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Mahler Lied survey (Ralph Moore) - Gielen and Sanderling versions
Posted by Heiko on September 30, 2022, 5:46 am
Ralph, thank you for the wonderful survey. I just wondered about the inclusion of the two versions mentioned in the title, Gielen with Jerusalem and Kallisch, and Sanderling with Schreier and Finnila. The Sanderling version received highest praise by Tony Duggan, and Gielen's recording - a Mahler interpreter in high esteem with Duggan - came too late for the Duggan survey. At least the orchestral part is excellent by any account, and it is quite easily available as a download. Anyway, it seems to me that both might deserve inclusion in a future edition.
Ralph, thank you for the wonderful survey. I just wondered about the inclusion of the two versions mentioned in the title, Gielen with Jerusalem and Kallisch, and Sanderling with Schreier and Finnila. The Sanderling version received highest praise by Tony Duggan, and Gielen's recording - a Mahler interpreter in high esteem with Duggan - came too late for the Duggan survey. At least the orchestral part is excellent by any account, and it is quite easily available as a download. Anyway, it seems to me that both might deserve inclusion in a future edition.
Thank you for those suggestions - and I am glad you liked the survey. I will confess that I have an openly advertised antipathy to Peter Schreier's tenor which I always hear as constricted and "strangulated" of tone and, as ever, I cannot include everything so go with my own taste. I have not heard the Gielen version but will certainly seek it out.
Previous Message
Ralph, thank you for the wonderful survey. I just wondered about the inclusion of the two versions mentioned in the title, Gielen with Jerusalem and Kallisch, and Sanderling with Schreier and Finnila. The Sanderling version received highest praise by Tony Duggan, and Gielen's recording - a Mahler interpreter in high esteem with Duggan - came too late for the Duggan survey. At least the orchestral part is excellent by any account, and it is quite easily available as a download. Anyway, it seems to me that both might deserve inclusion in a future edition.
I recall the comment about Schreier. I recall the feeling of bemusement. I love his voice, I loved the intensity of his Trinkenlied... Maybe it's a German thing. For example, I really dislike the clipped sound of Gardiner's English clipped choristers, whereas the voices of Ramin's Leipzig boys, and the post-Ramin sound intoxicates me. der you go, as dey might say in Ireland.
Previous Message
Thank you for those suggestions - and I am glad you liked the survey. I will confess that I have an openly advertised antipathy to Peter Schreier's tenor which I always hear as constricted and "strangulated" of tone and, as ever, I cannot include everything so go with my own taste. I have not heard the Gielen version but will certainly seek it out.
Previous Message
Ralph, thank you for the wonderful survey. I just wondered about the inclusion of the two versions mentioned in the title, Gielen with Jerusalem and Kallisch, and Sanderling with Schreier and Finnila. The Sanderling version received highest praise by Tony Duggan, and Gielen's recording - a Mahler interpreter in high esteem with Duggan - came too late for the Duggan survey. At least the orchestral part is excellent by any account, and it is quite easily available as a download. Anyway, it seems to me that both might deserve inclusion in a future edition.
I listened to that recording on YouTube (it's in excellent sound). Gielen and the orchestra are certainly very fine. I do not find Jerusalem's slightly cloudy tenor to be as clean, powerful and penetrating as my favourites and I am afraid that I actively dislike Kallisch's rather thin, acidic timbre - nor is she as expressive as Baker, Norman, Ludwig, Baltsa or Ferrier. Personal taste, of course - but there you are.
Previous Message
Ralph, thank you for the wonderful survey. I just wondered about the inclusion of the two versions mentioned in the title, Gielen with Jerusalem and Kallisch, and Sanderling with Schreier and Finnila. The Sanderling version received highest praise by Tony Duggan, and Gielen's recording - a Mahler interpreter in high esteem with Duggan - came too late for the Duggan survey. At least the orchestral part is excellent by any account, and it is quite easily available as a download. Anyway, it seems to me that both might deserve inclusion in a future edition.
I agree about the vocal side of the Gielen recording. The orchestral part is up with the best, but the vocalists unfortunately do not stand comparison to the top performers of the 1950s~1970s. And your survey mainly comes from the vocal side, while Tony Duggan came from the orchestral side. So, I imagined that was why you left it out. As for the Sanderling, it surely is a matter of taste, but like Tony Duggan or Dieter, I also think that Peter Schreier is an asset rather than a burden. For German language repertoire I would rank him any time (or most of the times) above Fischer-Dieskau. His diction and understandability are exemplary without the latter's excessive squeezing of meaning. Also, his voice is still in good shape in 1960, although surely, he never had Wunderlich's power. But who has? And then there is Sanderling, of course. The recording successfully brings out some of the constant moral ambiguity and precariousness in Mahler's music, in contrast to many other recordings that are on the "straightforward" side. So maybe it does deserve another listening...
Previous Message
I listened to that recording on YouTube (it's in excellent sound). Gielen and the orchestra are certainly very fine. I do not find Jerusalem's slightly cloudy tenor to be as clean, powerful and penetrating as my favourites and I am afraid that I actively dislike Kallisch's rather thin, acidic timbre - nor is she as expressive as Baker, Norman, Ludwig, Baltsa or Ferrier. Personal taste, of course - but there you are.
Previous Message
Ralph, thank you for the wonderful survey. I just wondered about the inclusion of the two versions mentioned in the title, Gielen with Jerusalem and Kallisch, and Sanderling with Schreier and Finnila. The Sanderling version received highest praise by Tony Duggan, and Gielen's recording - a Mahler interpreter in high esteem with Duggan - came too late for the Duggan survey. At least the orchestral part is excellent by any account, and it is quite easily available as a download. Anyway, it seems to me that both might deserve inclusion in a future edition.
Thanks for your reply, Heiko. I am afraid that I will maintain to my dying day that while not wishing to be disrespectful to a late - and by some lamented - artist whom some such as you and Dieter evidently admire - Peter Schreier's vocal production was essentially "wrong" and that he made an unpleasant sound compared with what I know to be correctly produced tenor voices. I honestly cannot comprehend how anyone can enjoy his voice - or indeed can compare Wunderlich's sound with his and like both, but I know that I am on a hiding to nothing when it comes to taste, even if I think I could adduce physiological reasons for my dislike of it in addition to the evidence of my own ears. But then, I do not much care for the almost universally admired DFD for much the same reasons - except when he was young and on a good day.
I am most certainly "a voice man" but in the end DLVDE is primarily about two voices with orchestral accompaniment, just as opera must be "voice-led", I think. Of course I care about the quality of the conducting and the orchestral playing but do indeed consider them subservient to the vocal element.
Previous Message
I agree about the vocal side of the Gielen recording. The orchestral part is up with the best, but the vocalists unfortunately do not stand comparison to the top performers of the 1950s~1970s. And your survey mainly comes from the vocal side, while Tony Duggan came from the orchestral side. So, I imagined that was why you left it out. As for the Sanderling, it surely is a matter of taste, but like Tony Duggan or Dieter, I also think that Peter Schreier is an asset rather than a burden. For German language repertoire I would rank him any time (or most of the times) above Fischer-Dieskau. His diction and understandability are exemplary without the latter's excessive squeezing of meaning. Also, his voice is still in good shape in 1960, although surely, he never had Wunderlich's power. But who has? And then there is Sanderling, of course. The recording successfully brings out some of the constant moral ambiguity and precariousness in Mahler's music, in contrast to many other recordings that are on the "straightforward" side. So maybe it does deserve another listening...
Previous Message
I listened to that recording on YouTube (it's in excellent sound). Gielen and the orchestra are certainly very fine. I do not find Jerusalem's slightly cloudy tenor to be as clean, powerful and penetrating as my favourites and I am afraid that I actively dislike Kallisch's rather thin, acidic timbre - nor is she as expressive as Baker, Norman, Ludwig, Baltsa or Ferrier. Personal taste, of course - but there you are.
Previous Message
Ralph, thank you for the wonderful survey. I just wondered about the inclusion of the two versions mentioned in the title, Gielen with Jerusalem and Kallisch, and Sanderling with Schreier and Finnila. The Sanderling version received highest praise by Tony Duggan, and Gielen's recording - a Mahler interpreter in high esteem with Duggan - came too late for the Duggan survey. At least the orchestral part is excellent by any account, and it is quite easily available as a download. Anyway, it seems to me that both might deserve inclusion in a future edition.
1. We all recognize the existence of idiosyncratic allergies to specific voices. Many discerning listeners “can’t abide the bellowing of the Bull of Milan on all those awful old 1950s Italian opera sets.” And, although this is an emotive reaction, it’s also intelligently reasoned (like Ralph’s) by pointing out that the detestable chap’s voice production was fundamentally, hopelessly flawed, rendering him (e.g.) inherently incapable of producing a true pianissimo or piano even if he had ever wished to do so.
What would the rest of us say? We must concede the factual accuracy of all this—because we recognize instantly, from the terms “bellowing” and “bull,” exactly which 1950s Italian tenor is being criticized: we understand at once that it isn’t Tagliavini or di Stefano or Corelli or Bergonzi or …. But we might perhaps say that we enjoy so much what he can do that we never spend time objecting to (or, perhaps, even seriously thinking about) what he can’t.
Of course, idiosyncratic allergies are provoked mainly by idiosyncratic singers, ones who can be instantly identified and don’t sound exactly the same as everyone else, ones who do something that nobody else on record has ever done: Caruso, Flagstad, Melchior, Martinelli, Callas, Sutherland….
2. Important though issue #1 is, if we now set it aside and pay attention to musical/dramatic context, we’ll find that not every role appears to ask for the same kind of voice, and certainly not necessarily a “good” or “healthy” voice. Verdi famously rejected a “good” voice for Lady Macbeth and demanded “una voce aspa, soffocata, cupa… che avesse del diabolico.” Loge appears to require not a standard Heldentenor but a performer whose very sound gets under everyone’s skin and causes instant dislike (“Immer ist Undank Loges Lohn”), combined with a flickery, quicksilvery, constantly varying play of intelligence that shapes every phrase individually and spontaneously. If the three tenor songs in Mahler’s Lied von der Erde are to be sung by the same person, that person would seem to need a voice suggestive of an ageing, world-weary chronic alcoholic struggling inadequately to fit into an unwelcoming universe but never attaining peace (in contrast to the alto/baritone at the end of the work).
Yet if we attend to musical/dramatic context, we may also find that certain performers act so vividly that they make some of us forget their vocal unsuitability. Stabile and Gobbi as Falstaff are famous examples. Many of us have seen senior Shakespeareans plausibly playing youngsters less than half their age, or, conversely, teenagers seeming quite credible as Lear or Volumnia. I may feel that Wunderlich’s voice is inherently less apt for Das Lied von der Erde than (e.g.) Patzak’s, but in practice I find his sheer beauty of delivery and crowd-charming manner so infectious that, when actually listening, I’m equally happy with either.
3. Finally, there’s the view expressed in the prologues, epilogues, and choruses of Shakespeare’s plays—that every performance must be an act of collaboration between the performers and the audience. No performer is ever ideal; every performer builds the bridge only a certain distance toward the audience, and it’s always up to the audience to build the rest of the bridge from the other side. “The best in this kind are but shadows, and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.”
However, this view perhaps overestimates the ability of the average human imagination!
Of course I agree with much - indeed, most - of what you say, Evan; I would only add that with regard to Del Monaco there is a world of difference between singing live for an audience of several thousand people and standing in front of a microphone, where the acoustic and dynamics are rather different. I remark in my survey of La Gioconda, "I am frequently amused by the number reviews you can encounter whereby people seem to be surprised to report than Del Monaco sings quietly and subtly. This is the result of (mainly British) critics moaning about Del Monaco's "incessant bawling", as they phrase it. In fact, despite his clarion tones, he often attempted to refine his huge sound often and frequently succeeded."
Likewise, regarding La fanciulla del West I say that he "by no means just belts his way through his part and in Aida he "is in thrilling, clarion voice and not by any means wholly without subtlety, pace his detractors." Even his Otello grew in refinement; about the Karajan recording I write "Del Monaco has now been singing Otello for four years and has made his first studio recording, so as a result is far more attentive to the composer’s markings, singing softly as required and being less inclined to grandstand indiscriminately: his line is steadier, the gradations of tone smoother and more controlled."
I do not maintain that he was the subtlest of artists but his reputation for "yelling" is much exaggerated - and what is operatic singing if not primarily "beautiful shouting"?
It is my party trick to be able to recognise most famous voices within just a few notes of their singing but it is true that the further you go back into the annals of recorded singing, the more alike great voices sound owing to a certain homogeneity of technique and a profound understanding of how a "properly" trained and developed operatic voice should sound - yet the three greatest singers ever (cf Serafin), Caruso, Ponselle and Ruffo remain instantly recognisable. Of course Serafin hit the nail on the head when he described Callas' soprano as "una grande vocciaccia" (untranslatable, but essentially a big, ugly, but somehow compelling, sound) - which is why she made an unsurpassable Lady Macbeth and the absence of a studio recording is so much to be lamented.
I agree that while recognising his vocal limitations, I cannot think of any voice which portrays Falstaff more colourfully than Gobbi. I would however, stick to my guns by observing that the vocal production of Peter Schreier was close to pathological and one all too frequently encountered in many a modern British tenor - but I'll cease my provocative rant here...
Previous Message
1. We all recognize the existence of idiosyncratic allergies to specific voices. Many discerning listeners “can’t abide the bellowing of the Bull of Milan on all those awful old 1950s Italian opera sets.” And, although this is an emotive reaction, it’s also intelligently reasoned (like Ralph’s) by pointing out that the detestable chap’s voice production was fundamentally, hopelessly flawed, rendering him (e.g.) inherently incapable of producing a true pianissimo or piano even if he had ever wished to do so.
What would the rest of us say? We must concede the factual accuracy of all this—because we recognize instantly, from the terms “bellowing” and “bull,” exactly which 1950s Italian tenor is being criticized: we understand at once that it isn’t Tagliavini or di Stefano or Corelli or Bergonzi or …. But we might perhaps say that we enjoy so much what he can do that we never spend time objecting to (or, perhaps, even seriously thinking about) what he can’t.
Of course, idiosyncratic allergies are provoked mainly by idiosyncratic singers, ones who can be instantly identified and don’t sound exactly the same as everyone else, ones who do something that nobody else on record has ever done: Caruso, Flagstad, Melchior, Martinelli, Callas, Sutherland….
2. Important though issue #1 is, if we now set it aside and pay attention to musical/dramatic context, we’ll find that not every role appears to ask for the same kind of voice, and certainly not necessarily a “good” or “healthy” voice. Verdi famously rejected a “good” voice for Lady Macbeth and demanded “una voce aspa, soffocata, cupa… che avesse del diabolico.” Loge appears to require not a standard Heldentenor but a performer whose very sound gets under everyone’s skin and causes instant dislike (“Immer ist Undank Loges Lohn”), combined with a flickery, quicksilvery, constantly varying play of intelligence that shapes every phrase individually and spontaneously. If the three tenor songs in Mahler’s Lied von der Erde are to be sung by the same person, that person would seem to need a voice suggestive of an ageing, world-weary chronic alcoholic struggling inadequately to fit into an unwelcoming universe but never attaining peace (in contrast to the alto/baritone at the end of the work).
Yet if we attend to musical/dramatic context, we may also find that certain performers act so vividly that they make some of us forget their vocal unsuitability. Stabile and Gobbi as Falstaff are famous examples. Many of us have seen senior Shakespeareans plausibly playing youngsters less than half their age, or, conversely, teenagers seeming quite credible as Lear or Volumnia. I may feel that Wunderlich’s voice is inherently less apt for Das Lied von der Erde than (e.g.) Patzak’s, but in practice I find his sheer beauty of delivery and crowd-charming manner so infectious that, when actually listening, I’m equally happy with either.
3. Finally, there’s the view expressed in the prologues, epilogues, and choruses of Shakespeare’s plays—that every performance must be an act of collaboration between the performers and the audience. No performer is ever ideal; every performer builds the bridge only a certain distance toward the audience, and it’s always up to the audience to build the rest of the bridge from the other side. “The best in this kind are but shadows, and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.”
However, this view perhaps overestimates the ability of the average human imagination!
Yes, I do feel that those who can't bear the very sound of Del Monaco's voice are depriving themselves of a sizeable number of in-other-respects-excellent recordings. (Of course, I'm citing Del M. only as an illustrative example. I didn't mean to focus on him individually. The same might also be said about an allergy to the voice of Janowitz, ((((or even, perhaps, if I dare mention the name, [pianissimo whisper] P-t-r Schr---r)))).)
At the same time, I don't mean to speak slightingly of Del Monaco's detractors. Clearly there were major, fundamental flaws in his method of voice production, as even his best qualified critics (Olivero, Celletti...) have complained. But it seems to me (a) that every type of voice is more suited to doing some tasks than others, and (b) that a sufficiently charismatic performer can, by sheer vibrancy of performance, persuade some (not all) listeners to accept them even in a role to which their voice is fundamentally unsuited.
It also seems to me that provocatively extreme views are the lifeblood of good criticism, or at least an inescapable ingredient in that lifeblood. Why do we keep reading the music criticism of Berlioz and Bernard Shaw when a thousand more temperate critics are forgotten? Partly because they say outrageous, extravagant things that stick in the memory and help to sharpen our understanding even when we don't totally agree with them. Therefore I am glad that great critics have great allergies, and that one person's Schreier is another person's Del Monaco. Vive la différence!