A lover of all things Polish – and that definitely includes
Polish cuisine! – I was eager to hear this performance. It is
a recording of a concert, and there are a few noises here and
there, thumps and fumbles such as you hear at any concert but
probably don’t want to hear on record. The audience is reasonably
quiet, but there is some coughing, even from the platform. One
hears the audience between movements too. There is applause
at the end, which is a real pity, but it is restrained as seems
to be the custom in those countries where the uncivilised “Bravo!”
boor has not penetrated. Potential purchasers should be aware
of all this: the only indication that it is a live recording
appears in small type on the back of the CD box, and you have
to open the package to know that the performance is twenty-two
years old.
The work opens in spectacular fashion, and one is quickly taken
by the tenor’s forthright style. He stumbles over the words
at the beginning of his second phrase, but this is live and
he wasn’t quite in the swing of things yet. His German pronunciation
is imperfect, which will doubtless trouble other listeners more
than it does me. In the same spirit I prefer to draw attention
to his ringing top B flat on the word “klingen” than to the
moment’s inattention that causes him to anticipate the altered
note the first time he sings the words “Dunkel ist das Leben,
ist der Tod.” The gorgeous orchestral passage evoking Spring
is a bit ordinary, with much less freedom of pulse than with
Bernstein, for example, or even Boulez. The climax of the song,
though, is hugely exciting and powerful.
Jadwiga Rappé has a most beautiful voice, more Kathleen Ferrier
than Janet Baker, but not really quite like either. Her singing
is sensitive and, for the most part, alive to the words, and
her German is much better than that of her colleague. She is
recorded very forward, and when in duet with this fine orchestra’s
excellent wind soloists, even in pianissimo, she rather
covers them. The climax of the second song, beginning at the
words “Sonne der Liebe”, is once again superbly done, the orchestra
marvellously sonorous and the soloist passionately engaged.
What a pity, then, that her closing line, “mild aufzutrocknen?”,
is just marginally flat, as is, let it be said, the same phrase
earlier in the song, to the words “Mein Herz ist müde.”
Kusiewicz does his best to tone down a big voice in the delightful
third song, and by and large he is successful. I hope the conductor
quickly recovered from the shock administered when his soloist
manages just in time to correct the wrong note at the beginning
of the phrase “Ihre seidnen ärmel”! The tempo is perfectly
judged, the orchestra plays deliciously, and overall it is difficult
not to respond positively to this rather endearing evocation
of a porcelain world.
The conductor’s relatively unhindered view of the score is noticeable
again in the ravishing postlude to the fourth song, where rather
more rhythmic freedom and affectionate phrasing would have been
welcome. Rappé acquits herself well here, with the low-lying
phrases of the faster central section better managed and more
musical than many other, much bigger names, have sometimes achieved.
There is an exclamation at one point – “Hei!” – and not all
singers have been able to make this convincing in the time Mahler
allows. Rappé has her own solution: she misses the word out,
and takes a most needed breath instead. It seems a good idea
to me.
The third and last tenor song positively invites a declamatory
style, and Kusiewicz gives it all he has. The result is very
exciting, the singer vehemently defending his right to drunkenness
at the very end.
Rappé is very fine in the long, final song, “Der Abschied”,
inward and pensive – though hampered by the close balance –
and ardent and passionate where required. Curiously the key
phrase “Ich suche Ruhe für mein einsam Herz!” is delivered simply,
with little added feeling, and singing quietly, barely accompanied,
she is again sometimes marginally flat. But from the passage
preceding the long orchestral interlude, beginning for the soloist
at the words “Ich sehne mich”, right up to the close, everything
is marvellously done by both singer and orchestra.
This work is monstrously difficult to bring off. The faster,
fully scored passages pose their own problems, but who would
be brave enough to sing that final word, “Ewig”, with so spare
an accompaniment, and with those interminable silences? The
word is uttered seven times: does it matter if Rappé, perhaps
misunderstanding a gesture from the conductor, sings the final
“Ewig” three bars too soon? I think it probably does, and that
there are arguably too many such minor accidents to justify
near-immortality on disc for this particular live performance.
I enjoyed it enormously though – whilst not blind to its weaknesses
– and will certainly come back to it many times, but there are
many other performances that make safer top choices. The curiously
hybrid reading I reviewed recently, conducted by Michael Gielen
would be one (Hänssler), and others include Janet Baker
with Haitink (Philips) or Kubelik on Audite, Brigitte Fassbaender
with Giulini (DG), Horenstein (BBC Legends), Bernstein on Decca,
with Fischer-Dieskau, or Klemperer (EMI) with Fritz Wunderlich
and Christa Ludwig a probably unrivalled pair of soloists.
William Hedley
Jadwiga Rappé (mezzo); Piotr Kusiewicz (tenor) 
