Erich Wolfgang KORNGOLD (1897-1957)
Much Ado About Nothing – complete incidental music Op.11 (1918) [47:54]
The Vampire – concert version by C Bauer and K. Simon (1922) [16:37]
Hans Jörg Mammel (tenor – Much Ado)
Ekkehard Abele (Narrator/Voice – The Vampire)
Holst-Sinfonietta and Chorus/Klaus Simon
rec. 19-21 March 2014, E-Werk, Freiburg, Germany
NAXOS 8.573355 [64:36]
Korngold’s incidental music to Much Ado About Nothing is one of his most delightful scores, and while it has been most often performed and recorded in Korngold’s own orchestral suite, the year 2012 saw a brace of recordings of the complete incidental music in its original instrumentation – from John Storgårds on Ondine (review) and John Mauceri on Toccata Classics (review) – with this recording made a couple of years later but held back from release until now. All three claim to be using Korngold’s original instrumentation for string quartet with flute (with piccolo), oboe, clarinet, bassoon, two horns, trumpet, trombone, harp, harmonium, piano, and percussion, and while Mauceri includes five numbers with vocal overlay (while, puzzlingly, then repeating these as purely instrumental numbers), both Storgårds and Klaus Simon use a voice for “Balthasar’s Song” from act two. Strong reminiscences of Walther’s Prize Song (from Die Meistersinger) are reinforced on the Simon recording by Hans Jörg Mammel’s light and fresh-faced tenor (Mati Turi for Storgårds is rather more robust), but Wagnerian overtones are cleverly avoided by Korngold’s delightful use of harp and piano to give this song an altogether more intimate feel.
Written for a production of the play in German and under the German title (Viel Lärmen um Nichts) staged in Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace on 20th May 1920, the reduced scoring was necessitated by the small space available for an orchestra. In his booklet note to this Naxos release Cornelius Bauer suggests that Korngold would “probably have preferred” to write it for full orchestra “as you can hear from the music”. I can hear nothing of the sort! What I can hear is an absolute genius who has masterly used an ensemble of less than 20 players to convey, not only an intimate sound world which would ideally match the live acting on stage, but also an array of colours and effects most orchestrators would need ten times the number of players to achieve. The jolly Overture is full of light-hearted energy, something well brought out by the players of the Holst Sinfonietta, while the Act 2 prelude, with its buoyant horn theme and rustic dance-like character, has a lovely buoyancy with the percussion and piano adding a nice touch of sparkle. Simon brings out the elegant waltz feel of the Prelude to Act 3, although here a little more focus on the violin might have avoided a slightly fussy feel to this essentially graceful movement. Overall, the recording with its lack of acoustic depth, well conveys a sense of the theatre pit, and the equitable balance between all the instruments does give a fine impression of everyone crowded into a small space. But the big regret here is that the harmonium of Korngold’s original orchestration has been replaced by an accordion. Korngold certainly knew what he was about when he made sue of the harmonium with its reedy and husky qualities, the thinner and squeezier sound of an accordion is a very feeble substitute. For that reason, as well as for the fact that, in general, the playing is more polished and the direction more focused, I do not see this as a serious contender to John Storgårds, who produces some outstanding playing from his Finnish musicians.
What makes this newly released Naxos disc particularly interesting is the first recording of Korngold’s incidental music to another play, The Vampire or The Hunted, by the Austrian author Hans Müller-Einigen. A few years earlier Korngold had set one of his libretti as a one-act opera – Violanta – and Müller-Einigen was also librettist for Korngold’s later opera Das Wunder der Heliane. Apparently he turned down Korngold’s request for him to provide a libretto for his greatest operatic success, Die Tote Stadt. Müller-Einigen also worked in the Hollywood film industry writing screenplays for a clutch of movies in the early 1930s, but is probably best known today for having co-written the musical White Horse Inn. His Der Vampir oder Die Gejagten (“The Vampire or the Hunted”) was first staged at the Volkstheater in Vienna on 3 February 1923 with, what was described as, “discrete incidental music” by Korngold, once again written for a small ensemble consisting of flute (with piccolo), percussion, harp, piano, two violins and cello. The original comprised eight short numbers for the first three acts – just around 10 minutes of music – but it seems likely that additional music Korngold wrote for acts four and five have since been lost. On this recording, however, we have what is described as a “concert version” made by Klaus Simon and Cornelius Bauer, which not only uses all the extant music by Korngold but, since the music was designed to play with the drama on stage rather than in any standalone manner, also a version of the story narrated by Ekkehard Abele with extra voices provided by members of the Holst Sinfonietta Chorus (all spoken in German, and because the text remains in copyright, Naxos cannot provide a printed version of the text in translation).
The music comprises a series of illustrative gestures which clearly reflect the drama being performed above it. No.1 is full of suspense and drama, No. 2 is an expressive passage for violin and cello with a fulsome piano accompaniment, No.3 a short burst of 1930s style jazz, No.4 a strangely atonal duet for flute and violin, No.5 a foxtrot for piano solo, No.6 a most boisterous waltz, No.7 a soulful melody for cello which increases in intensity before flying off into the air courtesy of a flute. The piano keeps the drama going until the final musical number, which is little more than three reflective chords from the strings. There really is not enough musical interest here to entice any but the most ardent Korngold fanatic, and there is certainly not enough to identify a clear compositional voice. But the fact that the music is sewn so tightly into the fabric of the stage action does point to a composer with an exceptional astute idea of theatricality.
Marc Rochester
Previous review: Nick Barnard
