Comparison
recordings:
Wolf
Mörike Lieder, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gerald Moore,
EMI CMS 7 63563 2
Schubert
Songs, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gerald Moore DG 415 186-2
Schubert,
Janet Baker, Raymond Leppard BBC Classical Mag. CD Vol IV #7
Schubert
Erlkönig, etc. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Gerald Moore, Geoffrey
Parsons. EMI CDM 7 63656-2
Schubert,
Winterreise, Hans Hotter, Gerald Moore. EMI GROTC EMI
67000
Not many singers earn two doctorates in philosophy
before going on stage to find stable employment. And not many
singers are so slender and agile. To call him the English Fischer-Dieskau
at this time is no exaggeration, and no unfairness, since he
consciously established the great German lieder singer as his
model; but to suggest that this disk is a valedictory comment
is absurd. When we watch this concert we are watching the launching
of a rocket that will fly into orbits yet undreamed of. We are
watching a career of the caliber of Yehudi Menuhin, or Laurence
Olivier, or, yes, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and who would presume
to have summed up their lives and careers at the age of forty?
When we consider these three great stylists in
the field of the Schubert song — Fischer-Dieskau, Schwarzkopf,
and, yes, Bostridge — what we hear first is the style, the singer.
We know who’s singing before we recognize the song. That’s perfectly
all right, Schubert’s music is strong enough to encompass a
very wide range of interpretations. But these are not the only
interpretations I want to hear; my favourite Winterreisse
is still Hans Hotter from 1956 even though I have both of Fischer-Dieskau’s
recordings as well.
For Bostridge doesn’t just sing these songs, he
turns each one into a miniature operatic scene, a mini-music
drama. Naturally the Erlkönig is most characteristic
of this, and the faces Bostridge makes are almost frightening.
You may not want to hear it sung this way all the time, but
you won’t want to miss hearing (and seeing!) it sung this way
at least once.
The songs are interspersed with interviews with
the performers, and the sound level of the interviews is much
higher than the musical tracks. When they come on you must dive
for the volume control to keep from being blasted by sound and
having shattered the mood established by the song you’ve just
heard. If your player offers you this option, you may want to
program it to skip the interviews altogether after you’ve seen
them once through. Another alternative could be to hit the mute
key at the end of the song; since you’re likely to have the
subtitles on during the song, you can “listen” to the interview
by reading the words on the screen and avoid the blasting sound.
Speaking is softer than singing, and the relative
volume of the tracks should have been so adjusted. Unfortunately
this reflects a current journalistic prejudice that the spoken
word is the most important thing in the universe and that music
of all kinds is “entertainment”, mere diversion, something adults
should be ashamed of engaging in, something that should hardly
be catered to in any way. The idea that works of art should
be surrounded by a compatible mood, that great music should
emerge from, and return to, silence, is incomprehensible to
these people; to them the purpose of the media, like pop music,
is to jolt you, wake you up, keep you revving. Fostering a meditative
mood is “putting the audience to sleep” and can only result
in lost revenue and a failure of the message to get across.
I’ve done my part by writing this review. If you
buy this disk and are as offended as I am by this insensitive
audio layout, write your own letter to the producer or post
a notice on their website. Let them know we don’t want any more
of this.
If your player does not allow you in some manner
to arrange your listening around these blasting interviews,
then this disk cannot be recommended despite the excellence
of the musical performance. Most stand-alone players will allow
you to program the playing sequence but most computer players
will not, (and note that “Windows 2000 DVD Player” has no skip
forward key) so be sure before you buy.
When I was listening to a recording of a Schwarzkopf
master class in lieder singing she made a comment which I did
not understand at the time. She said to one of the singers,
“It’s a pity you did not grow up speaking German”. Did she mean
to say that German is superior to English? At the time I was
offended; I certainly do not consider my being exclusively an
Anglophone a disadvantage in any way whatever. But watching
this disk I think at last I understand what she meant. I think
she did not mean to disparage English or English speakers, but
I think she meant to suggest that to foreigners, German diction
is difficult because it has to be learned. Watching Ian Bostridge
struggle with his “Ü”s and “Ö”s — he gets them all perfect,
absolutely perfect, of course — reminds me that native German
singers make these sounds without struggling. And in singing
they do not hesitate to open their vowels and soften their consonants
a little when it will facilitate good tone production. Perhaps
Bostridge is afraid of being thought lazy or disrespectful to
the German language, so he doesn’t allow himself any slack.
If I could presume to offer him some advice, I would suggest
that he confer with a native German singer and learn how to
cheat a little; then we could all sit back and enjoy the music
more. Very few people actually expect to learn the text of a
song by hearing it sung, or expect the sung language to be a
model of perfect elocution. When watching a video of opera in
English, how often do you need to look at the subtitles?
Paul Shoemaker
Ian Bostridge, tenor; Roger Vignoles, Steinway piano
CHÂTELET
TDK RM ARTS DVD-VITB-EUR 
