The Voice of Janet Baker
rec. 1960-66
HERITAGE HTGCD290/1 [52:08 + 73:46]
Do you ever get annoyed when you hear some vacuous ‘celeb’
or overpaid sportsman described as a ‘national treasure’? I do
– very! Here, on the other hand, is someone who truly deserves
that description. Not only is Dame Janet Baker one of the genuinely great
female singers of the past fifty years or so, but she conducted herself throughout
her blessedly long career with exceptional dignity and integrity. Her key
was hard work and thorough preparation, driven by an utter commitment to the
music she sang. Audiences loved her, but she made no vulgar concessions, preparing
to come between them and the music as little as humanly possible. She has
remained a private but not secretive person, and an interview with Norman
Lebrecht on Radio 3 not long ago showed someone utterly grounded, and full
of gratitude for her life of music.
This collection comes from quite early in her career, and some music-lovers
will be ‘mature’ enough — excuse the euphemism — to
have bought the original Saga LPs on which these CDs are largely based. If
you haven’t heard her recordings of this vintage before, you will be
pleased to discover that her vocal prowess and her musicianship seem to have
been fully in place by 1960, when, let’s remember, she was just 27 years
old.
The first of these discs is filled with German lieder from Schumann, Schubert
and Brahms. She was a famous exponent of Schumann’s ‘Frauenliebe
und –leben’ (‘A Woman’s Love and Life’), so
this makes an appropriate opening item, and confirms the memory of the combination
of intimacy and intensity which she brought to this lovely cycle. The range
of emotions, though given natural limits by the subject matter, is wide, from
the quietly ecstatic ‘Süsser Freund’ (‘Sweet Friend’),
to the dismay of ‘Nun hast du mir der ersten Schmerz getan’ (‘Now
you have given me the first pain’).
Then follow four songs by Schubert and four by Brahms. It’s appropriate
here to say a word about her accompanist in most of the tracks on both CDs,
Martin Isepp. His playing is a major joy, and the way in which he is able
to bring out the expressive piano lines in, for example, Schubert’s
‘Heimliches Lieben’ (‘Secret Loves’) or Brahms’s
‘Von ewiger Liebe’ (‘Of eternal love’) makes him the
ideal partner for Baker. There is an effortless unity to the pair’s
phrasing and pacing of the music which speaks volumes for their mutual understanding,
and for Isepp’s sensitivity to every nuance of Baker’s interpretations.
You’ll see that there are two recordings of ‘Von ewige Liebe’,
tracks 16 and 17, separated by about five years. This is in any case one of
Brahms’s greatest songs, and the comparison of the two versions is fascinating
and instructive. The basic approach is the same, but in the later performance,
Janet Baker’s growing authority means that she is able to invest more
power and drama into the minor key sections, and the glowing, affirmative
conclusion is even more thrilling.
The second disc is largely devoted to English song, but with a clutch of Brahms
lieder taken from a live BBC broadcast from 1960 to round it off. Some of
the English songs are more successful than others. I found Vaughan Williams’s
‘The Call’ lacking in natural flow, despite her obvious response
to the lyrical line. Also I find it impossible to get the sound of the tenor
voice out of my mind’s ear when listening to Gurney’s ‘Sleep’.
That’s not a criticism of Janet Baker, and maybe it’s just my
problem. This, as well as one or two of the others, notably ‘Youth and
Love’, seem peculiarly suited to the male voice.
Other than that, she is marvellous, and her interpretation of some of the
less familiar songs is revelatory: Michael Head’s lively ‘A Piper’,
Armstrong Gibbs’s powerful ‘This is a sacred city’ (which
compares more than favourably with Gurney’s great setting), and Herbert
Howells’ remarkable ‘King David’, which has almost the character
of a spiritual. There are also two rather fine songs by Thomas Dunhill, a
composer that, in my ignorance, I have always rather written off; ‘To
the Queen of Heaven’ is especially lovely.
The twelve concluding ‘bonus tracks’ of Brahms contain many gems;
the vivacious ‘Ständchen’ (‘Serenade’), with delightful
staccato playing from Ernest Lush is memorable, demonstrating the lightness
of which this great singer was capable. In ‘Regenlied’ (‘Rain
Song’), she captures the luxuriant melancholy perfectly. Something of
a rarity is Brahms’s setting of Eichendorff’s ‘Mondnacht’
(‘Moonlit Night’). Schumann’s setting, found in his op.39
Liederkreis, is justly one of the most famous of all Romantic lieder; Brahms’
version has its own qualities, though it cannot rival Schumann for harmonic
subtlety or the feeling of epiphanic stillness he conveys.
It’s a pity that no texts have been included, particularly for the German
lieder, and the presentation of the booklet is a little rough round the edges.
These are nevertheless precious discs, full of performances by a great artist
at the height of her powers, sharing with us her insights into the riches
of these works, and communicating them with such commitment and beauty.
Gwyn Parry-Jones
Full Contents
CD 1
Robert SCHUMANN (1819-1856)
Frauenliebe und –leben, op. 42 [21:03]
Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Heimliches Lieben, op.106 no.1 [4:33]
Minnelied, D429 [2:07]
Die abgeblühte Linde, op.7 no.1, D514 [3:55]
Der Musensohn, op.92 no.1, D764 [1:59]
Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Die Mainacht, op.43 no.2 [3:46]
Das Mädchen Spricht, op.107 n [1:14]o.3
Nachtigall, op.97 no.1 [2:30]
Von ewiger Liebe, op.43, no .1 [4:41]
‘Bonus’ track
Von ewiger Liebe
Janet Baker (mezzo-soprano), Martin Isepp (piano), Ernest Lush (piano –
bonus track only)
rec. 1965, Saga Records Ltd. (all except bonus track); bonus track taken from
a BBC studio recital, broadcast 7 Feb 1961
CD 2 (Anthology of English Song)
Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958)
The Call (Five Mystical Songs, 1911)
Youth and Love (Songs of Travel, 1904)
John IRELAND
A Thanksgiving (1938) [2:23]
Her Song (Songs to Thomas Hardy Poems, 1925) [3:12]
Michael Dewar HEAD
A Piper (1923) [1:21]
Cecil ARMSTRONG GIBBS
This is a Sacred City (By a Bierside, 1924) [2:19]
Love is a Sickness, op.44 no.1 (1922) [1:43]
Thomas Frederick DUNHILL
The Cloths of Heaven, op.30 no.3 (1916?) [2:21]
Peter WARLOCK
Balulalow (Trad.) [1:57]
Youth (1928) [1:30]
Herbert HOWELLS
King David (1921) [4:22]
Come Sing and Dance (trad., 1928) [2:59]
Ivor GURNEY
Sleep (Five Elizabethan Songs, 1912) [2:59]
I Will Go with my Father A-ploughing (1921) [2:50]
Thomas Frederick DUNHILL
To the Queen of Heaven [2:18]
Gerald FINZI
Come away, come away death (Let us Garlands Bring, op.18 no.1, 1942) [3:40]
It was a lover and his lass (Let us Garlands Bring, op.18 no.5, 1942) [2:37]
Bonus tracks
Johannes BRAHMS
O wüsst’ ich doch den Weg zurück, op.61 no.8 [3:29]
O kühler Wald, op.72 no.3 [2:21]
Geheimnis, op.71 no. 3 [2:03]
Nachtwandler, op.86 no.3 [3:34]
Meerfahrt, op.96 no.4 [2:24]
Ständchen, op.106 no.1 [1:31]
Ein Wanderer, op.106 no5 [2:58]
Regenlied, op.59 no3 [1:41]
Das Mädchen spricht, op.107 no3 [1:26]
Mädchenlied, op.107 no.5 [1:48]
Mondnacht, WoO021 [2:40]
Auf dem Kirchhote, op.105 no.4 [2:51]
Martin Isepp (piano), Ernest Lush (piano, bonus tracks)
rec. 1966, Saga Records Ltd (all except bonus tracks); bonus tracks taken
from a BBC studio recital, broadcast on 16 September 1960
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