I
often wonder how many people realise Carl Orff wrote other
works besides Carmina Burana, such is the
demand for it in advertising and on the airwaves. Die
Kluge could do with a new recording, as could Der
Mond, although I’m delighted that the Herbert Kegel/Leipzig
Radio performances of these pieces are now available in
one box (Berlin Classics 2104). True, Orffian ostinati are
not to everyone’s taste; beyond that some still mutter
darkly about the composer’s political affiliations, likening
his music to the soulless bombast of Nazi architecture
or Fascist statuary. Whatever one’s view Carmina Burana remains
popular, with more than sixty recordings in the current
catalogue.
Given
that we already have a number of fine performances – André Previn’s
(EMI Great Recordings of the Century 566899), Riccardo
Muti’s (EMI Seraphim 73573), Eduardo Mata’s (RCA 68085)
and Herbert Blomstedt’s (Decca 430 509) – do we really need another
one? Well, Chandos seem to think so, hence this live performance
from November 2007.
The
LSO really distinguished themselves in the Mata and Previn
recordings, both conductors securing electrifying performances
from all concerned. The latter is helped in no small measure
by the recording venue, Kingsway Hall. Which brings me
to the notoriously dry Barbican acoustic, well-known from
all those LSO Live recordings. I rarely find these
discs congenial from a technical point of view but I hoped
Ralph Couzens and his Chandos team might work some magic
with this one.
Alas,
this was not to be, as ‘O Fortuna’ so clearly demonstrates.
Compared with the Blomstedt/San Francisco performance it
has extra warmth but the all-important percussion is nowhere
near as visceral. The LSO chorus are also too recessed
and diction is a problem, whereas the San Francisco singers
sound suitably upfront and animated. Most damning are Hickox’s
flaccid rhythms, although on the plus side the Chandos
team do capture the tiny instrumental details one usually
misses in this rumbustious score.
In
his assessment of the Robert Shaw/Telarc Carmina Burana (see review)
Tony Haywood described the American maestro’s approach
as ‘too po-faced and polite’, an epithet I’d happily apply
to Hickox’s performance, especially as we move into the
barely concealed eroticism of Part I, Primo vere. The
semi-chorus sound none too excited about the advent of
spring or its promise of sexual awakening – Phoebus ’lying
in Flora’s lap’ – but then Hickox’s sluggish tempi don’t
help matters much. And in ‘Omnia Sol temperat’ baritone
Christopher Maltman sounds surprisingly querulous. Again,
there is little sense of anticipation or joy at the sun’s
warming rays. ‘Ecce gratum’ is similarly lacklustre compared
with Blomstedt’s alert, characterful chorus and his deftly
articulated rhythms.
Uf
dem anger has some of the most spirited numbers in Carmina Burana, plus
some of Orff’s most infectious rhythms. ‘Tanz’ is much
too foursquare in Hickox’s hands, any extra detail or
amplitude counting for little when the music is so underwhelming.
The same goes for ‘Floret silva’, where I mentally urged
the choruses to find some point and sparkle and, in their
more transported passages, a degree of ecstasy. .No dice,
I’m afraid, although the LSO chorus do make amends in ‘Swaz
hie gat umbe’. That said, Hickox constantly undercuts
them by allowing all tension to drain away. It’s all
made worse by the usual imprecisions and fluffed entries
one would normally forgive in a live performance. However,
given the generally poor standard of playing and singing
I’m not inclined to be so charitable.
In
Part II, In Taberna, Maltman sings ‘Estuans interius’ with
rather more passion and security than he managed earlier.
Here at least is some sense of the conflict between the
world of the spirit and that of the flesh. Tenor Barry
Banks copes with the high tessitura of ‘Olim lacus colueram’ reasonably
well – at least he doesn’t break into a hammy falsetto – as
does Maltman in ‘Ego sum abbas’. It seems the latter is
warming up as the evening progresses, the worldly abbot’s
cries of ‘Wafna!’ superbly echoed by the male chorus. And
while the drinking song ‘In taberna quando sumus’ is not
as rollicking as it can be, the percussion are in cracking
form. Even the chorus acquit themselves well in the quick-fire ’Bibit
hera, bibit herus’.
But
it’s in the final section, Cour d’amours, that the
epic battle between spirit and flesh is most intense, with
the soprano’s high-lying ’Amor volat undique’, ‘Stetit
puella’ and ‘In trutina’. Lynn Dawson is excellent in the
Blomstedt recording, as is the wondrous Arleen Auger for
Muti, but no-one sings this music quite like Barbara Hendricks
for Mata. In principle Hickox’s Laura Claycomb is too staid – matronly
even – to pass for a young girl, and in ‘Dies, nox et omnia’ Maltman
could be singing in an English oratorio, such is the po-faced
nature of his delivery. Bizarre to say the least.
As
this performance moved to its climax I found myself reflecting
on what might have been. Hickox was a fine choral conductor – I’ll
never forget a particularly tender L’enfance du Christ from
Cardiff some years back – and the LSO band and chorus can
sound magnificent when they want to, so what’s gone wrong
here? Has this work become so hackneyed that performers
can’t infuse it with anything new? Possibly, but I suspect
it’s a combination of that jinxed acoustic, scrappy ensemble,
variable singing and, most of all, the conductor’s inexplicably
ponderous tempi. Even the ever-capable Chandos team – in
SACD mode and with Ralph Couzens at the helm – can’t keep
this one off the rocks.
You’ve
been warned.
Dan
Morgan
Note - this
review was written and ready to be published just
before Richard Hickox's death, and was held over until now
in respect to his memory.
Laura
Claycomb (soprano) 
[60:37] 
