In 1965 the young and promising Janet
Baker, still billed as a contralto in
those days but already displaying mezzo-soprano
ambitions, recorded two LPs for Saga,
that of lieder reissued here and another
of English song. It says much for my
youthful musical tastes that I bought
the latter and not the former! But I
did have access to the lieder disc and
heard it several times.
Assuming that the sound
quality of the two discs was roughly
equivalent, Regis have done marvels
in revealing that the rather gritty
Saga pressings were actually hiding
extremely good original recordings.
They also provide texts and translations
and an essay on Dame Janet’s career
by James Murray, so what walked in the
back door as a dirt-cheap bargain is
now revealed as a quality product.
And what quality! With
her voice in its pristine glory, rich,
even and refulgent, Baker had already
evolved that interpretative style, in
which a noble simplicity and a basically
non-interventionist stance was married
to an instinct for the colouring of
the words and an ability to involve
the listener by an inner expressive
intensity free of tricks or rhetoric,
which was to stay with her, with a few
further refinements, throughout her
career. Her reading of the Schumann
cycle is one of radiance but also depth,
the steady unfolding of heartfelt love.
It is one of the great Frauenliebes
on disc, and an individual one, distinct,
for example, from Irmgard Seefried who
is the eager, infatuated girl until
checked by the final tragic dénouement,
or from Elisabeth Grummer who sings
as if from a position of retrospect,
the sad end already known to her from
the beginning.
There is, however,
an aspect which puzzles me. I was critical
of Kathleen Ferrier for having opted
to transpose the songs down only a semitone
(the normal edition for low voice is
down a tone), thus being obliged by
the tessitura to sing strongly and publicly
where Schumann surely expected something
more intimate. Janet Baker is down a
tone, and the relaxed quality of the
voice shows this to be right. But then,
come the third sung and blow me down
if she doesn’t suddenly adopt the soprano
tonality, remaining there for the fourth
song and then going back down a tone
for number 5 and staying there to the
end.
There are several reasons
why it would have been better not to
do this:
- Schumann has planned the songs with
a key sequence in mind; no. 3 is in
the relative minor (C) of the preceding
song (E flat). No. 5 is in a brighter
key (B flat) than the preceding no.
4 (E flat). Here it emerges in a darker
key (A flat). I remain firm in my
belief that, when transposing a song-cycle,
you must transpose all the songs equally.
- While I would not dream of suggesting
that Dame Janet could not sing nos.
3 and 4 in the higher tonality (the
singing as such is perfect), with
no.3 we get the impression of a higher
soprano voice entering and in no.
4 she gives, as did Ferrier, a strong-voiced
"public" reading, especially
at the climax. It is difficult to
see how a contralto or mezzo-soprano
could do otherwise given the tessitura;
if we listen to Seefried or Grummer
singing the same notes with much more
gentle intimacy, we are presumably
hearing what Schumann intended, something
a lower voice can only achieve in
a lower tonality.
- While specifying a high voice, Schumann
actually keeps the tessitura rather
low in most of the songs (hence the
temptation for lower voices to try
them in the original key or with minimal
transpositions), but no. 5 is somewhat
higher. During the first four songs
Schumann has been creating a crescendo
of trust and contentment which reaches
its climax with no.5, something that
is evident when the soprano voice,
which has been virtually singing so
far as a mezzo, suddenly becomes a
full soprano. Just the effect Baker
has already created at no. 3 by switching
to the high voice version, and which
she now negates by reverting to the
low voice version. In other words,
Baker has brought Schumann’s carefully
planned climax forward from the 5th
song to the 3rd, undermining
his subtle architecture.
So, beautiful and even
wonderful as it is, even this Frauenliebe
is flawed. I should very much like to
know whether Dame Janet reconsidered
the matter of transpositions later in
her career. I should also like to know
why I seem to be the only person who
notices or worries about these things.
Baker also distinguishes
subtly between Schubert, ethereally
light, and the richly sonorous Brahms,
by singing the Schubert songs in the
high voice keys and the Brahms in the
low voice ones. Now she sings the Schubert
exquisitely, don’t get me wrong, but
when the Brahms begins the voice seems
truer to itself. Put it another way;
in the Brahms we hear what the voice
is, in the Schubert we hear what
it can do, and I would put a
higher value on the first of these.
Did Baker always follow this pattern?
My only available comparison is a "Musensohn"
from about 1980 with Geoffrey Parsons
which is still in the high key, with
some extra subtleties but perhaps less
freshness.
Now don’t be put off;
this is a record of glorious lieder
singing, beautifully accompanied with
a warm-toned piano (which is not how
it used to sound). Snap it up, but remember
that nothing on this earth is perfect
and there is a flaw here which could
have been avoided.
Christopher Howell
Dame Janet Baker (contralto), Martin Isepp
(piano) 
