Habe ja doch nichts begangen, dass
ich Menschen sollte scheun, Dass ich
Menschen sollte scheu’n…
These are the lines
which most clearly define this performance,
one which I have previously described
as ‘The Winterreise of our time’ (see
Review
of the Wigmore Hall performances from
which the recording was made) a phrase
which I see no reason to change after
repeated hearings. Goerne’s traveller
is most overwhelmingly the forlorn,
touching figure of an outcast who longs
for the simple warmth of love and home,
and every so often there breaks from
him the cry – why was I of all men marked
out for isolation, for loss, for loneliness?
Joseph von Spaun described Schubert’s
own singing of the first twelve songs
of the cycle as being ‘in a voice wrought
with emotion’ and this is precisely
how Goerne does it, every word, every
musical phrase suffused with longing,
and Brendel’s more austere, yet still
deeply felt playing is the perfect foil.
Recordings of ‘Winterreise’
offer almost every conceivable style
of interpretation, from the raw anguish
of a Schreier / Schiff or a Fassbaender
/ Reimann, through the intensity of
Fischer-Dieskau / Moore and on to the
urbane Hampson / Sawallisch and the
semi-detached Henschel / Gage, and of
course feelings about them tend to run
high. I can only give one reasonably
well informed opinion on the ‘competition’
for the present recording, which is
that whilst I would not wish to be without
Fischer-Dieskau, Pears (but mainly for
Britten’s playing) Schreier, Fassbaender,
Husch or Hotter, I can take or leave
most of the rest of them./ As for Goerne
/ Brendel it seems to me to offer everything
that I want from a performance of the
work, and there is no doubt in my mind
that it is, on balance, the finest I
know.
The overall effect
of this interpretation is that of combining
faithfulness to musical values – Schubert
is said to have expected his songs to
be played in strict tempo, with many
of them based upon the ‘gehende bewegung’
so essential to their rhythm, and Goerne
and Brendel are exemplary in both areas
– with what Capell memorably defined
as ‘an outcry of scorched sensibility’
pervading the singing. As is frequently
the case with Goerne, one is always
aware of a sense of a journey, a development
from, in this case, despondency to the
numb despair of suffering humanity.
This is achieved without any striving
after effect, with a total absence of
artificiality, and perhaps most remarkably
without ever highlighting ‘key’ phrases.
All is part of the whole, and all is
sung with beauty of tone, musicality
of phrasing and near-faultless legato.
Brendel’s playing comes
across as very much less percussive
on this recording than it seemed in
the performance, and one is also far
more aware of a sense of noble companionship
between the two men than heretofore.
‘Ge -fror’ne Tropfen fal -len von mei
-nen Wangen ab:’ – the voice unaffectedly
traces the rise and fall of the line.
With ‘ob es mir denn entgang gen, dass
ich ge -weinet hab? dass ich ge -weinet
hab’ the tone becomes gently beseeching,
and at ‘…Ei Tränen, meine Tränen...’
distress just creeps into the lower
notes. All the while the piano partners
and collaborates with the voice, neither
dominating it nor following in its trail.
‘Frühlingstraum’
is masterly. It is all here, from the
sense of evanescent joys so briefly
tasted contrasted with the anger of
the harsher present, ‘Wonne und Seligkeit’
so meltingly recalled, to the desolation
of the final question after the ache
of ‘Die Augen schliess ich wieder’ –
a desolation made final by the piano’s
sombre nachspiel. In ‘Der Wegweiser’
those crucial lines are given with hushed
intensity, as though an answer might
really be forthcoming. ‘Das Wirtshaus’
recreates the same sense of seeing into
the depths of someone’s soul that the
live performance possessed. The marking
of ‘Sehr langsam’ is of course respected
in a way that few, if any, other singers
can manage, the noble phrases shaped
with impassioned fervour.
Directness, simplicity
and tenderness are the most evident
nuances of the final two songs, with
‘Die Nebensonnen’ full of melancholy,
the singer’s tone swelling into the
phrases and the piano echoing its caress:
this is not a bleak interpretation of
the music, neither is it comfortable.
It simply communicates the words and
music with such powerful candour and
magisterial authority that it seems
as if this is the only way to present
the work. ‘Der Leiermann’ may not have
Fischer-Dieskau’s and Moore’s sense
of the subsuming of the wanderer’s soul
into the nebulous landscape, with the
indefinite phrases echoing the dislocation
of the speaker’s mind. It is however
weighted with all the sorrow that has
gone before: Brendel’s ‘hurdy-gurdy’
is only just this side of rugged, and
Goerne’s final question leaves the listener
awed by its absolute humility.
The recording quality
is spacious and serene. Decca have done
both the Wigmore Hall and the artists
proud, with very little sense of intrusion
from the audience save the welcome one
of enthusiastic applause, the closing
part of it separated from the music
by an appropriate silence.
Eric Schneider once
expressed delight at the knowledge of
the work which he discerned in my review
of his and Goerne’s ‘Schöne Müllerin,’
but also said that it was ‘very very
long’ which I took to be his gentlemanly
way of saying ‘too long’. Goerne once
opined of one of my reviews of a live
performance of his, that there was ‘too
much Beckmesser’ in it. I hope that
the present review pleases them both,
in that it is as short as I can reasonably
make it, and it contains no Beckmesser
at all, for the simple reason that the
performance is as close to perfection
as any human creation can possibly be.
Melanie Eskenazi
Review of the concert performance
Seen
& Heard reviews
Matthias Goerne (baritone)