Key comparisons
Kubelik/BRSO DG 477 583-8 GOM 8 [part
of a 8 CD box set]
Rattle/BPO EMI 7243 5 57303 2 9
Sinopoli/SD Teldec 4509-98424-2
Pity the doomed lovers!
King Waldemar has an extra-marital fling
with the beautiful young Tove. In her
final song Tove sings ecstatically of
"dying in a rapturous kiss",
whilst soaring to a breathtaking high
B. This is German Romanticism so no
prizes for guessing what happens next.
Tove is murdered by jealous Queen Hedwig,
her demise recalled by a wood-dove.
Waldemar curses God’s perceived injustice
so his spirit, together with ghostly
vassals, is damned to ride across the
night skies in a desperate wild hunt.
Gurrelieder is fairly
conductor-proof with many styles throwing
light on Schoenberg’s monumental canvass.
Only Robert Craft (Naxos) seriously
disappoints (but see reviews):
I could not get through his leisurely
Part I and Craft’s choral sunrise is
distinctly underpowered. Sinopoli (Teldec)
is also slow in Part I but this controversial
conductor has a sense of the fantastic,
throwing light on Schoenberg’s rich
orchestral colours. Sinopoli also moulds
rich Romantic phrases so his Part I
sinks into a world of night and dreams
before arising to more conventional
tempi by the orchestral interlude and
it’s crashing crescendo. Kubelik (DG)
is also alive to Gurrelieder’s Romanticism
but his structure is far clearer than
Sinopoli.
Much of the success
of this Gurrelieder, re-released from
Denon CDs, is due to Inbal’s superb
conducting. Inbal’s achievement is to
marry Romanticism, structural grip and
transparency of colour through conducting
which is naturally poetic. The
ravishing string crescendo at the close
of Tove’s final song, the march in the
wood-dove’s final verse, the propulsive
opening to the Speaker’s music slowly
opening toward the Romantic choral outpouring
are all here. I was amazed how much
more orchestral detail comes alive under
Inbal than Rattle, despite the latter’s
recognition that "Gurrelieder is
in fact the world’s largest string quartet".
Paul Fey is an effective
Waldemar, blessedly steady with an attractive
hint of huskiness, if lacking Thomas
Moser’s warmth and response to text.
Part I are songs of love after all and
Moser injects more gentleness into his
voice when required. Elizabeth Connell
has Tove’s combination of Isolde-like
youth and Wagnerian heft. How disappointing
then that Connell’s final climatic B
sounds narrow, even squeezed out, hardly
hit forte. And Connells’ tone is not
always easy on the ear. She is too hard,
lacking the richness of Karita Mattila
or even Deborah Voigt’s shining steel.
Kubelik’s Inge Bork has an astonishing
mezzo-ish chest voice and her intensity
of expression and acting from the text
are special. The great US soprano Christine
Brewer sang Tove in a 2002 Prom concert
with ideal burnished metallic tone,
resonance and lyric attention to text.
Brewer’s final line seared into the
evening sky on golden wings and it is
imperative her Tove is recorded one
day.
Franzen’s Speaker is
preferable to Thomas Quasthoff’s (Rattle)
wide-eyed approach (compare "Ach,
war das licht und hell!"). I can
imagine Franzen as Schoenberg’s thoughtful
biologist, although he does not match
Hans Hotter’s gathering wonderment in
the final lines. Jard van Nes begins
as a lighter forest bird, reminding
me of Rattle’s von Otter, but deepens
impressively in tragedy. I enjoy Jennifer
Larmore (Sinopoli) for her dark colours
and searing attack in her final lines.
Volker Vogel’s beautifully sung Klaus
cannot match Philip Langridge in bringing
the jester to life.
What really distinguishes
Inbal’s Gurrelieder is the daring Denon
engineering. I half-dread broadcasts
and recordings of this great work as
engineers faced with the gigantic orchestra
and multiple choirs tend to manipulate
the sound, hedging crescendi and throwing
undue light on Schoenberg’s often delicate
instrumental lines. I’m guessing here
that comparatively few microphones were
used: the basic orchestral soundscape
is comparatively natural so that the
shimmering evocation of a summer evening
(glorious flutes and trumpet!) in the
opening Prelude are in proper relation
to the galloping timps in the third
song. You may need to crank up the volume
to get the full impact, but that’s OK.
The Berlin Philharmonic
sound backward as recorded by EMI, collaborating
in Rattle’s carpet-of-sound approach.
Sinopoli’s engineering on Teldec is
fuller and he has the transparent glories
of the Staatskapelle Dresden. However
neither matches Denon’s achievement
here. Try an A/B comparison with Rattle
of the crescendo ending the wood-dove’s
song. Inbal’s brass and timps thunder
a towering wave behind van Nes. Rattle’s
von Otter is miked much too forward
so the terrifying impact is lost, although
the tonal refinement of the BPO brass
is preferable.
Multi-miking horrors
in other Gurrelieder recordings become
particularly serious once the Speaker
appears. EMI bought Quasthoff so far
forward he sounds like he could single-handedly
take on the resulting sunrise, ruining
Schoenberg’s theme of individual human
concerns being subsumed within the overwhelming
force of nature. Chailly’s recording
on Decca suffers similarly. Franzen
is also forward but better placed in
relation to Schoenberg’s radiant finale,
which opens thrillingly with all the
sheer amplitude from brass, choirs and
rolling timps one really wants on CD.
At last!
Kubelik and Sinopoli
remain my favourites, but for engineering
and conducting Inbal’s Gurrelieder is
an important supplement.
David Harbin
BUY
NOW
Purchase
from MusicWeb
£8.50/9.00/10.00 postage included
Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Frankfurt/Eliahu
Inbal 
