Rheinberger’s reputation rests largely on his choral and organ music but
he also wrote a large body of songs, many of which volumes are little known
today. Eleven lied collections were published between 1862 and 1890,
containing over one hundred songs.
He was perhaps wise to hedge his bets, however, as the title page of
Die Wasserfee and
Lockung both authorise performance by
solo singers or by choral forces. In this disc both these works, which have
been recorded before, are sung by solo singers, SATB. The other two works,
which are long cycles, are sung by baritone and tenor soloists and heard in
premiere recordings. Rheinberger’s aesthetic in these settings was openly
old-fashioned, and emotionally largely unambiguous. Though written in the
last decades of the nineteenth-century they show no concordances with the
songs of his eminent contemporaries, hearkening back instead to the kind of
single-mood strophic settings that were popular in the 1820s and are, by and
large, untouched by Schubert’s examples.
The song that lends its name to the album title,
Die Wasserfee,
Op.21 is based on a poem by Hermann Lingg in which the unceasing arpeggios
in the piano support the vocal quartet in a way that perhaps recalls
Mendelssohn. The writing is attractively elegant and flowing.
Lockung, the other SATB setting has pleasing symmetry.
Aus
verborgnem Tal is written for baritone and piano, and sets the poetry
of Rheinberger’s wife, Fanny, writing under her husband’s full surname,
Franziska von Hoffnaass. Completed in 1883 these are nature settings
enshrining some clear textual autobiographical allusions, and some that
might be thought to allude to
Winterreise, at least in the sense of
the confluence of nature and loss. The narrator’s recollection of his dead
sister is elevated and noble though neither overtly melancholic nor tinged
with melodrama. Piano postludes – there are not too many – are invariably
warm. The temper of the music-making is similarly even-keeled deepening
appropriately in the final setting with culminatory reflective intimacy.
Klaus Häger sings with phrasal sensitivity. Once or twice, especially early
on, his voice sounds a little tired, though I wondered if this was an
expressive device.
The other previously unrecorded cycle is
Am Seegestade, Op.158,
his last lied cycle of 1888-89, again settings of his wife’s poetry. They
occupy a genially unruffled strophic world, sweetly nostalgic and
attractive. None of the settings is interested in exploring penetrating
psychological insight but of melodic richness there is no shortage. The
penultimate setting, called simply
Melodie, is one of the most
richly beautiful in both cycles and though the poetry is tinged with
nostalgic sadness, the music confers mellifluous comfort. It’s perhaps worth
noting that the most overtly dramatic music is the last setting which
clearly alludes to the death of Ludwig II of Bavaria in 1886. Andreas Weller
sings attractively and, as throughout, pianist Götz Payer plays with adroit
sensitivity. The elegance of the performances supports the refined elegance
of the compositions.
Jonathan Woolf
