Richard STRAUSS (1864-1949)
Cäcilie [2:10]
Ruhe, meine Seele [4:16]
Meinem kinde [2:40]
Wiegenlied [5:30]
Zueignung [1:39]
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme suite, Op 60 [34:23]
Dance of the Seven Veils, from Salome [9:17]
Closing Scene from Salome [16:20]
Jessye Norman (soprano)
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Klaus Tennstedt
rec. 4 May 1986, Royal Festival Hall, London
LPO LPO0122 [77:12]
Klaus Tennstedt and Jessye Norman sometimes had a fractious relationship, especially in the later part of their working partnership (around the time of their EMI Wagner disc). Hearing their earlier work, however, from the mid-1970s into the early 1980s, one would never guess there would ever be a problem. There are live concerts of them performing Wagner – from Tannhäuser, Tristan, Die Walküre – in Boston – the only time Tennstedt would ever conduct Wagner with the Boston Symphony Orchestra – Detroit and from London. This new LPO CD is the only concert I have come across devoted to them both performing Richard Strauss.
Jessye Norman was the kind of singer you could forgive almost anything, and I overlooked almost every technical fault from the very few recitals I reviewed simply because her artistry was so exceptional. Twenty years ago, I reviewed what would be her final Wigmore Hall recital in London and one particular memory stands out. Until her final encore, Strauss’s Zueignung, her massive instrument had been restrained but with that one song it felt like an entire ocean was hurtling its way unstoppably towards you. You could almost feel her voice washing over your skin as wave after wave of Strauss’s glorious music hit you. This was part of the Norman magic: she could sing with deep repose, fabulous pianissimos, delicate phrasing and float notes with exceptional purity. And then there was this almighty power. I have never heard it equalled in a recital since; but then, there are very few voices like Norman’s.
I must confess to much preferring Strauss’s songs in their orchestral versions rather than their piano ones (although many of Strauss’s songs, in whatever form, remain an entirely guilty pleasure for me). The five lieder on this LPO disc are identical to the ones which appeared on her famous album with Kurt Masur – performances which are almost too opulent to withstand the music of them. Norman could sometimes skip on that level of intimacy you heard with Janowitz or Ludwig in Strauss – though neither of those singers quite commanded Norman’s richness of tone.
Jessye Norman was, I think, usually much better live than she was in the recording studio. Her ‘Liebestod’ with Karajan, for example, is magnificent – where she struggled with Tennstedt on their EMI recording; although neither performance comes remotely close to her superlative Philips recording with the LSO and Colin Davis from much earlier in Norman’s career when her Wagner was often at its most expressive (an exception to the studio problem she sometimes had). Similarly, she is better heard in a live recording of the Vier letze Lieder with the Munich Philharmonic and Sergiu Celibidache – a performance which Norman – unsuccessfully – tried to have suppressed. It is marginally swifter than the Masur recording, but what Norman always needed was a conductor she could make music with and in Celibidache she found a magician of similar persuasion – and the result was a performance as mercurial and sumptuous as any. A performance from Melbourne is equally beautiful. However, when she came to perform the songs with Sinopoli and the Philharmonia Orchestra at the 1990 Salzburg Festival I’m not sure which of the two was responsible for that uninvolving and depressing version of them.
Tennstedt is clearly in the “great” category and their Strauss is very special indeed. Norman often opened recitals with Cäcilie, a song which many sopranos choose to end their recitals with or use as an encore. I have not, in recent years, come across a soprano who has begun a Strauss recital or programme with this song (Lise Davidsen, however, has sometimes opened a Strauss recital with Zueignung which is certainly unusual). There may be a certain wisdom in starting with Cäcilie; it doesn’t demand the soloist to immediately sink into something that is demandingly dramatic or abstract. It is, however, taxing, not least because Strauss’s writing can be a bit meandering – that crescendo needs to be flawless, the breath control immaculate. Norman is more than this. She is radiant, ecstatic. The lines are tight, yet loose enough to have the freedom to let the voice soar with impeccable purity. Almost everything is held in reserve for that last magnificent line. As is nearly always the case with Norman, her German is pointed and audible – perhaps not nearly as accurate as Margaret Price’s would become, but close enough. Zueignung itself is fabulous – so sweeping, almost as if taken in a single breath. It’s actually epic in construction, slightly darker in tone than you’ll hear from most sopranos (this was around Norman’s mezzo-ish period). Norman could always hold a note for what seemed like an eternity and it’s done that way here. With opulent playing from the London Philharmonic it’s a match made in heaven.
Where does one even begin with the two Salome extracts on this disc? Tennstedt had performed the complete opera, at least as far back as January 1972, with the Berlin Deutsche Oper Orchester. It exists as an in-house recording with Ursula Schroeder-Feinen as Salome. The sound, as is the case on his complete Elektra from Kiel in 1976, is excruciating but the performance itself is electrifying. I think it is far less memorable for the singing rather than for the orchestra and Tennstedt’s handling of it (although the orchestra is recorded heavily forward, especially timpani – hardly unexpected given the recording’s source). Tennstedt clearly knows this opera and the LPO’s ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’ and Norman’s ‘Schlußgesang’ from Salome are among the best I have heard – live, or on record. But, the best in a certain way they are played and sung. You do have to suspend belief and perhaps it’s the art you are more impressed with rather than any attempt to live within the role.
There is no shortage of either piece, whether they come from the full opera or whether the piece has been lifted from the opera by a conductor or soprano for a concert or CD. The Norman/Ozawa recording is not one I have generally warmed to and I largely think it was because Norman’s Salome was even less believable than usual. Cheryl Studer, on the Sinopoli recording for DG, is one of the most memorable on disc, however, and she gives the kind of performance Norman could never have, either in concert or on record. She is altogether rougher and tougher and even more dramatically formidable.
Here, however, we have Norman live and with a more inspired conductor than Ozawa and a more inspired orchestra than the Staatskapelle Dresden. The flames are not just lit – they are constantly throwing gasoline on the fire to keep it burning. But what are they burning? There are sopranos who take a different approach to Norman – Studer, Borkh, Varnay, Rysanek, Nilsson (not just for Solti) – all wonderfully dramatic and full of unrivalled intensity and who really get under the skin of this dislikeable woman. Studer was interesting in the recording studio because she occasionally gave the impression she was performing live. She would often sound so overwhelming she was tragically assumed to be desperately imperfect. Live, she was even more formidable. In 1991 she gave a concert performance of this very piece in Dresden with Sinopoli that was just outrageous – Sinopoli pushed Studer with such power and force she ended up giving a vision of Salome that was more chilling and more decadent and terrifying than any I have heard; by the end of it her voice was all but shattered. Perhaps this is exactly the kind of cruelty that Strauss expected of his Salome – but which no soprano dares to give. It is certainly not the one that Jessye Norman dares to give here. As impressive as the voice is, her vocal cords do not sound that stretched – the performance could be considered just a little safe.
Norman doesn’t fall into the Studer category in any sense, and nor give us what Strauss really intended. But what we do get is a performance of such power and virtuosity it delivers a real punch. In a sense this is not uncomplicated music; it is a straightforward narrative and Norman doesn’t make life difficult for herself. You’ll be swept away by it, but it isn’t blood-curdling, it isn’t decadent and nor is it chilling. One could imagine Studer entirely embracing the head of John the Baptist to kiss his lips; I think Norman probably recoiled at the prospect of doing so. Where Studer might almost spit her words out towards the latter half of this long monologue, Norman is more modest. Only one of these two great sopranos drips in the blood of her venom and poison. One might be tempted to think that Herod would have prevaricated over killing his daughter as sung by Jessye Norman. The audience lap it up, however – and well they might because it is thrilling even if it has little to do with Salome. Tennstedt and the London Philharmonic are the real Straussian monsters here. (It isn’t on the disc, but the announcer for this BBC broadcast of this concert took considerable delight in telling us that Norman was wearing a deep purple gown for this performance!).
‘The Dance of the Seven Veils’ is stunning. Timed impeccably, it has all the hallmarks of a great Tennstedt performance: precision of detail, suppleness and that unique electricity he brought to live concerts. Even when he was at his most vulnerable, Tennstedt somehow seemed invincible and this Strauss piece is a rather difficult nine-minutes of music to keep entirely ratcheted up for its entire length. The London Philharmonic under Tennstedt developed a very special sound (Vladimir Jurowski, as it happens, has managed to achieve something similar with today’s LPO). Somewhere between Boston and Berlin, the LPO sounds weighty and yet has extraordinary finesse. The woodwind, in particular, are glorious in this piece – buoyant, expressive, blended. Time flies by – not a given in the ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’ which on so many occasions sounds ponderous and heavy (yes, Maestro Ozawa). This is a classic performance. Definitely one that bears repeated listening.
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme is not really a work that does, however. Tennstedt appears to have liked it – he programmed it most often in the United States: the San Francisco Symphony in 1977, then with the BSO, Philadelphia Orchestra and Minnesota Orchestra. I’ve never enjoyed it, Strauss really doing so much better with the later Ariadne auf Naxos than this earlier wreck of a piece. Compared with the rest of the concert the scale of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme seems a little out of place and although the LPO play it beautifully Tennstedt is a little out of sorts. It is a long half-hour and although it doesn’t require too much of the listener – at the best of times it’s no more than a pastiche, Strauss going back into the eighteenth century – a good performance need be no more than graceful and sensitive. It’s no more than that here.
I should mention the sound briefly. It is superb. It’s very rich, atmospheric and gives a good impression of a live event. And this was an event. Jessye Norman is recorded very up-front – only a slight problem in the Salome extract, but elsewhere the microphones are well placed. Not all LPO discs have been decently reproduced from their original source material; often they have taken rather decent broadcasts and made a mess of engineering them. I can’t really detect much difference between this CD and the original BBC broadcast from 1986. I think applause on the CD is a little severely faded out – although it was on the original broadcast very extensive. It might well be the case, however, that the LPO only had access to a copy that included announcements in which case the applause here is about right.
This disc will have quite wide appeal. Not everything here is really Richard Strauss but it is demonstrably a superb reminder of two artists caught on the wing in inspirational form.
Marc Bridle
