As a great admirer of the Art of Lucia Popp I am probably not the
most objective critic of this album. Trying to keep from simply burbling
appreciatively I have to say that the music-making on this disc is a
complete delight. It also has to be said that if it can be considered a
triumph of performance it is something of a train-wreck as a production.
Consider the following. Acanta have licensed this 1979 playrighted disc - no
recording details are given - and are trying to sell it in a crowded,
money-conscious marketplace. It is priced around the £10.00 mark with
some retailers going up as high as £14.00 for a disc with no texts and
a stingy sub-forty-five minute playing time. Delighted as I am to see Popp
given top-billing it is only fair to say that it is in fact trumpeter Carol
Dawn Reinhart who is present in every work
not Popp. If it is Popp
you are after, Acanta are happy to shoot themselves in the foot. By this I
refer to that fact that all of the same performances/movements with Popp are
also available in a 4 disc compilation from Acanta called
Lucia Popp: The
Unforgotten which is available from the same retailer who charges
£14.00 for the single disc for £11.88 for four … less
elsewhere. Finally add a remarkably drab picture of Popp alone on the cover
and I would have thought the chance of anyone impulse-purchasing this disc
will be all but nil.
I would rather focus on the music-making. Popp is her predictably
superb self. There’s her accustomed bright focused tone with a
palpable sense of joy and vigour in all she does. Reinhardt on trumpet is
excellent as is the orchestral accompaniment from the Amsterdamer
Kammerorchester under Marius Voorberg. The orchestral style is what one
might call ‘historically informed modern’. It’s neat and
light playing but on modern instruments. The one real loss in opting for the
four disc set over this version is the omission of the second (bass) aria of
the short but gem-like Telemann Psalm 111 setting. Jorma Hynninen’s
voice at this time matches Popp well - clear and well focused with a lighter
tone than he seems to have developed in later years. This is the finest,
most characterful of his three contributions to the disc. The
Messiah
bass aria
The trumpet shall sound is given in its German version - as
is Popp’s excerpt from
Samson. Hynninen presents a very lithe
and attractive version if one rather short on the implicit drama. The
orchestral accompaniment too slightly smoothes off the dotting of the
rhythms to the detriment of the piece. Likewise, his
Christmas
Oratorio excerpt is perfectly good but not really a reason to beat a
path to this particular disc’s door.
The glorious Bach Cantata
Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen BWV51
is just such a reason - and it is complete on the multi-disc set above too.
Popp is perfect to my ear. For sure hers may not be the most purely
beautiful soprano voice ever to essay the work - I grew up with Elly
Ameling’s serenely sublime recording - but Popp captures the joyful
spirit to perfection. The two outer movements feature Reinhart’s
beautifully controlled trumpet playing and the engineers have effectively
balanced her to the voice with Popp centre-right and Reinhart centre-left.
The three central movements are a delight too. In the recitative the tenuto
string phrasing belies the old-fashioned non-authentic approach but the
flowing tempo allows Popp’s silvery delivery to float ecstatically
above it in bright-eyed wonder. Lovely playing too from the two concertante
violin parts in the penultimate ‘choral’
Sei Lob und Preis
mit Ehren - another of those miraculous fusions of chorale and
contrapuntal writing that Bach seemed able to write at will. The closing
Alleluja is as life-enhancing a piece of baroque music as any I know
and Popp is fully in control of all of the considerable technical demands it
makes of the singer both in terms of tessitura and contrapuntal technique.
A performance of considerable stature then and one I am delighted to
have heard but Acanta need to reassess their business and pricing model for
re-releases of such high artistic merit to attain the commercial success
they deserve.
Nick Barnard
