What a truly amazing composer Schubert was!
He set the words of over 115 poets to music and these writers
covered most of recorded history from Classical Greece, the Middle-Ages
and the Renaissance to 18th Century German authors,
early Romantics and Heine. The Naxos Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition
encompasses over 700 songs grouped together according to the poets
who inspired him, and even include his textual alterations showing
just how much he was influenced by the importance of the spoken
word.
After Goethe and Schiller Schubert set no less
than 47 poems by the comparatively little known Mayrhofer, as
well as three other of his works. The first of these songs that
figure on this disc, "Am See", he wrote in 1814 when
he was barely 17 years old. Introduced to Mayrhofer by their mutual
friend Joseph von Spaun, Schubert eventually left his parents’
home to take a room at the poet’s house where he remained for
2 years.
This disc, volume 2, presents 15 of Schubert’s
Mayrhofer songs, all of them short except for "Uraniens Flucht",
D554, which is over 18 minutes long, comprising no less than 27
verses and which remained unpublished until 1895.
Both the songs and the performers were new to
me but what discoveries they proved to be! The songs are pure
delight not that that is any surprise coming from the pen of such
a towering master of writing for the human voice. Quite simply
they are sparkling jewels of delicious simplicity, beautifully
constructed, perfectly balanced and are exquisitely performed.
I can rarely recall a disc of songs I’ve enjoyed more. Christiane
Iven’s voice is ice-clear. She is a gem of a singer with a pitch
and timbre that belies the fact that she’s a mezzo-soprano as
her voice has none of the thicker resonances associated with such
a range. I wasn’t surprised, therefore to note that she made her
operatic debut in soprano roles in Hanover singing the Countess
in Le nozze di Figaro. Her wonderfully articulated phrasing
and superb intonation makes the whole disc a really thrilling
experience and in Burkhard Kehring she has an accompanist who
has just the right sense of presence that is powerful when required
and subdued when necessary but always of subtle support to his
soloist.
The disc gets off to a wonderful start with "Am
See" which deals with the death of Duke Leopold of Brunswick
in an attempt to save people during a flood in Brunswick in 1785,
two years before Mayrhofer’s birth in 1787. As with several others
on this record this song was not published until decades after
Schubert’s death. With others that may have been due to what was
considered sensitive material, as the Austrian State, like so
many others around that time, was always on the lookout for "subversive"
utterances on the part of its citizens. Mayrhofer often used classical
Greek settings in which to express his ideas of freedom in much
the same way as writers in the 20th century used science-fiction
as a vehicle in which to criticise their own states. This fact
makes it all the more interesting to note that indeed Mayrhofer
himself worked as censor at the Imperial and Royal Book Censorship
Office. Nevertheless he was a champion of liberal ideas and, for
example, was greatly heartened by the uprising in Poland in 1830
but so depressed by its failure that he tried to drown himself
in the Danube. Six years later this sensitivity, coupled with
hypochondria, led Mayrhofer to throw himself to his death from
his office building in a deluded fear of cholera then raging in
Vienna.
It is difficult to choose my favourites on this
record and it’s a general feeling I have with Schubert’s songs,
as they are all so perfect in conception and brilliant in their
execution. When you have a singer so obviously talented and in
sympathy with the material such as Christiane Iven it makes highlighting
individual items even more difficult but after "Am See"
I really loved "Liane" which has a most delightfully
amusing accompaniment, "Schlaflied", in which, interestingly,
Schubert altered 8 out of 12 lines to fit the music more perfectly
but without any loss of sense, and "Uraniens Flucht",
a real main course dish that rewards many hearings.
Whilst listening to this disc in my lounge it
struck me very forcefully that repertoire such as this is perfect
for the medium of today’s advanced recording techniques – surely
this is what the CD was invented for! I felt more strongly than
usual that the performers were there in person, just for me, as
this disc is so wonderfully recorded. In short it is intimacy
in music encapsulated on a small circle of plastic – remarkable
and breathtaking!
Steve Arloff
For reviews of other releases in this series,
see the Naxos
Deutsche Schubert-Lied Edition page
Christiane Iven (mezzo)