Reviews
GMCD 7254 20th Century
Songs - Switzerland
MusicWeb -
Thursday December 26 02
RECORDING OF THE MONTH
Hesperos -
20th Century Songs - Switzerland
Othmar SCHOECK (1886-1957)
Zwölf Eichendorff-Lieder Op. 30 (1917-18):-
Waldeinsamkeit; Kurze fahrt; Winternacht; Im wandern; Sterbeglocken; Ergebung;
Nachklang; Der versspätete Wanderer; Nacht; An die Lützowschen Jäger; Auf dem
Rhein
Meinrad SCHÜTTER (b.1910)
Ausgewählte Lieder (1931-1994):-
Dumonda (Bitte); Herbsttag; Der Tod; Die Müden sterne; Nächtliche Lampe; Zona
dal Plaschair (Zone des Vergnügens); Favuogn (Föhnmorgen)
Andrea Lorenzo SCARTAZZINI (b. 1971)
Sappho-Lieder (2002):-
Dieser morgen war; In der mitte des tages; Hesperos du bist der; Der mond in der
dämerrung; Die sterne gehen wie kienspäne; An meinem bett stand sie.
 Michael
Leibundgut (bass)
Ute Stoecklin (piano) rec Theodor-Egel-Saal, Freiburg, Germany 16-17 Jan 2002 (Schoeck;
Schütter; 4 May 2002 (Scartazzini), DDD
GUILD GMCD
7254 [55.23]
This CD consists of
twelve songs, settings of the great Eichendorff and written during the very
darkest of times in 1917-18, by Othmar Schoeck. Seven selected songs written by
Meinrad Schütter at times between 1931 and 1994 and taken from various
song-cycles and finally the ‘Sappho Fragments’ completed earlier this year
(2002) by Andrea Scartazzini. So the recording gives us a fascinating over-view
of modern lieder by three of Switzerland’s leading 20th and 21st
Century composers.
Michael Leibundgut is a
young and very impressive talent. He has a rich and plaintive bass voice with a
wonderful profundo register when needed and a beautiful top voice, which is
perfectly at ease above the clef. His middle register rings sonorously and his
performance is often breathtaking in its musicality and, at times, virtuosity,
although more vocal colour is needed in the Schoeck songs. But supporting a fine
singer there is always a fine accompanist as here. Never should the influence of
the experienced Ute Stoecklin be overlooked; they make a fine team.
It seems to me to be
quite true, as Ute Stoecklin points out in the very useful booklet notes, that a
line of lieder composers can be clearly drawn from Schubert and Schumann,
through Brahms into Wolf and Richard Strauss and then into Othmar Schoeck who,
although his output is little known in Britain is very highly regarded by
Germanic singers and quite rightly too. I cannot quite feel that the path should
follow into Schütter’s work but given time Scartazzini, if he chooses to go down
that line, may be included.
Schoeck is a Romantic
composer and Eichendorff a Romantic poet although his dark vision of the
beautiful first song ‘Loneliness of the forest’ using the forest as a backdrop
to seeing the mother of God watching over us, is almost surreal. Schoeck does
not attempt music that stretches tonality and certainly not in the way his
contemporary Schoenberg was doing at that time, think of Erwartung
(1909), but he knows how to write lyrically. It’s worth noting in passing that
Schoeck composed about four hundred songs. Here songs 7-12 were written first in
1917, the first six coming from the following year. The melodic line is crucial
to an understanding of all of his music.
Meinrad Schütter is a
prolific composer in all genres but he obviously relishes the voice and is very
sensitive to text. Here we have a very wide variety of poets including Rilke’s
(d.1926) ‘Herbsttag’ (Autumn Day) and Albert Thelan (d.1989) Nachliche Lampe
(Nocturnal lamp). As you listen through the songs, composed over an
extraordinary sixty year span, the changing language of this composer (whom
sadly I have not met before) becomes fascinatingly apparent. We are lead from
the late-romantic ‘Dumonda’ (Request) of 1931 through to two songs from his
cycle of 1994 ‘Chanzuns da la not’ with its partly spoken and partly sung lines
and its totally independent piano part. These songs and the earlier ones like
‘Dumonda’ use the fascinating Rhaeto-Romanic language, a Romance language which
seem to have a common link with Italian, Rumanian and French to name but three.
It has been an official language of Switzerland since 1936.
Andrea Scartazzini takes
Sappho whose work mainly survives in only a fragmentary state. I was much
impressed with this rather austere cycle of six songs. The third, ‘Hesperos du
bist der’ (Hesperos is the morning star) gives the CD its title. Evoking a
far-off world, the composer accompanies a windy, folksy yet chromatic line, sung
sotto voce by Leibundgut, by sounds from the inside the piano. The next
song ‘The moon at dusk’ begins with the extreme high register of the instrument
and, I think, its bottom note acting as an intermittent ostinato. The stuttery
word-setting wanders nervously through the texture and just as its confidence is
restored the fragment is over. The next song requires some discreet falsetto
vocal work and the last some impressively deep humming before the words ‘It
stood by my bedside’. The song’s sudden ending is also impressive.
The CD comes with texts,
excellently translated, and essays also in French and German. The recording is
vivid and immediate. Well worth investigating.
Gary
Higginson
MusicWeb -
Friday November 01.02
Hesperos - 20th Century
Songs - Switzerland
Othmar SCHOECK (1886-1957)
Zwölf Eichendorff-Lieder Op. 30 (1917-18):-
Waldeinsamkeit; Kurze fahrt; Winternacht; Im wandern;
Sterbeglocken; Ergebung; Nachklang; Der verspätete
Wanderer; Nacht; An die Lützowschen Jäger; Auf dem Rhein
Meinrad SCHÜTTER (b.1910)
Ausgewählte Lieder (1931-1994):-
Dumonda (Bitte); Herbsttag; Der Tod; Die Müden
sterne; Nächtliche Lampe; Zona dal Plaschair (Zone des
Vergnügens); Favuogn (Föhnmorgen)
Andrea Lorenzo SCARTAZZINI (b. 1971)
Sappho-Lieder (2002):-
Dieser morgen war; In der mitte des tages; Hesperos du bist der;
Der mond in der dämerrung; Die sterne gehen wie kienspäne; An
meinem bett stand sie.
Michael Leibundgut (bass)
Ute Stoecklin (piano)
rec Theodor-Egel-Saal, Freiburg, Germany 16-17 Jan 2002 (Schoeck; Schütter; 4
May 2002 (Scartazzini), DDD
 GUILD GMCD
7254 [55.23]
Guild have
established themselves in a comparatively short time. They first crossed my
field of view in 1997 with a series of releases which included Schoeck and
Goossens CDs. They are based in Switzerland but with an official presence in St
Helier in Jersey. Their products are as hallmarked as ASV, Chandos, Orfeo and
Hyperion. The substance of what they offer is of great distinction and they
strive for and usually attain exemplary aesthetic standards. Do have a look at
their website.
This song
recital is a successor to Guild's admirable CD of Romantic Swiss songs reviewed
earlier this year. Both discs are regrettably rather short in playing time -
being less than sixty minutes - but in every other respect the qualities of both
releases are high. Take for example the notes by pianist Ute Stoecklin and the
fact that full texts are given in the original language (usually German though
there is some Romanche - Switzerland's official fourth language - as well) and
in translation. The text is in clear type with none of the designer
‘finnickiness’ that 'distinguishes' quite a few classical releases.
The
selection of songs charts the poles and tropics from Schoeck's frank lyricism to
Schütter's expressionism to Scartazzini's radiating experimentalism.
The
Eichendorff lieder are from Schoeck's comparatively early maturity. They are
ripely romantic charting a heritage from Schumann: elegies, joy, ballads. Though
Leibundgut is a bass he is young and currently his freshly produced voice has a
golden baritonal patina. He recalls a young Fischer-Dieskau before vocal fatigue
set in, hardening and calcifying. This is by no means a bass with cavernous
depths. He is every bit the serenader. Highlights include the glowing lyrical
contours of Winternacht and Waldeinsamkeit. There is some vocal
strain in Im Wandern and in the heroic ascents of Lockung.
Stoecklin, an attentive presence throughout (and remarkably open-minded given
what she is called on to do in the Scartazzini songs) evokes the glitter and
glimmer of star-shine and moonlight in both Nacht and Nachklang.
Schütter's
vocabulary is freer with dissonance amongst the melody. He indulges waywardly
liberal tonality. His tendency is towards starry textures: Klimt-like and
expressionistic. Zona dal plaschair is very dissonant with a spoken part.
The voice seems lost in a dreamlike pierrot state in Favuogn.
Scartazzini was a pupil of Rihm and Kelterborn. Here Leibundgut shows his
attention to dynamics amid the freely tonal wanderings of Dieser morgen war.
The piano writing is truly dissonant and the vocal line is almost muezzin-like.
Scartazzini's songs are about as far removed from Bantock's Sappho songs
(Hyperion) as you could imagine. The piano part in particular calls for Cage-ian
techniques and the voice whispers, pitters, patters, groans (like a Tibetan
lamasery cantor) and breathes.
The
Scartazzini is unlikely to draw in the growing band of Schoeck fanciers. Those
who take well to Scartazzini might well find Schoeck just too romantic.
The expressionism of Schütter stands in the middle ground.
Rob Barnett
Page revised 26.12.01
| 
