Danish mezzo-soprano
Else Paaske, now in her mid-sixties, has had a long and distinguished
career as a concert-singer. Her work as a Lieder-singer was
important but she was also a noted oratorio singer. I have no
good picture of her recorded output but she was one of many
distinguished soloists in Helmut Rilling’s complete cycle of
all the cantatas, one aria featuring as the last track on CD1
of this set. Danacord in cooperation with the Danish Broadcasting
Corporation have done a good job by putting together this retrospective
album from both live concerts and studio recordings. They have
concentrated on her lieder repertoire but other important areas
had to be left out for technical reasons, Schubert for example.
What we have got on two well filled discs, playing for
2½ hours, gives full evidence that here is an important singer,
not only as the owner of one of the richest well-schooled voices
of the last decades but also as an expressive and penetrating
interpreter. Her voice is a true mezzo-soprano which could never
be mistaken for a soprano with limited upper range but more
contralto-ish. It’s a beautiful rich voice with a perfectly
controlled characteristic vibrato. It is used with great sensitivity
to the varied requirements of the various songs, and she can
be chillingly dramatic with an almost visible intensity.
The recordings cover
the period 1967 (when she was 26) to 1983 (when she was a bit
past 40) and show her at the height of her powers. The items
are presented chronologically, the only exception being the
very last items on CD2, the recitative and aria from The
Christmas Oratorio, which were set down in 1977. Her voice
is excellent and remained remarkably consistent across the decade
and a half. One can perhaps sense that her voice expands a little,
making it an even fuller and more pliant instrument. Recorded
in a variety of venues the sound quality varies a lot but in
general it is fully acceptable and often much more than that.
Repertoire-wise
the discs have a lot to offer, not least the opportunity to
hear important Danish song writers Heise and Lange-Müller as
well as present day composer Ib Nørholm, whose Three songs
for contralto and piano were written for Else Paaske and
premiered by her.
The mixed group
of six Lange-Müller songs on CD1 gives a good picture of his
fresh melodious idiom and the cycle Sulamith og Salomon
to texts by B. S. Ingemann, known also for some much loved Nordic
hymns, are lovely, unabashedly romantic songs. Heise’s cycle
Gudruns sorg (Gudrun’s sorrow) is central romanticism
with a Nordic flavour. They are outgoing, intensely dramatic
songs and Ms Paaske’s treatment of them is uninhibited. At the
same time she gives the more reflective moments their due. Impressive!
Nørholm’s three songs are very varied in character from clear
tonality in the first to the use of twelve-tone technique, different
methods being applied depending upon the character of the poems,
which are all by authors more or less from the composer’s own
generation.
In non-Danish repertoire
her warm rendering of Debussy’s Bilitis-songs is refreshing
to hear. La chevelure is exquisitely done with sensitive
accompaniment by her regular pianist Friedrich Gürtler, who
is an asset throughout. The Brahms songs on CD1 were recorded
in a swimming-bath acoustic and accordingly lose something of
their intimacy, but the singing is superb. These and the four
Berg songs Op. 2 were recorded live at the Konzerthaus in Vienna
and the spaciousness of the sound makes me believe it is in
the big hall although that seems unlikely. In spite of the acoustics,
her interpretation of the Berg songs is memorable. The last
song rises to ecstasy on the words Er kommt noch nicht, Es
lässt mich warten ... followed by a bleak
Stirb ...
On CD2 she catches
the various moods of Poulenc’s songs with secure confidence,
underlining the surrealist texts. The real highlight is Schumann’s
Liederkreis Op. 39. Schumann’s music and Eichendorff’s
words are woven together so perfectly that it is impossible
to imagine them in any other way and Paaske’s rendering is congenial.
She catches the easy melodic flow of In der Fremde, the
intensity of Intermezzo and the ebb and flow of Waldesgespräch.
Die Stille is restrained, like keeping a secret. This
is also graphically illustrated in the piano accompaniment.
In Mondnacht she catches the mysterious atmosphere, the
“Blütenschimmer” (flowery shimmer) with beautiful legato singing.
Auf einer Burg depicts in very slow-moving phrases the
aged knight asleep on his watch, having turned to stone. In
sharp contrast the “brooklets murmuring” is very lively in In
der Fremde. In Wehmut, the most beautiful of these
twelve extremely beautiful songs, she scales down the third
stanza, Da lauschen alle Herzen (Then all hearts do listen)
to a near-whisper, while in Zwielicht she adjusts her
tone to the bleak piano accompaniment. Im Walde is full
of joy and, finally, Frühlingsnacht is eager and forward-moving,
rejoicing. A masterly interpretation!
There are another
couple of Brahms songs, also finely done, but another highpoint
is the three songs from Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn,
where the simple folksong atmosphere is charmingly caught. The
piano accompaniment is again something to take delight in, very
much so in Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt where
Else Paaske also relishes telling her audience about the mock
sermon, burlesque but not parody.
The four ecclesiastical
songs by Max Reger, recorded in the warm acoustics of Aarhus
Cathedral, remind us that his vocal music has much to offer
and should be more often heard. In his songs his often over-sophisticated
and over-elaborated style gives way to a simplicity of utterance
that goes to the heart. Meine Seele ist still, a setting
of Psalm 62, is especially memorable. The organ part, excellently
played by Anders Riber, is as chromatic as we have come to expect
from Reger.
Each CD is concluded
with a Bach aria. On CD1 we hear an aria from cantata 94, culled
from the aforementioned Rilling cycle, and here Peter-Lukas
Graf’s flute obbligato is worth a rosette of its own. The singing
is magnificent. Over-romantic, some may object, but I don’t
mind. Bach can’t have wanted this powerful text about “Deluded
world! Even your riches, goods, and money is trickery and false
appearance ...” to be bloodless, even though he couldn’t have
expected his boy alto to be as expressive as Else Paaske, who
also sings the aria from the Christmas Oratorio on CD2
with admirable breath control and beautiful tone.
The booklet (56
pages!) has a thumbnail bio of the singer, comments on the music
and complete texts and translations. Exemplary! I hope this
set will also find listeners outside the Nordic countries. It
is well worth it.
Göran Forsling
AVAILABILITY
Danacord
Else Paaske (mezzo)
