[7/22/2011] Sunday Classics: Mahler's "military" songs -- (1) He said, she said (continued)

Here Fischer-Dieskau, Zender, and the Saarbrücken orchestra perform "Lied des Verfolgten im Turm" ("Song of the Prisoner in the Tower").

Returning to Jack Diether's Columbia Des Knaben Wunderhorn liner note. Of the dozen songs normally accounted part of Mahler's Wunderhorn "set" --

the largest and most important category comprises the so-called "military" songs, where Mahler's penchant for the ironic, the pathetic and the macabre is given full rein. Of the six in this genre, three are duets and three are solos. "Trost im Unglück" is an exercise in mutual recrimination between a hussar and his girl, set to the "pregnant rhythm" of an impatient bridled horse. "Der Schildwache Nachtlied" and "Lied des Verfolgten im Turm" are nocturnal boy-girl dialogues, involving, respectively, a sentry and a military prisoner.

Which immediately raises an issue. We've just seen and heard Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau perform both "Trost im Unglück" and the "Lied des Verfolgten im Turm" -- by himself. Which is not to say that Herr Fischer-Dieskau himself is a stranger to duet performance of the Wunderhorn songs.

"Trost im Unglück" ("Comfort in Misfortune")

HUSSAR: Right then, the time has come,
my horse must be saddled up!
I've made up my mind,
it must be ridden.
Just go on your way! I have my share!
I love you only out of foolishness!
Without you I can live fine.
Without you I can be fine.
So I'll get up on my horse
and drink a little glass of cool wine,
and swear by my beard
to be true to you forever.
GIRL: You think you're the handsomest fellow
in the whole wide world,
and also the pleasantest!
But far from it!
In my father's garden
a flower is growing:
I'll go on waiting
until it's bigger.
And off with you! I have my share!
I love you only out of foolishness!
Without you I can live fine,
Without you I can be fine!
BOTH: You think I'll take you!
I haven't had that in mind for a long time!
I can't help being ashamed with you
when I'm in company!

"Lied des Verfolgten im Turm"
("Song of the Prisoner in the Tower")

THE PRISONER: Thoughts are free.
Who can guess them?
They rustle by
like night shadows.
No man can know them,
no hunter shoot them;
it remains so that
thoughts are free.
THE GIRL: In summer it's good to make merry,
on the high, wild heaths.
There you find green places.
My dearly beloved treasure,
I don't want to part from you.
HE: Even if they lock me away
in a dark dungeon,
all of this is wasted labor,
for my thoughts
break through the barriers
and shatter my prison walls --
thoughts are free.
SHE: My dear, it's good to make merry
on high, wild mountains.
There you're forever all alone;
you don't even hear children's commotion;
the air there makes you whole.
HE: So let it be what it will,
and if it's fated,
let it just all happen in quiet,
let it just all happen in quiet,
my wishes and desires
no one can defeat.
it remains so that
thoughts are free.
SHE: My dear, you sing so cheerfully here,
like a little bird in the grass.
I stand so sadly at the prison door.
If only i were dead, if only I were with you.
Ah, must I then always lament?
HE: And since you lament so,
I'll renounce love.
And if it's dared,
then nothing can trouble me.
In my heart I can
always laugh and joke.
it remains so that
thoughts are free.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, soprano; London Symphony Orchestra, George Szell, cond. EMI, recorded March 8-9, 1968

In fact, some of us have always felt that, despite indications of "characters" in the Wunderhorn "he said, she said" songs, they were never meant to be performed as duets. This is storytelling, and the singer isn't impersonating either the young men or the young women involved -- the singer is, you know, telling a story, and it doesn't matter that the text doesn't contain indications like "and then he said" or "and she came back with." That's all done in the music -- though I have to say that, while I'm' not a great fan of Schwarzkopf's Mahler (too little voice, too much preciousness), in "Trost im Unglück" she answers the loutish boyfriend with unexpected spunk, or perhaps bitchiness. In this case a second voice really adds an interesting note.

Speaking of the music, it's harder to sing than you might expect given the music's determination to sound like peasant ditty material. My usual suspicion with Fischer-Dieskau when he resorts to bluster is that it's not so much dazlling interpretive brilliance as a clever way around vocal challenges. By contrast, here's the endearing Swiss bass-baritone Heinz Rehfuss, who didn't have all the vocal top the music asks for, causing his interpretive picture to slip off when the music goes up there but otherwise giving ground but otherwise giving luscious performances. (THey're from my longtime co-favorite Wunderhorn recording, conducted by Felix Prohaska on Vanguard, and featuring the wonderful contralto Maureen Forrester as the female soloist. We've actually already heard some of her contributions to this recording.)

"Trost im Unglück" ("Comfort in Misfortune")
"Lied des Verfolgten im Turm"
("Song of the Prisoner in the Tower")
Heinz Rehfuss, bass-baritone; Vienna Festival Orchestra, Felix Prohaska, cond. Vanguard, recorded May 27-June 1, 1963


NOW FINALY IT SEEMS ACCEPTED THAT MAHLER DIDN'T
INTEND DUET PERFORMANCE (AND DIDN'T DO IT HIMSELF!)

And so conductors like Claudio Abbado and Riccardo Chailly in their Wunderhorn recordings followed an all-solo format, and fortunately both had quite good baritones, Thomas Quasthoff and Matthias Goerne. I intended to offer one song from each, but made audio files for both of each, and finally couldn't choose between them. (I have to say that with more exposure I'm becoming fonder of the Abbado-DG recording -- maybe a little lacking in soul, but rich in color and detail, with a pair of excellent soloists. Tomorrow night we're going to hear Anne Sofie von Otter singing "Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen.")

"Trost im Unglück" ("Comfort in Misfortune")
Thomas Quasthoff, baritone; Berlin Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado, cond. DG, recorded February 1998
Matthias Goerne, baritone; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly, cond. Decca, recorded June 19-23, 2000

"Lied des Verfolgten im Turm"
("Song of the Prisoner in the Tower")
Thomas Quasthoff, baritone; Berlin Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado, cond. DG, recorded February 1998
Matthias Goerne, baritone; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly, cond. Decca, recorded June 19-23, 2000


BUT THEN, ALL THEORIES ASIDE, ALONG COMES
TEAM BERRY-LUDWIG-BERNSTEIN, AND --

pretty much sweeps the field. It's partly by taking more moderate tempos, but more importantly it's what they do with those more moderate tempos, which allow them to really inhabit the music, giving it that extra measure of caring, identification, and, well, conviction.

"Trost im Unglück" ("Comfort in Misfortune")
"Lied des Verfolgten im Turm"
("Song of the Prisoner in the Tower")
Walter Berry, baritone; Christa Ludwig, mezzo-soprano; New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Oct. 1967 and Feb. 1969


OOPS, I'VE GOT A LEFTOVER PERFORMANCE

Thinking it might fit in somewhere I went ahead and made this audio file. It seems a shame to waste it. This is Janet Baker in her early 30s, winningly simple, and Wyn Morris went on to become a favorite Mahler conductor of mine, with a special sense of the scale and intensity of the music.

"Trost im Unglück" ("Comfort in Misfortune")
Geraint Evans, baritone; Janet Baker, mezzo-soprano; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Wyn Morris, cond. Delysé/Nimbus, recorded 1966


TOMORROW NIGHT IN PART 2 OF MAHLER'S "MILITARY" SONGS: "Wo die schönene Trompeten blasen" ("Where the lovely trumpets blow")

And in Sunday's post, as noted, it's "Revelge" ("Reveille") and "Der Tamboursg'sell" ("The Drummer Boy").


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

#