Jonas Kaufmann and Helmut Deutsch recorded
Die schöne Müllerin
back in 2009. That recording, made while Kaufmann was still a Decca artist,
was recorded live in concert. Now, early on in his new contract with Sony,
he gives us a recording of
Winterreise made under studio
conditions. I bought the earlier recording when it came out and I found a
great deal to admire in it so I was eager to hear Kaufmann in this second
great Wilhelm Müller cycle.
It’s perhaps worth making an initial observation, even at the risk of
stating the obvious. Kaufmann has a very big, operatic voice that’s well
suited to, say, Puccini and Verdi and with more than a baritonal tint to it.
As such, though he’s more than capable of fining down his voice – and does
so frequently here - he offers a very different experience in this cycle as
compared to the lighter voices of tenors such as Mark Padmore (
review), Peter Pears (
review) or Peter Schreier (
review). I’m aware that all three of those singers
– and many others who have recorded
Winterreise - are no strangers
to the operatic stage but I fancy that in Kaufmann’s case the balance of his
career is more weighted towards opera than to
Lieder and one is
frequently reminded, while listening, that here is a musical actor at
work.
Kaufmann comes to
Winterreise with a formidable operatic
reputation but he is less celebrated as a recitalist, the earlier recording
of
Die schöne Müllerin notwithstanding. However, it is clear from
listening to this performance that he has thought very carefully about the
musical and dramatic issues of the cycle as a whole and of the individual
songs. Revisiting a few of the songs from his account of
Die schöne
Müllerin I formed the impression, perhaps wrongly, that his voice
sounded lighter in that 2009 recording than is the case here. That’s not to
imply for a minute that Kaufmann does not employ a light voice when
appropriate in
Winterreise. It may be that he feels that
Winterreise requires darker colours and more vocal heft – and
that’s a very defensible point of view – or it may be that in the four years
that separate these recordings his voice has acquired additional hues and
has matured even further into an even more impressive and varied
instrument.
Throughout this performance Kaufmann deploys an impressively wide range of
vocal colouring. He gives an early example of this in
Gefrorne
Tränen where the colours enhance his expressiveness. The very last
phrase, ‘des ganzen Winters Eis!’, is delivered with a very full, operatic
tone which, I must say, took me by surprise at first. I’d expected strong
singing at this point – the phrase is marked ‘
stark’, after all –
but this is the thrilling sound of an operatic tenor pretty much in full
cry. It’s not the last example of Kaufmann ‘letting go’ in this performance,
either. However, such moments are reserved for the appropriate junctures and
so make their mark all the more tellingly when they occur.
On the other side of the ledger, as it were, Kaufmann often fines down his
singing to an impressively controlled
mezza voce. Among several
examples that I noted were the final stanza of
Gute Nacht, the
third and sixth stanzas of
Frühlingstraum and the whole of
Der
Leiermann.
Having a singer with Kaufmann’s dynamic range and dramatic sensibility
pays real dividends in terms of the contrasts that he can effect within a
song. Thus, for example, there’s an abundance of dynamic contrast amid the
turbulence of
Die Wetterfahne and again in
Wasserflut. In
Einsamkeit the delivery of the first two stanzas sounds withdrawn
but Kaufmann turns on the intensity and power for the third stanza. If you
want to hear an example of his dramatic sensibility listen to
Irrlicht; this is a performance by a singer accustomed to the stage
and who can deploy a wide range of colours and dynamics to bring out all the
meaning of the words.
For all Kaufmann’s vocal prowess there are some facets of the cycle that I
don’t believe he brings out as well as some other singers I’ve heard. This
is not to diminish his achievements here but rather to emphasise that
certain types of singers are better equipped than others at bringing out
nuances in these songs. For example, consider
Der Greise Kopf. The
singing as such is very impressive but I miss the glacial chill that a
singer such as Schreier could bring to the opening lines. That said,
Kaufmann is very expressive in his own way, not least in the bald tone with
which he delivers the last line of the second stanza. His reading of
Die
Krähe is compelling but I’ve heard some other versions in which the
scariness of the crow’s presence is brought out more vividly. However,
Schubert’s music is so inexhaustible and so multi-faceted that it’s
unreasonable to expect that any singer will be able to deliver
everything.
That last statement is true of the three tenors that I mentioned at the
start of this review. All of them – and others - bring things to
Winterreise that are remarkable in their own right and so does
Jonas Kaufmann. His singing of this cycle is very impressive.
The success of the reading is due in no small measure to the contribution
of pianist Helmut Deutsch. He is a renowned accompanist and his experience
and insights bring a considerable amount to this performance.
Jonas Kaufmann’s many admirers will certainly want to hear this new
recording and I think that
Lieder collectors will also want to hear
one of the most acclaimed of today’s voices in some of the greatest
Lieder in the repertoire.
John Quinn
Masterwork Index:
Winterreise
