Naxos’s concept of recording all the Schubert songs –over 700
of them - with young and lesser known singers, was from the beginning
as fascinating as it was risky. And it can’t be a big surprise that not
all recordings are on the same high standard of vocal art and interpretation.
The present disc contains fourteen settings of the
forty-two poems by Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), following Naxos’s
"Schiller-Lieder, Vol. 1" edition, that had been released
only some months ago. The singer on this second volume is a mezzo-soprano,
the German born Regina Jakobi, who has performed since the 1980s, mainly
in Switzerland, France and Germany. Amongst others she has worked with
René Jacobs (and can be heard in two smaller parts on his recording
of Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea from 1990) and has
experience of a repertoire that ranges from Renaissance to contemporary.
The artistic director and pianist of the whole Naxos edition, Ulrich
Eisenlohr, has chosen her to record songs on verses by Schiller which
had been composed between 1813 and 1823. Two of them are present in
alternate versions
Schubert’s settings of verses by Schiller are not his
best known. Unlike his settings of Goethe’s poems, only a few of them,
like the Gruppe aus dem Tartarus have found their way into the
main repertoire of today’s Lieder singers. And listening to them as
a group one can get an idea why this is so: compared with Schubert’s
Goethe-Lieder most of them have a certain flatness, as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
wrote in his monograph on the Schubert-Lieder (1971). Maybe it is their
high literary quality, which prevented an easy opening to the audience.
They demand, unlike many of Schubert’s other songs, interpreters on
a great artistic and intellectual level. Far away from folk verses,
the complex structure of Schiller’s poetry needs a penetrating understanding
of their literary level. The poems are the most exalted of German poetry
from that period. The verses not only illustrate, tell stories in poetry
but are the expression of classic concepts.
The problem of the present disc is evident from the
first minute. Regina Jacobi’s diction is inaccurate, she has a tendency
to slur the last syllables of a word and to hush over little words,
like articles or pronouns, certain letters like ‘n’s and ‘m’s seem to
be exchangeable in her pronunciation. I am a native German speaker and
I am experienced in understanding sung text, but more than once in almost
every lied I had problems following the text by just hearing it. This
problem continues in the vocal line. Short notes are often passed over
too quickly and the rhythmic structure becomes unclear. The first recitative
of Schiller’s ballad Die Bürgschaft, that opens the selection,
is not coordinated with the accompaniment ("Die Stadt vom Tyrannen
befreien"). This ballad demands a narrative quality through direct
speech, similar to Schubert’s famous setting of Goethe’s Erlkönig.
Jakobi’s performance remains flat, she refuses any characterisation
of the acting persons through her voice, only dynamic variations and
changes of tempi are left. The dramatic climax of the ballad, atmospheric
changes and a difference between description and reporting could mainly
be heard in Ulrich Eisenlohr’s reserved playing.
Whoever hears the performance of Gruppe aus dem
Tartarus with Fischer-Dieskau and Benjamin Britten from 1972 (available
on BBC Music) will understand how well calculated the effects
of Schubert’s lieder are. The opening crescendo, that doesn’t seem to
have an end, the energy of the cries of "Ewigkeit" ("eternity")
, the last empty, almost icy accord - an eruptive outburst of immense
dramatic quality. How different the reading of Jakobi and Eisenlohr
comes out. Jakobi again swallows letters and has rhythmic problems ("Stöhnt
dort dumpfig, tief ein schweres, leeres Qualerpreßtes Ach!"),
her "Ewigkeit" marks no decisive moment and Eisenlohr plays
the last accord without any further meaning. This is a upright reading,
but nothing that could say anything more than playing and singing the
notes as written.
It would be easy to call this disc superfluous, because
there are a lot of alternative recordings. But that would simplify it
too much. I have tried to illustrate some prominent points of my criticism
and disappointment via two examples and there would be more to go on.
Beyond criticism by dissection the general impression after having heard
the disc several times leads to the same opinion. The single lied are
not characteristic in their reading; one sounds like another. Even in
the two cases where different settings to music of the same poem is
presented, there is no development or new reading perceptible. They
appear to be interchangeable, no matter whether they deal with themes
of Greek antiquity (Die Bürgschaft or Hektors Abschied)
or the complaints of a maiden (Des Mädchens Klage); no matter
whether they are love songs (An Emma) or allegoric verses (Die
vier Weltalter).
This is even more surprising as the CD comes with an
informative booklet, that gives the text (in German and English) and
comprehensive notes on every song, commenting on differences in the
texts, the musical development of lieder and Schubert’s role in the
form.
We should not forget that this CD is only one of many
from a complete "Schubert-Lieder-Edition" that is scheduled
for completion by 2005. And after the promising discs with German baritone
Roman Trekel there is legitimate hope for a high-quality continuation
of the project.
Uwe Schneider
For reviews of other releases in this series,
see the Naxos
Deutsche Schubert-Lied Edition page
Regina Jakobi (mezzo-soprano);
Ulrich Eisenlohr (piano)