Karajan does have a tendency to take plodding tempi
especially in the choruses and chorales. The chorus, the Wiener Singverein
(which Brahms headed for a while), produce textures which lack clarity
of focus with a cloying sound. This is compounded by irritating sopranos
who cannot seem to hit the note spot in the middle, but always scoop
up from a flat start. Seefried sounds rather timid at first in ‘Blute
nur’ as if she might have been intimidated by Ferrier’s presence, but
then it all seems to grow in confidence as the aria progresses. Her
voice was always noted for its lightness and charm, but here it’s also
a matter of distance from the microphones. The sleeve-notes list one
of the organists as Anton Heiler but I’m assuming this is meant to be
that eminent Austrian organist and composer Anton Heiller. As in the
case of Seefried some of the accompanying wind instruments, particularly
the pairs of oboes, could have been more closely recorded. One of the
highlights is the duet for Seefried and Ferrier ‘So ist mein Jesu’,
a gorgeous blend of voices and both of them blessed with lung-power
capable of sustaining Karajan’s slow tempo and even the chorus rises
to the occasion with those dramatic interjections demanding Jesus’ release.
Listen out for the 21 year-old Walter Berry, who takes the minor role
of the interrogator Pontifex (High Priest) in the second part (CD 2,
tracks 6 and 9).
As with so many of these historical recordings one
has to put up with an awful lot of unfamiliar or outmoded styles and
unwanted noises off in order to relish their joys, but joys there are
aplenty here despite the apparently negative start to this review. This
is a live recording made at the Vienna International Bach Festival,
a fortnight of the composer’s instrumental and choral music, which took
place in the summer of 1950 to celebrate the bicentenary of his death.
Sound restoration is good but plagued by creaking floorboards, coughing
or by soloists clearing their throats in preparation for their next
entry. Whether Karajan’s view of Bach is to your taste will probably
depend upon whether or not you want the discs for the uniqueness of
Kathleen Ferrier’s voice. Her distinctive qualities, and they are truly
marvellous, remind us that coming up to the 50th anniversary
of her death next year, 2003, she is by no means forgotten. They are
matched by other pleasures, notably Paul Schöffler’s majestic Jesus,
while Walther Ludwig’s masterful Evangelist is nowhere better than at
the moment the cock crows at Peter’s third denial of Christ, his weeping
full of tension and poignant drama. It is followed by the zenith of
this performance, Ferrier’s emotionally charged account of ‘Erbarme
dich’ (an aria she made a speciality almost as much as Gluck’s ‘Che
faro’ from Orfeo) accompanied by an anonymous but divinely poignant
violin solo from, presumably, the leader of the orchestra. Bach surely
had Kathleen Ferrier in mind 200 years earlier when he wrote this miracle
work.
Christopher Fifield
