everything that is present there is something invisible at work that eludes direct observation and can be perceived only in its visible operations. In other words…” And those other words include such phrases in the next paragraph as “schonungslosester Offenheite” which the indefatigable Susan Marie Praeder, fighting an uphill struggle through the thicket, translates into English as “a quest-to-the-death for self-revelation”. She also provides translations for the Wolf songs which make up the bulk of the music here, versions which might be suitable for singing and are clearly designed with such performances in mind but ring decidedly oddly to English ears, such as the first line of Goethe’s Harfenspieler III as “Who never eat with tears his bread”. Nine full columns into his essay the professor assures us that “this is not at all nonsense.” I will take his word for it, although I failed nonetheless to grasp the point of his thesis; nor did he assist my understanding of the music. But then that is all part of the fun.
Having dismissed any thought of enlightenment from the booklet, let us turn to the disc itself; and here we find treasure indeed. It is surprising in the first place that Wolf orchestrated so few of his many songs – where the piano accompaniments often strain at the limits of practicability in their attempts to burst the bounds of the form – but the reason probably is simply that self-same sheer problem of practicability. Where in the hostile environment of contemporary Vienna was he to find orchestral forces and performers who were willing to engage with such seemingly intractable material? This disc also includes his symphonic poem Penthesilea [track 13], the only substantial orchestral work he ever achieved during his forty-plus years lifetime. With the examples of Wagner and Liszt before him, there would surely have been the prospect of much more music in this vein; but it was not to be. It is clear from the music of Penthesilea that Wolf had in him the makings of an operatic master; but as it was his sole attempt at the genre turned out to be closer to an extended song recital in the unwieldy Der Corregidor. Several of the numbers in that opera were straightforward transcriptions of his Spanish Songbook; and Sterb’ich, one of the songs from the Italian songbook [track 10] is the only exception here to a collection of orchestral settings entirely drawn from his settings of Goethe and Mörike.
Wolfgang Appl and Simon Gaudenz have made no effort to separate the songs by the two poets, or indeed to separate them into chronological order either of composition or orchestration; but the running order they have contrived is eminently satisfactory for the listener. Their selection (twelve songs, three of which are arrangements by other hands, meaning that we have only nine of the two dozen that were orchestrated by Wolf himself) concentrates firmly on the lyrical numbers which Appl delivers in his sweetest voice. Only one of the numbers – the heroic setting of Goethe’s Prometheus [track 5] – steps outside this mood, with the orchestral forces expanding from the double woodwind elsewhere to triple woodwind and heavy brass in the approved Wagnerian mode. Here Appl seems to take a step closer to the microphone; he does not attempt to force his voice beyond its natural bounds in the Wotan-like territory that the vocal part seems to demand, but the result is more akin to that of Fischer-Dieskau in his recording of Rheingold for Karajan – raising the feeling from bass-baritone to baritone territory. He is not assisted here by the slightly claustrophobic sound of the larger orchestra, recorded in a rather unresonant acoustic; elsewhere, with smaller forces involved, the chamber effect of the sound is pleasant.
Unfortunately the recorded acoustic of the orchestra does the playing no favours, either, in the performance of Wolf’s sole large-scale orchestral work Penthesilea, which makes up over one third of the contents of the disc. Here there is strong competition elsewhere from more famous bands and conductors, often recorded in more resonant venues and giving the music the firm sense of romanticism that this symphonic poem really demands. Particularly strong competition in this field comes from Daniel Barenboim… It might perhaps have been preferable to let us have more of Wolf’s own orchestrations of his songs, of which a good many more could then have been fitted onto this disc.
This recording is therefore principally recommendable for the many lovers of Appl’s singing, here to be heard at its best in repertoire which clearly suits him ideally; his diction is perfectly judged to the scale of the performances and the often sympathetic woodwind playing under the considerate baton of Simon Gaudenz, ideally paced in the delicate Harfenspieler [tracks 7-9] and even in the most extravagant passages of Penthesilea. As a representation of Wolf’s orchestral writing it leaves something to be desired, mainly on account of the recorded sound; but there is not such a wealth of competition that even then this issue deserves to be ignored. And, as usual with this company, the presentation is excellent even when it is at its most eccentric.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Contents [orch. composer unless otherwise stated]
Goethe Lieder
Anakreons Grab
Epiphanias [orch. Carl Stueber]
Harfenspieler I-III
Prometheus
Mörike Lieder
An den Schlaf
Denk' es, o Seele!
Fussreise [orch unknown]
Gebet
Schlafendes Jesuskind
Italienisches Liederbuch
Sterb' ich, so hüllt in Blumen [orch. Max Reger]
Published: November 1, 2022
