This reissue is not the place to come
looking for musical masterpieces but
it makes for enjoyable listening all
the same. Essentially it is a collection
of (mainly) German popular songs of
courtship and pleasure from the seventeenth
and (mainly) eighteenth centuries.
Most of the composers
- with the obvious exception of Telemann
- are probably known only to specialists
in the Baroque. In most cases they are
better known, even to specialists, for
other more ‘serious’ aspects of their
work. The Bohemian Andreas Hammerschmidt,
for example, was an important figure
as an organist at the Johanniskirche
in Zittau and as composer of hymns and
other religious music; but he also published
68 secular songs in the three parts
of his Weltliche Oden (1642-49).
Graun is becoming relatively familiar
as a composer of operas under the patronage
of Frederick II; Krieger, who was Kappelmeister
at Bayreuth and later organist at
the court in Halle, studied in Venice
and Rome and was a prolific composer
of cantatas and operas in German and
Italian. Rathgeber is best known for
his church music, but also published
three volumes of secular songs in his
Tafel-Confect (1733-46). Perhaps
only the Frenchman de Bousset was particularly
renowned as a composer of songs – he
composed some 900!
What we have here,
in fact, is a sampling – a very brief
sampling – of a still-neglected tradition
of popular music, which later performers
have still to explore very fully. This
1961 recording catches Mathis at the
very beginning of her glittering career;
Kusche was already a more established
figure at that date. Both, of course,
had distinguished careers on the operatic
stage and something of the opera singer’s
capacity for vocal characterisation
marks their work here. There are some
delightful pieces. Hammerschmidt’s reflections
on the art of kissing are charmingly
performed by Kusche and he gives an
attractively conspiratorial quality
to the praise of ‘whispering in the
dark’ in one of Krieger’s pieces (‘Im
Dunkeln ist gut munklen’). Mathis’s
voice has a splendid youthful sparkle,
not least in Görner’s ‘Tu fai la
superbetta’ and ‘Liebe mich redlich’
which is attributed to ‘Sperontes’.
The totally inadequate sleeve-notes
(one brief paragraph) fail to identify
this as the pen-name of the poet and
librettist Johann Sigismund Scholze,
whose Singende Muse an der
Pleisse (four volumes, 1736-1745)
contains some 250 songs.
Kusche, on the whole,
is more assured, perhaps more confident
than the young Mathis, and both are
well supported by Neumeyer and Buhl.
There are many things to object to here:
the documentation is appallingly poor
by modern standards, there being only
the briefest of notes, no song texts
or translations; the playing time is
well under 40 minutes. And yet … this
is a fascinating glimpse of a musical
landscape not yet adequately represented
on CD. Recommended, despite all the
shortcomings of its presentation.
Glyn Pursglove