RECORDING OF THE MONTH
Franz SCHUBERT (1797 - 1828)
Winterreise, D 911 (1827)
1. Gute Nacht [6:14]
2. Die Wetterfahne [1:45]
3. Gefrorne Tränen [2:31]
4. Erstarrung [2:46]
5. Der Lindenbaum [4:41]
6. Wasserflut [4:31]
7. Auf dem Flusse [3:44]
8. Rückblick [2:27]
9. Irrlicht [2:44]
10. Rast [3:25]
11. Frühlingstraum [4:43]
12. Die Einsamkeit [3:11]
13. Die Post [2:19]
14. Der greise Kopf [3:03]
15. Die Krähe [2:31]
16. Letzte Hoffnung [2:02]
17. Im Dorfe [3:02]
18. Der stürmische Morgen [0:50]
19. Täuschung [1:31]
20. Der Wegweiser [4:12]
21. Das Wirtshaus [5:26]
22. Mut [1:24]
23. Die Nebensonnen [2:48]
24. Der Leiermann [4:31]
Natalie Stutzmann (contralto), Inger Södergren (piano)
rec. September 2003, Rundfunk Haus Berlin, Kleiner Sendesaal.
no texts or translations enclosed
SAPHIR LVC 1153 [76:21]
Female singers have only occasionally tackled Schubert’s greatest song-cycle,
but those who have, usually have been able to convey deep insights - sometimes
shedding new light on some of the songs. The first woman, to my knowledge
at least, to adopt Winterreise was Elena Gerhardt, who sang it from
the late 1920s and also recorded eight of the songs. Lotte Lehmann recorded
the majority of the songs for two different companies in the early 1940s.
Christa Ludwig and Brigitte Fassbaender performed and recorded the cycle to
great acclaim. My wife some fifteen years ago heard another German mezzo-soprano,
Doris Soffel standing in for an ailing Thomas Hampson.
Now here, in an eight-year-old recording, come French contralto Natalie Stutzmann
and Swedish pianist Inger Södergren with a reading that challenges all
of those mentioned and many of the best male interpreters as well. The recording
was originally issued on Calliope but it obviously slipped by without my noticing
it. Thus it is a blessing that it has been restored to circulation by Saphir.
Let me address the sole drawback at once, and it has nothing to do with the
music-making. It is my old obsession: the lack of song texts! Jaded collectors
must have multiple versions of the poems - and translations - and younger
readers, who might be inspired to acquire their first recording of this ever
fascinating work, needn’t worry too much. A visit to the local library
or a quick search on the internet should set things right. Why not following
this link http://www.gopera.com/lieder/translations/schubert_911.pdf.
and get the complete German texts with English translations - easy to follow.
Then you can just sit down in front of your speakers and inhale the atmosphere,
the moods, the colours, the chill, the despair, the final resignation.
When setting off on a journey, in particular in unfamiliar surroundings, it
is a great help to have an experienced guide, but not one who has told her
story too many times and has become blasé. She must know every
yard, every bend, every little detail but have the ability to relate her story
as though it was her first visit and that she is just as curious and expectant
as the people she is guiding. Natalie Stutzmann is that kind of guide, well-informed
but full of enthusiasm. By her side she has her assistant guide, Ms Södergren,
who interposes her own comments, stresses a detail and points out: ‘look
at that’ ... A radar pair, indeed!
Natalie is the possessor of a true contralto voice, warm, rich in colours,
beautiful and with a myriad of nuances. She also has power to make the more
dramatic songs tell. Less attractive to some listeners may be a slightly ‘hooty’
quality. Sometimes the tone hardens at forte but all this pales and becomes
insignificant when everything else is so right. As can be concluded from the
previous paragraph she sings off the words and catches the moods without sweeping
gestures. She is a wonderful narrator who also happens to have a marvellous
singing voice.
‘Without sweeping gestures’, I wrote, and this is an important
distinction. Some guides like to take command, to force the information
on the listener; Ms Stutzmann invites the listener to take part and
carries through her narration in a low voice, reflective, thoughtful. The
whole story, all twenty-four songs, are knit so closely that it feels almost
blasphemous to point out certain songs, certain details; the cycle as Natalie
Stutzmann and Ingrid Södergren have conceived it should be heard in its
entirety and not piecemeal. To give some clue to my admiration I would still
urge readers to sample a few songs - just to be caught by the deeply considered
reading:
Start with probably the best known of the songs, Der Lindenbaum (tr.
5): it is warm and inward initially but the dark clouds that descend over
the middle section are almost frighteningly wintry. Then go to tr. 11 and
another song often heard separately: Frühlingstraum. It opens
so lightly and airily but this is deceptive: the darkness of the present soon
obscures the memories of spring. Here rubato is expressively employed in a
way that, isolated, would be regarded as self-indulgent - listen to the last
stanza! In this reading the rubato is an integrated part of the whole and
feels absolutely right. It leads over to a deeply emotional Die Einsamkeit
(tr. 12) - gloomy but beautiful. I read somewhere that here, halfway through
the cycle, some singers in the past used to stop. The second part seemed too
bleak and forbidding. After the lively and deceptively jolly Die Post
(tr. 13) the journey goes inexorably downwards. The pain, the distress grows
deeper and this is mirrored superbly in Stutzmann’s facial expressions.
I know, this is not a DVD, but I can still sense every variation in her face,
nowhere more so than in Das Wirtshaus (tr. 21). It is sung - and played
- so movingly and every word is uttered with the utmost effort - every word
hurts. Nobody can possibly be unmoved when listening to this song in isolation,
but the impact is far stronger when it is heard as part of the whole cycle.
In the concluding two songs, Die Nebensonnen (tr. 23) and Der Leiermann
(tr. 2 (tr. 24) we meet a naked soul, everything is over, the voice falters
... This is the most self-exposed depiction of the eternal winter, where the
narrator is doomed to suffer.
I have listened to uncountable performances of Winterreise, many of
them exceptionally good, but none has touched me as much as this one. It is,
by some margin, the Recording of the Month and will be one of my Recordings
of the Year as well.
Göran Forsling
Masterwork Index: Winterreise
No performance of Winterreise has touched me as much as this one.