Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Der Wanderer
Track-listing below review
Florian Boesch (baritone); Roger Vignoles (piano)
rec. 11-13 November 2012, All Saint’s Church, Finchley, London. DDD
German texts and English translations included
HYPERION CDA68010 [64:45]
This is the fourth Schubert recital album by Florian Boesch that
I have enjoyed. The others are his already celebrated accounts
of “Winterreise”
and “Die
Schöne Müllerin” on Onyx. There’s also
a collection for Naxos called “Romantic
Poets, Vol. 4”. I have by now the same high expectation
for any new recital from him as I do for Jonas Kaufmann’s
work and this Hyperion anthology conforms to that prospect, being
excellent in every way.
Using Caspar David Friedrich’s painting “The Wanderer
Above the Sea of Mist” (1818) is now almost a cover cliché.
It has graced so many recordings of Romantic music, so much so
that Jonas Kaufmann is pictured in a costumed, Photoshopped pastiche
of the same pose on one of his recital albums for Decca. It is
entirely appropriate here, in this carefully assembled collection
of Schubert’s Lieder on the theme of the loneliness, isolation
and the wandering of the outsider.
This inevitably makes for a rather sombre, melancholy mood throughout
this 65 minutes. Not many of these songs will necessarily be familiar
to the casual lover of Schubert’s Lieder. Indeed I can imagine
some will know only “Der Wanderer an den Mond” here
taken at a very subtle and moderate pace rather than the game
plod we too often hear, as if the protagonist were dancing through
mud. I count myself a moderately enthusiastic student of Schubert’s
vocal oeuvre but I have heard or own probably only half of his
songs and this disc acquainted me with half a dozen I had not
previously encountered. So, for all its beauties, this is no jolly
“Best of” collection including “Die Forelle”.
Rather it is a serious, scholarly assembly more often black-browed
and thought-provoking than charming.
The solemn, even dour, ambience is established immediately with
Roger Vignoles using the pedalling to open up the deepest resonances
of the piano in “Der Wanderer” D489. We are often
in the same territory as “Winterreise” without much
light relief - although a yearningly lovely song like “Das
Heimweh” does much to redress the balance, as do the two
tender and reposeful “Wandrers Nachtlied” songs.
What a beautiful voice this is, entirely even throughout its wide
tessitura from an echt bass low D on “Glück”
at the end of the first song to the lightest touch at the top
of its range. Boesch thus sounds first like a bass then a lyric
baritone in the second verse without any sense of an incongruous
grafting of one vocal mode onto another. He often sings pianissimo
without crooning, such as at the conclusion of “Auf der
Bruck”. His diction is invariably pellucid without mannerisms.
Vignoles matches his singer with his elegant touch yet sometimes
the contrasting moods between the ending of on song and the start
of another can be almost shocking, as in the transition between
“Aus ‘Heliopolis’ II” and “Auf der
Donau”. Boesch has the ability to vary his tone and dynamics
to a remarkably degree. In this and in the intense, personal nature
of his communication of the burden of a song he reminds me of
the young Bryn Terfel. There is a mesmeric concentration to his
delivery of “Meeres Stille”, which ends on a suspended
thread of sound, perfectly mirroring the utter stillness of the
sea.
Nothing in this partnership is over-stated; pianist and singer
move as one, from the haunting chill of “Herbst” -
understandably a favourite of Brahms - to the resolute marching
chorale of “Der Pilger” to the rising panic which
pervades “Im Walde ‘Waldesnacht’”, so
reminiscent of “Der Erlkönig”.
A German-English libretto and fine notes by Richard Wigmore are
provided in the booklet.
All lovers of the Schubertian Lied will want to own this - yet
another indispensable recital from a Lieder singer who is, in
my estimation, alongside Kaufmann the finest before the public
today.
Ralph Moore
Previous review: John
Quinn
Track-listing
Der Wanderer D489 [5:23]
Der Wanderer D649 [2:24]
Der Wanderer an den Mond D870 [2:51]
Aus ‘Heliopolis’ I D753 [3:09]
Aus ‘Heliopolis’ II D754 [2:14]
Auf der Donau D553 [2:56]
Auf der Bruck D853 [3:32]
Der Schiffer D536 [2:03]
Das Heimweh D456 [2:55]
Der Kreuzzug D932 [2:45]
Abschied D475 [5:07]
Wandrers Nachtlied I D224 [1:43]
Wandrers Nachtlied II D768 [2:02]
Herbst D945 [3:46]
Meeres Stille D216 [2:23]
Der Pilgrim D794 [4:38]
Die Götter Griechenlands D677 [4:24]
Im Walde ‘Waldesnacht’ D708 [6:53]
Lied ‘Die Mutter Erde’ D788 [4:03]
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