Clytus Gottwald has always positioned himself in the direct lineage
of Ligeti in his approach to the technique of choral
‘orchestration’. I have, from time to time, found some of his
pronouncements a little doctrinaire whilst at other times there is just an
element - maybe I am misreading him - of conceit. I’m not sure his
synopsis of 1920s a capella music in his notes is wholly valid - he believes
it to have been mired in the polyphonic motet tradition which had to be
‘disregarded’ to ensure ‘further development’ - but
in any case it is worth pondering in the light of his own
‘orchestration’ of the Romantic music in this disc.
Listening to an hour’s worth of Gottwald’s lieder
orchestrations reminds me of a pleasant afternoon nap. I’m glad to
have experienced it but I’m left with a nagging feeling that
I’ve - well, not exactly wasted time, but at least not quite got the
point. If Ligeti opened up new perspectives with
Lux aeterna, what
new perspectives are being opened up by Gottwald, who is avowedly, indeed
unashamedly, following on from him?
In fact I can’t recall having listened to a review disc in
nearly twelve years and made so few notes. I appreciate that the
orchestration of which Gottwald speaks can be a complex business, and I also
appreciate that there is an inherent expansion of choral repertoire - indeed
there may even be an incremental necessity for expressive poetry as a
result. Clearly some choirs will welcome what he does and the opportunities
thus provided in performance.
To me however the
Dichterliebe settings amount to less than
the sum of themselves, whilst the Brahms quintet of settings is illuminated
really only by Gottwald’s ‘echo chamber’ effect in
Guten Abend, gut Nacht. But Gottwald’s care over the Hans
Sommer settings is also not to be scorned, nor what he does with the
Friedrich Nietzsche songs. To end the selection with a song apiece from
Ravel and Debussy is certainly quixotic and it strikes me as ultimately
unsettling and unconvincing in the context of the programme as a whole,
though they would be more appropriately placed elsewhere - indeed his
settings of the French repertoire have been.
The KammerChor Saarbrücken sings well, though not as comprehensively
well
as the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart on a companion disc in this series
[83.181
- see
review].
Jonathan Woolf
