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Gracias a la vida – Anne-Lise Polchlopek

It seems not a month goes by without a new recital record from a young artist making an impression. Recently I’ve welcomed recital records from Benjamin Appl, Fatma Said, Harriet Burns, Rachel Fenton and Eva Zalenga , and July saw a recommendation for Julieth Lozano-Rolong’s new disc from Dominy Clements. To this list can now be added the name of French mezzo-soprano, Anne-Lise Polchlopek, a winner of several song competitions, and now an associate artist of the Queen Elizabeth Music Chapel, where this recording was made.

This recital may at first glance appear to be a hotchpotch of different styles, embracing classical Lied, folk and popular music, but Polchlopek somehow integrates these different musical styles into a satisfying whole, and the recital benefits from being listened to at one sitting. It doesn’t get off to the best of starts with her somewhat over-articulated and over-acted singing of Bernstein’s Old Lady Tango (I am easily assimilated) from Candide, but she then sings a beautiful version of Strauss’s Wiegenlied, with a lovely legato line, her mellifluous mezzo wrapping the child in its warm embrace.

From Germany we travel to Spain and France, where we stay for the remainder of the recital. Toldrá is followed by Chaminade, then we switch to guitar accompaniment for Hubert Giraud’s La tendresse, staying with the guitar for an extremely effective performance of Falla’s Nana, from his Siete canciones populares españolas.

We go back to the piano for Fauré’s Les berceaux, in which she builds nicely to the climax, and then we have Messiaen’s early Trois melodies, where she captures to perfection the ecstasy of the writing, especially in the final song, la fiancée perdue.

 These are followed by three songs in a lighter vein by Chaminade, Pauline Viardot and Gerónimo Giménez, all wonderfully characterised. Perhaps incongruously (but somehow it works) Voi che sapete from Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro acts as a bridge to Michel Polnareff’s Mes regrets, a beautiful song about lost love, which is followed by Fauré’s Toujours.

This in turn is followed by Gérard Jouannest’s La chanson des vieux aimants, with lyrics by Jacques Brel, a song I had previously only known in a version by Judy Collins. Suffice it to say that Polchlopek’s intensely moving performance put any thoughts of Collins out of my mind completely.

Throughout the piano accompaniments of Federico Tibone contribute wonderfully to the success of the disc, as do the guitar accompaniments of Pierre Laniau, who accompanies her on Tamás Méndez’s charming Cucurrucucu paloma, which I seem to remember was a favourite of Nana Mouskouri. He also accompanies her on the Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen and Satie’s La diva de l’empire, though I did feel the Bizet was slightly out of place here, coming, as it did, after the piano accompanied Poulenc Les métamorphoses and before the Satie.

We return to piano accompaniment for Montsalvatge’s Canto negro, which she sings with charm and spirit, relishing the yambambós, as Victoria De Los Angeles did before her.

All three participants come together for the final song, Violetta Parra’s Gracias a la vida, a fitting end to a journey on which Anne-Lise Polchlopek has proved to be a most musical guide. Throughout she clearly and meaningfully enunciates the text, and it is clear she has a rare gift for communication that makes her an ideal recitalist.

Unfortunately, though the notes accompanying the disc are in English, the online texts are only in the original language, French, Spanish, German, or in the case of the Bernstein, English, and translations would have helped for a total appreciation of Polchlopek’s art. However, I thoroughly enjoyed this disc, and I look forward to hearing more of Anne-Lise Polchlopek.

Anne-Lise Polchlopek (mezzo-soprano) Gracias a la vida (Fuga Libera)
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Glen Cunningham’s Heart is in the Highlands

An interesting programme of Scottish inspired songs, but Cunningham’s tenor is a little too much on the dry side for my liking.

My Heart’s in the Highlands

Glen Cunningham (tenor)  Anna Tilbrook (piano)

The young tenor, Glen Cunningham, and his pianist, Anna Tilbrook, celebrate their Scottish heritage in a programme of music connected to Scotland, not only in the folk orientated songs of Robbie Burns, but also in settings of Burns by Schumann, and Robert Louis Stevenson by Liza Lehmann and Reynaldo Hahn. To these are added a completely new song cycle, also to texts by Robert Louis Stevenson, by the Scottish composer, Stuart MacRae.

It makes for an interesting programme, with the folk song settings framing the songs by Schumann, Lehmann, MacRae and Hahn. Thus, we start with a setting of Burns’s Ca’ the yowes to the knows in an arrangement by Claire Liddell, which segues into the eight songs from Schumann’s Myrthen, which set texts by Burns in German translation. They are possibly less well known than other songs from Myrthen, like Widmung or Der Nussbaum, and I doubt anyone would guess the Scottish provenance of these Schumann songs. Nor, I wager, would anyone guess that the  song Dem Roten Röslein Gleicht Mein Lieb from Schumann’s Opus 27 Lieder und Gesänge is actually a setting in German of the famous My love is like a red, red rose, which follows it.

Liza Lehmann is less well represented in the catalogue than Schumann, though a selection of the songs from The Daisy-Chain have been recorded by mixed voices and are available on the Naxos label. Cunningham selects four of the five songs to texts by Robert Louis Stevenson. These are children’s songs to be performed by skilled adults, and the vocal writing is often taxing, Stars, for instance, requiring the sort of lyrical outpouring that Cunningham’s rather dry tenor is not quite capable of. Toby Spence manages it slightly better on the above Naxos recording, but it really needs a fuller voice than either of these two tenors can provide.

Two of the texts are also set by Reynaldo Hahn in his Five Little Songs, written while Hahn was a private in the French army during World War I, where he saw action on the front line. These too are settings of Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘children’s songs’, though it is unlikely that any child could sing or play them. They are quite charming, though, yet again, there is nothing particularly Scottish about them.

Not surprisingly, I suppose, the most Scottish sounding of the songs are those by Stuart MacRae, particularly For age an’ youth, which sets a Scots style vocal line against a sort of imitation bagpipe in the piano accompaniment. Cunningham is at his best in these songs, but even here I wanted more of tonal beauty. He compensates with the intelligence of his delivery, but throughout I’m afraid I found his vibrato intrusive and the sound he makes unpleasantly hard and uningratiating.

I should just mention that Anna Tilbrook is a most sensitive accompanist and adapts brilliantly to the style of each composer.

The recital ends with the title song, My heart’s in the Highlands, in an arrangement by Michael Barnett (and supplemented by Tilbrook) that was transcribed from a 1962 Kenneth McKellar recording. I just wish that Cunningham sang it with some of McKellar’s beauty of tone.

My heart’s in the Highlands (Delphian)
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A reappraisal of Callas’s second studio Norma

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The Pristine XR remaster gives us the chance to reappraise a set which is slightly controversial in that it captures Callas in late career with occasional flaps on top notes. Nonetheless it was Ralph Moore’s overall top choice in his opera survey and he had no problem recommending it when he reviewed this Pristine issue in July of this year (review).

For my part, I’ve known the set for over sixty years now. It was actually the first opera set I ever owned, and, for quite a few months, the only opera set I owned, so I got to know it pretty well. Since then of course, I have heard a fair amount of other Normas, Sutherland, Caballé, Scotto, Sills, Eaglen, Bartoli (please, never again), Sass live at Covent Garden (disastrous) and plenty more by Callas herself; the live 1952 Covent Garden, the 1954 studio, the 1955 Rome broadcast and, best of all, the live 1955 La Scala, as well as excerpts from many others, right up to her final performances in the role in Paris in 1964.

So how does it hold up? Well, pretty well actually. Sonically, it was always pretty good, and, if I’m honest, I can’t hear that much difference between the most recent Warner version and the Pristine version. Perhaps there is a bit more space around the voices in the Pristine version, but it is the difference is slight.

As for Callas’s voice, it is true, notes above the stave have taken on a metallic edge, and they don’t always fall easily on the ear, but the middle and lower timbres have a newfound beauty, and a characterisation that was always complex and multi-faceted has taken on an even greater depth, parts of it voiced more movingly here than anywhere else.

There are other gains too. The cast here is a vast improvement on the earlier studio one, Corelli in particular being a shining presence. Fillipeschi was a liability on the earlier set, but, whilst not quite a paragon, and chary of some of the coloratura in his role (Serafin making a further cut in the great In mia man duet to accommodate his lack of flexibility), Corelli’s is a notable presence, and his clarion voice is ample compensation. Zaccaria may be less authoritative than the woolly voiced Rossi-Lemeni, but his tones are distinctly more buttery. Ludwig is an unexpected piece of casting, but she too is an improvement on Stignani, who, great singer though she was, was beginning to sound a bit over the hill by the time of the first Callas recording (she was 50 to Callas’s 30). Ludwig sounds, as she should, like the younger woman. Her coloratura isn’t always as accurate as one would like, certainly no match for Callas, but she sings most sympathetically in duet with her older colleague, and Mira o Norma is, for me, one of the greatest performances on disc. After Ludwig states the main theme, Callas comes in quietly almost imperceptibly and at a slightly slower tempo with an unbearably moving Ah perche, perche, her voice taking on a disembodied pathetic beauty. When Ludwig joins her for the section in thirds, she perfectly matches Callas’s tone on her first note, before Callas joins her in harmony, a real example of artists listening to each other in a sense of true collaboration.

One should I suppose mention the losses from the earlier recording. Yes, some of Callas’s top notes are shrill, and we lose some of the barnstorming heroics that were a part of Callas’s Norma right up to 1955. This Norma is more feminine, more vulnerable, if you like. How much this had to do with interpretive development, and how much with declining vocal resources is a moot point, but there is no doubt Callas is still a great singer, doing the best she can with what she has. Some sections are more moving here than in any of her other performances. I’ve already singled out Mira o Norma but the earlier duet is its equal, with Callas wistfully recalling her own awakening to first love.

The beginning of Act II always brought out the best in her, and here she is sublime. Dormono entrambi is an unusual piece which alternates passages of recitative with arioso, rather like Rigoletto’s Pari siamo. Callas draws on all the colours in her palette to express Norma’s contrasting emotions. You can almost feel the chill that comes over her at un gel me prende e in fronte si solleva il crin followed by the choked emotion of I figli uccidi! The arioso of Teneri figli is couched in a tone of infinite, poignant sadness, but then her tone hardens with her resolve at Di Pollion son figli, before, with a cry she drops the knife (and we can almost hear the precise moment), crying out Ah no, son miei figli! Operatic singing and acting on the highest level.

Serafin’s conducting is much as it was in the first set. He has the virtue of not conducting the opera as if it were Verdi, as so many do. Sometimes I’d like him to get a move on a bit, but his pacing of the final two duets (one in public, one in private) is superb, and he perfectly judges the climaxes in the Grand Finale, one of the greatest in all opera.

I wouldn’t want to be without Callas’s 1955 live La Scala account (also available from Pristine) with Del Monaco and Simionato, which is where voice and art find their greatest equilibrium, but for a studio set, this is now clearly the one to go for. One thing is for sure, Callas remains the quintessential Norma. No singer has yet challenged her hegemony in the role.

 

Bellini: Norma (Pristine Audio)
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Michael Spyres – In The Shadows

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This is a luxury recital indeed. Over 84 minutes, we are presented with twelve operatic scenes, performed complete with chorus when required and another soloist (in the shape of tenor Julien Henric) who plays Flavio in the scene for Pollione from Norma. Furthermore, we are vouchsafed sung texts and translations into English, French and German, which is important as many of the scenes are not exactly familiar. Clearly all concerned have taken their task seriously.

In the accompanying notes, Spyres talks of his journey towards Wagner and states that the album “endeavours to illuminate the composers who languish in Wagner’s shadow: those who formed the foundation of the compositional aesthetic and sculpted the framework of vocal writing that would become the Wagnerian tenor.”

Thus, we start with Joseph Méhul (1763-1817) and work our way forward roughly chronologically via Beethoven, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Weber, Spontini, Bellini and Marschner to Wagner himself in the shape of arias from his early Die Feen and Rienzi, finishing up with Lohengrin. Of the arias chosen, only those from Fidelio, Norma and Lohengrin could be called in any way familiar, so the recital is certainly valuable for introducing us to some little heard music.

The disc has been reviewed in these pages by Göran Forsling (review) and was even a recording of the month back in April, and I largely agree with that review with one or two caveats.

I actually heard Spyres live at a Prom in 2017, in a performance of Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust with the Orchestrre Révolutionnaire et Romantique under Sir John Eliot Gardiner and, whilst impressed with his interpretation and musicality, I didn’t think the voice was particularly large. Now of course this was seven years ago, and there is a good chance that the voice has grown since then, but I’m not so taken with his singing in those roles that require a bit more dramatic thrust, like Florestan and Pollione. I hear a somewhat artificial darkening of the timbre, which results in a rather throaty sound. He sounds as if he is forcing his lyrical voice, and his tone lacks squillo. Comparisons with Vickers in the former and Corelli in the latter find Vickers singing with a deal more intensity and Corelli, whom I had just recently been listening to in the second Callas recording, much freer on top.

When we get to Wagner himself, Mein Lieber Schwann from Lohengrin is sensitively sung, but there is no ring to his tone when he opens out in the more dramatic parts. GF makes comparison with Gedda, who sang Lohengrin a couple of times in his native Sweden. Ultimately Gedda thought it an unsuccessful experiment, and he never sang the role again, evidently thinking the role too heavy for his essentially lyrical voice. However, as can be heard in his recording of the aria, Gedda’s tone had a good deal more squillo. That said, I heard Gedda live in the Verdi Requiem towards the end of his career and his voice had a great deal more cutting power than Spyres.

With his three albums, Batitenor, Contra-Tenor and now In The Shadows, Spyres is showcasing his versatility, but I just wonder how much of that versatility is a product of the gramophone. Given the encomiums he has been receiving of late, I hate to be the one dissenting opinion, but I do wonder if his voice is being forced into places it shouldn’t necessarily go.

Contents
Etienne-Nicolas Méhul (1763 -1817)
1. Joseph en Égypte, « Vainement Pharaon… Champs paternels
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
2. Fidelio, « Gott! Welch Dunkel hier!… In des Lebens
Gioacchino Rossini (1792 – 1868)
3. Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra, « Della cieca fortuna… Sposa amata… Saziati, o sorte ingrata ?
Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791 – 1864)
4. Il crociato in Egitto – « Suona funerea
Carl Maria von Weber (1786 – 1824)
5. Der Freischütz – « Nein, Länger Trag Ich Nicht
Daniel François Esprit Auber (1782 -1871)
6. La muette de Portici- « Spectacle affreux …
Gaspare Spontini (1774 – 1851)
7. Agnes von Hohenstaufen, « Der Strom wälzt ruhig seine dunklen Wogen
Vincenzo Bellini (1801 – 1835)
8. Norma – « Meco all’altar di Venere…Me protegge, me difende (with Julien Henric (tenor))
Heinrich Marschner 1795 – 1861)
9. Hans Heiling op. 80 – “Gonne mir ein wort der Liebe” 
Richard Wagner (1813 – 1883)
10. Die Feen WWV 32 – « Wo find ich dich, wo wird mir Trost?
Richard Wagner
11. Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen WWV 49, « Allmächt’ger Vater, blick herab
Richard Wagner
12. Lohengrin WWV 75, « Mein lieber Schwan

 

Michael Spyres (tenor): In The Shadows (Erato)
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Mariss Jansons conducts the Mozart Requiem

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Mariss Jansons was chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra until his untimely death in 2019, a post he had held since 2003. He had a long and fruitful association with the orchestra and BR Klassik have released many of his live concerts on disc. Indeed, they have recently brought many of these together in a seventy-disc set.

This performance of the Mozart Requiem was recorded at concerts in May of 2017. Jansons uses the famous Süssmayr completion, and the performance is unashamedly in the Romantic tradition. There is nothing controversial about it, speeds for the most part judiciously chosen, and yet, for me, it never quite catches fire, comparing unfavourably with another live Jansons performance with the Concertgebouw from 2011, which was very favourably reviewed on Musicweb International by Simon Thompson (review). Two of the soloists on the present recording, soprano, Genia Kühmeier and tenor, Mark Padmore sing on that performance too. Kühmeier is lovely in both performances, but Padmore sounds marginally fresher and sweeter in the earlier one, which also has a superb Gerard Finley singing the bass role and Bernarda Fink in the alto part. Elisabeth Kulman and Adam Plachetka, on this issue, are fine, but not quite in the same league.

I listened three times, comparing this one to the earlier one, as well as listening to a similarly big-boned interpretation in the form of Karajan’s 1987 performance, both of which I found much more intensely dramatic. The Karajan, which dates from his final years with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is, I think, his finest of the three he has recorded for DG, and has a reverence and spirituality that I found lacking here. It was hard to put my finger on what was missing in the Jansons, but there are times, like the startling opening to the Confutatis, which jolted me out of my seat, when it felt as if Jansons himself knew something was amiss and was trying to inject some drama or extra energy into the performance. The final lux aeterna, on the other hand, rather trundles towards its conclusion and is greeted by a tepidly polite round of applause, making me wonder why this broadcast was considered for release, especially given the competition from Jansons himself in the much finer Concertgebouw performance, which is also better recorded. Even with the volume turned up quite high, the recording of the Bavarian broadcast is a little distant, a little muddy, and I wondered if this too contributed to my muted impressions.

Well worth considering, if you are wanting the Süssmayer version, is John Butt’s superb reconstruction of the first performance, released by Linn in 2014, which of course uses original instruments. (review) Though the forces are much smaller, it is incisively dramatic and brilliantly recorded, though I personally would prefer any of Jansons’ soloists in either of his two recordings. The bass on the Butt recording is particularly weak and tends to growl in the lower register, no match for Finley, nor even for Plachetka.

If you do want Jansons in this work, then I would suggest you stick to the Concertgebouw performance, which can certainly hold its head up amongst the best of the many recordings on modern instruments.

Mozart: Requiem (BR Klassik)
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In Relations – Eva Zalenga and Doriana Tchakarova

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The back page of the booklet that comes with this CD has a complicated diagram, which attempts to display and unravel the various connections between the composers and poets featured in this recital. We all know about the friendship that existed between Mendelssohn and Schumann, but did you know that Loewe, who also made music with Mendelssohn, taught the composer Emilie Mayer, who set poems by Heine, as of course did Loewe and Schumann? So did Meyerbeer, though his only connection with Mendelssohn and Schumann is that they both were vocal in disparaging his music.

The aim is evidently to bring some unity to what is essentially a recital of nineteenth century Romantic songs by both male and female composers, most of which are not exactly regular visitors to the concert platform. It’s a nice idea and it can be fun trying to trace the connections between the various personages represented in this recital, though certainly not necessary for the enjoyment of it.

We begin with Meyerbeer, who is better known for his large-scale operas, none of which have ever held much interest for me. The three songs we get here are rather charming and tuneful, though they don’t quite escape the epithet of parlour music. These are followed by a couple of songs by Loewe, the first a setting of Meine Ruh ist hin, a poem better known to us as Schubert’s Gretchen am Spinnrade. Loewe’s setting is less grippingly intense but it does tell the story well.. Loewe’s accompaniments are worth noting and they are brilliantly played by Doriana Tchakarova, who supports her soloist at every turn.

Mendelssohn’s Hexenlied is better known than the songs we have heard so far and it really calls for a little more variety of timbre than Zalenga has yet at her disposal.  On the other hand Zalenga’s bright, youthful soprano is perfectly apt for the Suleika songs that follow. The Schumann songs go well too, though I would have preferred a little more sense of breathless excitement in Aufträge, such as we hear in older versions by Elisabeth Schumann and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.

For the rest we are given some rarities by women composers, both of whom were entirely new to me. Emilie Mayer, who died in 1883 (not 1833 as the booklet has it) was the first woman to have her symphonies performed all over Europe. The two songs included here no doubt had an eye on the popular publication market and, like the Meyerbeer, have more than a whiff of the salon about them. Nonetheless I was pleased to make their acquaintance. That said, I found the Heine settings of the English composer, Frances Illitsen, even more interesting. All three are worth investigating, in particular the setting of Heine’s Katherine, which is a glorious outpouring of lyrical melody.

This recital would appear to be the recording debut of the young soprano Eva Zalenga. She has a lovely, light soprano which faintly reminded me of the young Lucia Popp. I see from her website that her operatic roles are Papagena, Barbarina, Susanna, Ännchen, and also Sophie in Werther, all of which would seem right for her at the moment. I can also imagine her making an excellent Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier. As yet the voice doesn’t have a great range of colour at its disposal, but this does not mean she sings without feeling. Throughout she is a most musical singer and keenly responsive to the poetry. You really feel she connects with each of the songs

I wish Hänssler had vouchsafed us translations of the German texts, but, nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed this journey through some of the byways of nineteenth century Romantic song. An auspicious recording debut for Eva Zalenga.

Contents:

Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864)

Komm

Meerestille

Suleika

Carl Loewe (1796 – 1869)

Meine Ruh’ ist hin, Op. 9, no. 2

Die verliebte Schläferin, Op. 9, no. 3

Ihr Spaziergang, Op. 9, no.4

Die Schneeflocke, Op. 63, no. 1

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Hexenlied, Op 8, no. 8

Suleika, Op. 57, no.3

Suleika, Op. 34, no. 4

Die Nonne, Op. 9 no. 12

Robert Schumann (1810 – 1856)

Liebeslied, Op. 5, no. 5

Aufträge, Op. 77, no. 5

Viel Glück zur Reise, Schwalben! Op. 104, no. 2

Die letzten Blumen starben, Op. 104, no. 6

Aus den östlichen Rosen, Op. 25, no. 5

Singet nicht in Trauertönen, Op. 98a

Emilie Mayer (1812 – 1883)

Du bist wie eine Blume, Op. 71 no. 1

Das Schlüsselloch im Herzen

Frances Allitsen (1848 – 1912)

Katherine

Mag, da draußen Schnee sich thürmen

Die Botschaft

In Relations – recital (Hänssler Classic)
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Eilika Wünsch – Romantic Songs

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There are times when one wonders how a record came to be released.

According to the accompanying notes, the premise for this album would appear to be “a completely new approach to our lieder recital repertoire … in which voice and piano are enhanced by another melody instrument”. Whether this enhancement is either desirable or necessary is a moot point, but I suppose the idea of the cello taking over the second vocal line in the adaptation of duets is one solution to the non-availability of a second singer. The accompanying notes would also seem to suggest that these arrangements improve in some way on the originals, even of the two songs from Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder, which of course were written for full orchestra.  I can assure you they do not.

However, the greatest impediment to enjoyment is not the arrangements themselves but the solo singer. According to the biographical notes, Eilika Wünsch has been active since around 2010, when she worked with Jörg Demus. She would appear to have a fairly extensive discography, though I can’t find a single review on the internet for any of her discs, or for any of her public appearances. We are also told that she has sung the roles of Butterfly, Konstanze, Donna Anna, Violetta, Gilda and the Queen of the Night, about all of which I am faintly incredulous.  The first few notes of the opening song, Nacht und Träume, are sung in a white, vibrato-less tone, but thereafter any single sustained note emerges unfocused and unsteady. She struggles so much with the execution of the notes that any attempt at interpretation is completely absent. The cover photo shows us an attractive young woman, but the sounds coming from the speakers are those of a (very) old soprano. I am sorry to be so negative, but I really can’t find anything positive to say about this recital. Listening all the way to the end proved quite a trial, but listen I did, right through to the final song, which is a vocalise arrangement of Schubert’s famous Impromptu, Op.90, no.3. The arrangement takes her well up above the stave, where the sound that emerges is somewhere between a whistle and a theremin and quite unpleasant – to my ears at least.

This is one of those cases where comparisons are irrelevant. One to be avoided, I’m afraid.

Contents, in case anyone is interested.

  1. Schubert: Nacht und Träume
  2. Brahms: Wie Melodien zieht es mir
  3. Reger: Nachts
  4. Schumann: Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär
  5. Brahms: Am Strande
  6. Schumann: In der Nacht
  7. Liszt: O komm im Traum
  8. R. Strauss: Im Abendnrot
  9. Reger: Abendlied
  10. R. Strauss: Beim Schlafengehen
  11. Schumann: Mondnacht
  12. Schubert: Auf dem Strom
  13. Impormpti, Op. 90 no. 3 (as Vocalise)
Romantic Songs – So tief im Abendrot (Hänssler Classic)
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Love’s Lasting Power – Schubert Lieder

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The English soprano, Harriet Burns, still in her early 30s, has been getting some great reviews in the music press of late, some of them for this recital of Schubert Lieder, and indeed there is a great deal to celebrate here. She and her accompanist, Ian Tindale, were recent winners of the Contemporary Song Prize in the International Vocal Competition at ‘s-Hertogenbosch and this is their debut recital. They have put together a group of Schubert Lieder on the subject of love in all its guises, from, as the notes tell us, “many-splendoured and joyous to tragic and rejected.” Some of the songs will be familiar, some maybe less so, but it is a very well-considered and thoughtful programme.

First impressions are of the sheer beauty of Burns’ voice, which is a full, lyric soprano. Its creamy richness would no doubt be perfect for Strauss’s soaring soprano lines, and I see she is soon to add the Vier letzte Lieder to her repertoire, though initially in a recital with piano accompaniment. I would also highlight her musicality and her thoughtful response to the text, though here I would appreciate crisper diction. Sometimes the words are not clear enough. However, all in all, there is a great deal of pleasure to be derived from this recital and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

That said, when getting a little more specific in my listening, one or two doubts started to creep in. Take for example the longest song on the disc, Viola. This song, which is almost 13 minutes long, is in the nature of a mini-scena, its many  changes of attitude signposted by the accompaniment and masterfully managed by Tindale. These changes of mood cry out for a change of colour or attitude from the singer but Burns rarely responds accordingly and when one turns to the same song as sung by Anne-Sophie von Otter, it is to hear a much more specific response to the text and the accompaniment.

Comparisons are invidious, but perhaps inevitable, and it was the same story with most of the other songs I sampled in different performances. I would like more characterisation and personality in Die Männer sind méchant and that is what we get from, for instance, Lotte Lehmann and Janet Baker. There is also much more complexity to be found in Suleika I. Though the sounds of nature depicted in the poem are gentle and reassuring they don’t quell the anxiety in the poet’s heart in the absence of his lover. We hear this in the accompaniment, and we hear it in the voice of Janet Baker, but not in the voice of Burns.

I sampled a few more versions of one of the most well-known songs here Der Jüngling and der Quelle and it was to find that Elisabeth Schumann, Lottle Lehmann, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Elly Ameling and Lucia Popp are all more communicative with the text and much more specific in their response to it. Burns is beautiful, expressive, but more generalised and this is the only criticism I have of a recital which is, in all other respects, more than promising from an artist, who is no doubt still developing.

The final song is Seligkeit, one of those songs which is often taken much too fast, but for which she and Tindale find the perfect tempo here.  Burns is delightful, responding well to its note of blithely carefree happiness. A perfect way to end a highly enjoyable recital. Both soprano and accompanist are clearly ones to watch.

Schubert: Lieder. Love’s Lasting Power (Delphian)
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Reflet – Sandrine Piau sings French orchestral songs

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I know Sandrine Piau principally as a singer of Baroque and Classical music, but she has recently been venturing into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and this is the second disc in a series, which began with a disc of orchestral songs by Strauss, Berg and Zemlinsky entitled Clair-Obscur. The notes accompanying the disc tell us that that earlier disc sought to explore “the confrontation between shadow and light,” whilst this one “evokes the nuances and transparencies of the French mélodie.”

Essentially what we have here is a nicely put together programme of French orchestral song, starting with Berlioz and taking us through to Britten’s early Ravelian Quatre chansons Françaises via Duparc, Koechlin, Debussy and Ravel himself. The programme is not long (under an hour) and is fleshed out with André Caplet’s orchestration of Debussy’s Clair de lune and Ernest Ansermet’s of the sixth of his 6 Epigraphes antiques. Admirably as the orchestra plays throughout under Verdier, these add very little to the programme and I would have welcomed more songs, maybe something by Chausson, Delage or Canteloube, or more by Koechlin, who is not so well represented in the catalogue. If I’m honest, I prefer the Debussy items in their original piano guise. Unlike Ravel’s orchestrations of his own piano pieces, the arrangements don’t really improve on the originals.

The Koechlin songs were new to me, and I rather wish Piau had explored more than the three we have here. If they pique your curiosity, as they did mind, then they are available sung by Juliane Banse, along with a lot more of Koechlin’s vocal works with orchestra, in a two disc set in Hänssler’s Koechlin edition. What we have here is two songs from his early 4 poèmes d’Edmond Haraucourt. Op.7, and one from the slightly later 3 mélodies, Op. 17. If they lack some of Duparc’s natural melodic gift, they are nonetheless lushly orchestrated and rather beautiful  and make an excellent partner for the two Duparc songs.

If the Koechlin songs afforded me the most pleasure, that could be because I didn’t know them before and therefore had no point of comparison, whereas I know all the other material rather well. I’ve loved the Britten songs since they were first recorded in the 1980s. Admittedly one can hear the influence of Ravel, particularly of Shéhérazade, but they are remarkably assured from a boy of fourteen and they do not feel out of place here, whilst the sparer textures of Ravel’s Mallarmé settings, written for two clarinets, two flutes, piano and string quartet, provide a nice contrast to the lush orchestrations of the rest.

Piau is now in her fifties and the voice has lost a little of its bloom on high. She also uses what the late John Steane once referred to as a squeeze-box method of vocal production, a tendency to move note by note rather than in a long line, which, once noticed, is hard to ignore. I also hear a slight sense of strain in the Britten songs, particularly at the close of the final song, which is not as radiant as it should be, and as it is in the performances of Jill Gomez, who made the first recording of them for EMI under Simon Rattle, and Felicity Lott, who recorded them for Chandos under Bryden Thomson.

The opening Berlioz Le spectre de la rose is taken a mite too fast for my taste and is a little on the cool side, but it does rather set the general tone of the recital. If you like it, then you will no doubt like the whole disc, but I found Piau a little lacking in involvement, a little detached.

I don’t want to belabour the point too much, because this is a very enjoyable programme, well considered and well put together and, for the most part, Piau’s singing is quite lovely, but, in the Berlioz, Duparc, Ravel and Britten, I found myself inwardly hearing the voices of some of those who have preceded her. Still, if you’re looking for a mixed programme of nineteenth and early twentieth century French orchestral song, then this disc will provide a lot of enjoyment.

 

Sandrine Piau (soprano) Reflet (Alpha Classics)
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Callas’s 1959 Lucia di Lammermoor gets the Pristine treatment

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Callas’s second stereo recording of Lucia di Lammermoor, which I reviewed when it was reissued by Warner , has always been considered one of her best from a sonic point of view, so, as someone who has not always been totally convinced by some of Andrew Rose’s re-mastering methods, I wondered how, if at all, the sound could be improved upon. Let me say straight away that I found this latest addition to Pristine’s Callas catalogue totally convincing. Using the Warner remaster of 2014 for comparison, I found the sound altogether warmer and much more comfortable to listen to, closer in fact to how I remember the LPs that I used to own (a German EMI Electrola issue, bought as an import). The Warner is perhaps slightly clearer, but the digitalisation tends to add glare to Callas’s top register. Often one is prepared to flinch before the topmost notes, but I had no such problems when listening to this Pristine pressing. I couldn’t say which is the more truthful, but I can say that the Pristine is much more comfortable to listen to and this, in turn, affected my impressions of the set, a recording I have known since my youth and was in fact my introduction to the opera.

Lucia was one of the cornerstones of her repertoire, and she first sang it in 1952 in Mexico. The following year she sang the role again in Florence, where she made her first recording of the role under Serafin. It was also the first recording she made for EMI. Back in those days, the opera wasn’t taken very seriously and was most likely considered a silly Italian opera in which a doll-like coloratura soprano ran around the stage showing off her high notes and flexibility. Callas returned a proper tragic dimension to the role, that most hadn’t even suspected was there. There is a touching story of Toti Dal Monti, an erstwhile famous Lucia herself, visiting Callas in her dressing room after a performance of the opera with tears running down her face and confessing she had sung the role for years with no idea of its dramatic potential.

When Callas first sang  Lucia in Mexico and recorded it in Florence, she was at the peak of her vocal plenitude, as she was when she first sang it under Karajan at La Scala in 1954, but by the time she sang the role in Berlin in 1955 post weight loss, when Karajan took the La Scala company there, her voice had started to lighten and her conception of the role had become more inward. We can hear this in the famous live recording of one of the Berlin performances, but, for this 1959 recording, she appears to have taken this approach one step further. This may have had something to do with her by now fading vocal resources, but it results in a particularly touching portrayal of the innocent, young, impressionable girl. She has also trimmed away some of the showier variations in the cadenza in the Mad Scene, and the decorations are in consequence somewhat more modest. Am I alone in preferring it sung this way? Personally, I’d prefer to do without all that duetting with the flute altogether, as happens in the complete recording of the opera with Caballé and when Sylvia Sass sings it on one of her recital records. In any case, apart from a few of Callas’s topmost notes, she is in remarkably good voice and the filigree of the role is brilliantly executed with fluid and elegant ease. All in all, I prefer her performance in this set to the one on the 1953 Florence studio recording, not least because of the improved Pristine sound picture.

However, when it comes to her colleagues on this set, I am a little less well disposed towards them than Göran Forsling in his review of the digital download. Ferrucio Tagliavini was 45 at the time of this recording, but he sounds much older, more like an elderly roué than the Byronic Romantic figure of Scott’s and Donizetti’s imaginings. No amount of elegant phrasing can make up for his lack of sheer physical passion and I find myself longing for Di Stefano’s youthful ardour. As for Cappuccilli, he was at the very beginning of his considerable career, and he has yet to find a way of creating character in pure sound. He is just rather dull and no match for Gobbi on the earlier recording or for Panerai in Berlin. Bernard Ladysz makes very little impression at all and both Rafaele Arie and Nicola Zaccaria are preferable.

Serafin, as always, though he may not make any startling revelations, shapes the score with a perfect sense of its dramatic shape, albeit with the cuts that were traditional at the time. Karajan opened up some of those in his performances, and I would still place the 1955 Berlin performance at the top of all Callas’s recorded Lucias, especially in Divina Records latest remastering, but I enjoyed re-visiting this set and I have a feeling I’ll be reaching for this one more regularly than the earlier 1953 recording, not least because of the superior quality of Pristine’s remastering.

My only criticism is of the cover art, which has a photograph of Callas as Lucia in Florence in 1953, when she was still a rather large lady. One could be forgiven for thinking, at first glance, that this was the earlier recording. Surely a photo of the svelte Callas as Lucia would have been more appropriate. There are plenty of them, after all.

Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor (Pristine Audio)