Schubert: female voices (recommendation)
Rorschach
I've only male voices on Schubert lieder. So, I want a great female voice on
a collection of various lieder: a great recital.
Baker? Schwarzkopf? Ameling? Lott? Price? Bonney? Ludwig? Janowitz?
Schumann? Lehmann? Other?
Consider that I dislike "over-aesthetic" interpretation. In fact I often
look for century beginning voices like Schulsnus or Schiotz.
The difficulties with English don't allow me to be clearer, excuse me.
Thanks again
Paul Goldstein
Baker, Ludiwig, and especially Ameling meet your criteria.
Alan Cooper
news:47dc1720$0$16034$5fc...@news.tiscali.it:
Without question I'd start with the Janet Baker collection on EMI Gemini:
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=94360 (no texts, but they're
easy to find). The Price recital on Orfeo that includes "Shepherd on the Rock" might
be my next choice, and then perhaps Ameling with Dalton Baldwin on Philips.
Definitely avoid Schwarzkopf if you mean what I think you do by "over-aesthetic."
AC
Aage Johansen
Don't know about "over-aesthetic" interpretation, but since you didn't
mention Irmgard Seefried you might try her.
--
Aage J.
Wal
O
Ameling.
-Owen
Rorschach
> Baker, Ludiwig, and especially Ameling meet your criteria.
Why especially Ameling? Which are the characteristics of her singing?
It's impossible for me to explain "over-aesthetic", if I can use a brutal
example, without reasoning: Fischer-Dieskau.
A. Brain
news:47dc1720$0$16034$5fc...@news.tiscali.it...
I'm not sure what "over-aesthetic" interpretation
means, particularly if your English is not idiomatic.
In addition to the Baker (the essential set is the
two-disc set on EMI), and Ameling, I highly
recommend Jessye Norman, Gundula Janowitz
and Margaret Price.
Norman is perhaps the most "over-aesthetic",
if by that you mean "dramatic". The Price
recital is an early CD so it does not have much
on it, and at Orfeo's high prices, may seem
less attractive. But trust me; it's well worth
it.
And this gives me another chance to complain
about EMI's reissue of the Baker set. When
it originally came out on Seraphim LPs, the
budget label, circa 1971, it had texts and
fairly lavish notes. It's such a classic set,
it could have been released on CD at full
price. Instead, it's mid-price and no notes.
Norman's first recital on a Phillips LP,
around the same time as the Baker LPs,
featuring Schubert and Mahler, had texts.
So did the first mid-price reissue. But
the Phillips twofer has no texts, as I
recall (can't seem to locate my copy
just now).
--
A. Brain
Remove NOSPAM for email.
david...@aol.com
conscious Lieder singer who displayed her intelligence unaffectedly.
Unfortunately she recorded very little Schubert. On a similarly
exalted level is Brigitte Fassbänder:
Unfortunately, for reasons I can no longer recall, I don't really like
Aribert Reimann's accompaniments to Fassbänder's recording of
Winterreise.
Jan de Gaetani only recorded nine Schubert songs, but her recordings
are great favorites of mine. They display the strengths and
weaknesses of a particular approach to music making characteristic of
a whole generation of American musicians whose primary interest was in
contemporary American music, self-effacing musicians who could do
anything you threw at them but whose respect for the composer led to a
certain literalism in approaching the score. Anything but
insensitive, Gilbert Kalish's accompaniments tend toward the
Puritanically "no-nonsense" and powerfully efficient:
Somebody has already mentioned Irmgard Seefried. Janowitz's two
recitals with Irwin Gage, conveniently reunited in a DG 2-fer, are
undermined by Gage's accompaniments to at least some of the songs.
(Incredibly, Gage and Janowitz manage all but to ignore the massive
pause in the middle of "Du bist die Ruh.")
I respect Elly Ameling enormously. The trouble is that she's usually
accompanied by Dalton Baldwin. In their hands, hushed understatement
threatens to become a mannerism, and Baldwin tends to apply his
"Lieder accompanist's rubato" automatically to saccharine effect.
That being said, both take a somewhat more direct, less ethereal
approach in much of the Schubert recital on Et Cetera KTC 1009:
there's nothing mannered about the quiet singing in the second
Wandrers Nachtlied here. I like Christa Ludwig, too, but I sometimes
feel she could do more than she does. Able to rely on her own solid
musicianship, she often seems content with tastefully displaying her
gorgeous sound.
I've got Margaret Price's Orfeo recital on LP but can't remember what
I thought of it: certainly sounds promising. Jessye Norman's
"operatic" approach to Der Zwerg (Philips) brings it vividly to life.
Call her performance a guilty pleasure. Irwin Gage is even more of a
liability accompanying Lucia Popp on EMI 7 49633 2 than he is for Miss
Janowitz, but this recital includes an absolutely delicious
performance of Fischerweise. Popp herself is wonderful throughout.
For incomparably intelligent and sensitive singing from a male singer,
pick up Petre Munteanu's Westminster recordings of Schöne Müllerin and
Schwanengesang on Preiser. Still listed at Preiser's site, they've
already been remaindered at Berkshire:
This compilation includes Munteanu Schumann recitals of similar
vintage (1950 & 1952).
-david gable
david...@aol.com
> Why especially Ameling? Which are the characteristics of her singing?
> It's impossible for me to explain "over-aesthetic", if I can use a brutal
> example, without reasoning: Fischer-Dieskau.
We knew that's what you meant. In which case, avoid Schwarzkopf like
the plague.
-david gable
A. Brain
news:17b1c307-11ed-4219...@x41g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
I tend to avoid her for extra-musical reasons. Same with
Herbie the K, Karl "Boom-Boom" Boehm, and a handful
of others. Oddly enough, I don't think I have ever heard
her in any Lieder.
A few weeks ago, addicted as I am to films about the
Nazi period, I saw one called "Mephisto", about an
actor who struggled with the decision whether to accept
success offered by party membership and all that. Circa
1981. This kind of story would be ideal for a "remake"
featuring a musician.
Terry Simmons
Here's a list of my favourite female Schubert lieder singers;
Janet Baker
Felicity Lott
Christine Schaefer
Brigitte Fassbaender
I haven't heard a lot of Barbara Bonney in Schubert songs, but she has
one fabulous CD on Teldec with Geoffrey Parsons. I sleep with this CD
under my pillow.
Paul Goldstein
Yes, that's what I thought you meant. Ameling is in many ways a female
equivalent of Schiotz, a singer you mentioned in your original post. Hers is
the rare art that seems completely natural and unpremeditated. Also, her
musicianship - rhythm, intonation, pronunciation, etc. - is simply better than
most Lieder singers (or other musicians for that matter).
david...@aol.com
> Yes, that's what I thought you meant. Ameling is in many ways a female
> equivalent of Schiotz, a singer you mentioned in your original post. Hers is
> the rare art that seems completely natural and unpremeditated. Also, her
> musicianship - rhythm, intonation, pronunciation, etc. - is simply better than
> most Lieder singers (or other musicians for that matter).
Ameling's voice is pure, clear, and gorgeous, her musicianship rock
solid, and -- especially compared to Fischer-Dieskau or especially
Schwarzkopf -- she certainly is freshness incarnate. But I don't find
her performances as "natural" and unpremeditated as you do. (My
candidate for the supremely "artless" Lieder singer, at least among
women, would be Victoria de los Angeles, who has left us dismayingly
little Schubert.) It seems to me that Ameling's singing, at least of
Schubert, depends on a kind of one-size-fits-all hushed understatement
that is not without its tinge of cloying preciosity. At the very
least, her expressive range is somewhat limited, and the effect of her
approach becomes especially saccharine when she's accompanied by
Dalton Baldwin, who has his own arsenal of automatically and
unthinkingly applied "Lieder accompanist's" rubato effects. Only
Irwin Gage strikes me as worse.
-david gable
John Bryant
I'll second Janet Baker, and Brigitte Fassbaender makes a lovely job
of 'Schwanengesang'.
Gabriel Parra
I just happen to be listening to Janet Baker's EMI recital on a Gemini
two-fer and it must be the most gorgeous lieder singing on record.
Deffinitely desert-island material. I cannot imagine a voice to equal
her crystalline purity, which is requisite for Schubert lieder
singing. Beethoven, in a completely different context, could have put
it best: molto semplice e cantabile. Fair warning, though: some of the
songs are so extraordinarily beautiful and heart-rending that you may
have trouble breathing while listening to this disc. Little wonder
poor Schubert only lived 31 short years - his heart must have
imploded.
On an OT note, I once heard Flagstad trying - and failing miserably -
to sing some Schubert lieder. The complete antithesis of Baker. It was
one of the most repugnant, vulgar, disgusting and perverse listening
experiences of my life. It was like a Wagnerian soprano trying to sing
Bossa Nova. Blech!
Rorschach
[cut]
Thanks to all again. You are so detailed, that I ask you also an opinion on
Janet Baker.
david...@aol.com
> david7ga...@aol.com wrote:
>
> [cut]
>
> You are so detailed, that I ask you also an opinion on
> Janet Baker.
The short answer is that I think Baker's terrific, and I share the
enthusiasm of several other posters for that EMI two-fer. I must say,
though, that I found Mr. Parra's description of her voice and singing
very odd. Baker's voice is not one, I think, that most people would
find notable for its "crystalline purity": I should think that would
describe Ameling's pure liquid sound, for example, better than it does
Baker's. As for "molto semplice," Baker's approach is anything but as
relaxed and untroubled as this phrase implies. Indeed, there is a
barely suppressed intensity and even at times anxiety right beneath
the surface in virtually every song she sings, and it periodically
emerges into direct expression. In that sense, Baker is at the
antipodes from the Fischer-Dieskau/Schwarzkopf approach that you so
dislike. Fi-Di and Schwarzkopf are singers of the second or the third
degree, more studied and self-conscious than direct, always
italicizing, fussy in their diction and in the form of expressivity
such fussiness implies. Not so Janet Baker of the open nerve.
Baker's voice is neither the most beautiful imaginable nor as purely
produced as some other singers' -- there's more than a little effort
apparent in the upper register -- but she's an incredibly intelligent
and sensitive singer.
-david gable
david...@aol.com
>Not so Janet Baker of the open nerve.
For "open nerve," please read "raw nerve."
-david gable
JohnGavin
Elly Ameling is my ideal Schubert singer (Bach, Mozart as well).
John Bryant
> Elly Ameling is my ideal Schubert singer (Bach, Mozart as well).
I'll stay with Janet Baker. I only had one recording of Ameling's
Schubert and I enjoyed it, but I was stupid enough to lend it to a
friend who promptly lost it. Anyway, as most of Elly Ameling's recital
has already been recorded by JB, I think I'll survive.
Slightly OT, but has anyone made a better recording of 'Sea Pictures'
than Janet Baker?
El Klauso
has already been recorded by JB, I think I'll survive.
EK: Nothing against Baker, but I don't know if I'd survive without the
Schubert/Schumann Harmonia Mundi CD (77085) of Ameling with Jorg Demus
at the fortepiano. This recording has all of the intelligence of
Ameling's best work with a freshness of voice and the lightness and
quickness of a vintage keyboard instrument. It's my favorite recording
of "The Shepherd on the Rock," and the rest of the selections - the
Schumann included - are similarly beautiful and accomplished.
John Bryant
> EK: Nothing against Baker, but I don't know if I'd survive without the
> Schubert/Schumann Harmonia Mundi CD (77085) of Ameling with Jorg Demus
> at the fortepiano. This recording has all of the intelligence of
> Ameling's best work with a freshness of voice and the lightness and
> quickness of a vintage keyboard instrument. It's my favorite recording
> of "The Shepherd on the Rock," and the rest of the selections - the
> Schumann included - are similarly beautiful and accomplished.
I think my Elly Ameling disc was a Philips issue and I remember her
'Das Hirt auf dem Felsen' very well. I think I'll pass on the Harmonia
Mundi because I've never been very fond of the fortepiano, as opposed
to the pianoforte. If I find any more E.A. discs that seem attractive,
I won't hesitate.
david...@aol.com
> EK: Nothing against Baker, but I don't know if I'd survive without the
> Schubert/Schumann Harmonia Mundi CD (77085) of Ameling with Jorg Demus
> at the fortepiano. This recording has all of the intelligence of
> Ameling's best work with a freshness of voice and the lightness and
> quickness of a vintage keyboard instrument.
Only with the absurd inverted priorities of HIP could one detail the
virtues of the instrument itself without saying a word about the way
the pianist plays it. I'll say this about Jörg Demus: he's nothing
special but better him than Dalton Baldwin, Ameling's usual partner.
-david gable
El Klauso
features a Fortepiano versus a Pianoforte.It might be 'information' to
some not familiar with her output, as Ameling's recordings were
usually made with a modern instrument. While not as anti-Baldwin as
previous contributors, I'm not wildly pro-Demus, either; hence the
lack of 'review.' I merely wished to point out that this early Ameling
session caught her when her voice was exceptionally beautiful, and
when her interpretive skills were already well developed.
JohnGavin
Actually, she had a longer association with Rudolf Jansens - but I'm
surprised anyone would be offended by Dalton Baldwin - except that one
might find him a bit of a passive accompanist, but he was certainly a
very fluid and graceful pianist.
david...@aol.com
> There's nothing absurd in pointing out that the HM Ameling disc
> features a Fortepiano versus a Pianoforte.It might be 'information' to
> some not familiar with her output, as Ameling's recordings were
> usually made with a modern instrument.
You did more than point out a simple fact: you enthused about the
sound of the instrument itself. You felt that your considerable
enthusiasm for the sound of the fortepiano was far more significant
than your lack of enthusiasm for the pianist himself, which you didn't
even bother to mention. That makes for a very odd review of a
performance in my book.
-david gable
david...@aol.com
> Actually, [Ameling] had a longer association with Rudolf Jansens - but I'm
> surprised anyone would be offended by Dalton Baldwin - except that one
> might find him a bit of a passive accompanist, but he was certainly a
> very fluid and graceful pianist.
Coincidentally I just ordered an Ameling/Jansens Schubert recital,
but, for some reason I'm far more aware of those countless Philips
recordings with Dalton Baldwin. I can see "fluid and graceful" but
also "passive." His playing strikes me as somewhat mannered and not
terribly imaginative. His rubato never seems urgent, never seems like
an immediate response to the music in real time but quasi-
prefabricated. I dislike Irwin Gage even more. Either of their names
on a Lieder record is always a disincentive for me.
I have a far easier time finding Lieder singers I like than Lieder
accompanists. Among the accompanists I prefer to Baldwin -- not
necessarily a ringing endorsement -- are the ubiquitous Gerald Moore,
Geoffrey Parsons (for Baker on EMI), Franz Holetschek (for Munteanu on
Westminster/Preiser), Erich Werba (for Werner Krenn on a brilliant
Decca Schubert/Schumann disc and for Fassbänder on EMI, among other
places). I'm not Graham Johnson's biggest fan -- he's less mannered
than Baldwin and Gage but rather literal minded -- but I'd rather
listen to him.
I always have high hopes when I see a name like Sawallisch or
Barenboim or Richter or Brendel or Levine on a Lieder record: at
least, or so the theory goes, their mannerisms won't be Baldwin's or
Gage's. When Fassbänder started to record with Aribert Reimann,
composer of the opera Lear, I thought that was a good sign. It
wasn't. His grotesque accompaniment to "Ich grolle nicht" from
Schumann's Dichterliebe with its jabbing sforzandos has to be heard to
be believed (Fassbänder/EMI).
What do you think of John Wustman?
-david gable
El Klauso
might perceive as a relative lieder or even classical music newcomer -
that a fortepiano offers "lightness" and "quickness" versus a standard
piano is not by the furthest stretch of the imagination 'enthusing.'
It is merely a description of the difference between the sound and
playing characteristics of the vintage instrument and the modern
piano.BTW, Whence such virulence on anything even in the remote
neighborhood of historic instruments? Were you once attacked by a gut-
strung fiddle?
JohnGavin
> On Mar 17, 7:10 pm, JohnGavin <dagd...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > Actually, [Ameling] had a longer association with Rudolf Jansens - but I'm
> > surprised anyone would be offended by Dalton Baldwin - except that one
> > might find him a bit of a passive accompanist, but he was certainly a
> > very fluid and graceful pianist.
>
> Coincidentally I just ordered an Ameling/Jansens Schubert recital,
> but, for some reason I'm far more aware of those countless Philips
> recordings with Dalton Baldwin.
I found a photo of Dalton Baldwin as he looks today. One tends to
lose track of certain performers. He has really aged alot.
Terry Simmons
<2a1594e8-2704-4e22...@8g2000hsu.googlegroups.com>,
"david...@aol.com" <david...@aol.com> wrote:
Unfortunately, several of the finest lieder accompanists I've heard on
record are pianists who seem to have done most of their work with a
single singer. The ones coming most immediately to mind are Britten
(Pears), Shetler (Schreier), Schiff (Schreier again), and Partridge
(Partridge).
Amongst the "freelance" (if that's the correct word) accompanists, I
find Roger Vignoles, Helmut Deutsch, Andreas Staier and Graham Johnson
to be excellent -- none of them too interventionist, but not missing
anything either. And all of them with a fine understanding of what a
singer needs.
I haven't heard John Wustman.
A. Brain
news:tlsterry-3ADE7A...@reserved-multicast-range-NOT-delegated.example.com...
> Unfortunately, several of the finest lieder accompanists I've heard on
> record are pianists who seem to have done most of their work with a
> single singer. The ones coming most immediately to mind are Britten
> (Pears), Shetler (Schreier), Schiff (Schreier again), and Partridge
> (Partridge).
>
> Amongst the "freelance" (if that's the correct word) accompanists, I
> find Roger Vignoles, Helmut Deutsch, Andreas Staier and Graham
> Johnson
> to be excellent -- none of them too interventionist, but not missing
> anything either. And all of them with a fine understanding of what a
> singer needs.
>
> I haven't heard John Wustman.
I hardly ever notice the accompanists as contributing
anything that distinctive, but I did notice Julius Drake
in the Bostridge EMI discs, where I thought he was
outstanding.
gggg...@gmail.com
> Victoria de los Angeles was an incomparably intelligent but un-self-
> conscious Lieder singer who displayed her intelligence unaffectedly.
> Unfortunately she recorded very little Schubert. On a similarly
> exalted level is Brigitte Fassbänder:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/35rzag
>
> Unfortunately, for reasons I can no longer recall, I don't really like
> Aribert Reimann's accompaniments to Fassbänder's recording of
> Winterreise...
She was mentioned in this recent article:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.music.classical.recordings/5nKayKAKHbw
ljk...@aol.com
Larry Kart
ljk...@aol.com
> Going back a ways: Elisabeth Schumann
>
> Larry Kart
ljk...@aol.com
Terry
Terry
dk
> <david...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:17b1c307-11ed-4219...@x41g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
> > On Mar 16, 2:11 am, "Rorschach" <shopenawerNOS...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Why especially Ameling? Which are the characteristics of her singing?
> >> It's impossible for me to explain "over-aesthetic", if I can use a
> >> brutal
> >> example, without reasoning: Fischer-Dieskau.
> >
> > We knew that's what you meant. In which case, avoid Schwarzkopf like
> > the plague.
>
>
> I tend to avoid her for extra-musical reasons. Same with
> Herbie the K, Karl "Boom-Boom" Boehm, and a handful
> of others. Oddly enough, I don't think I have ever heard
> her in any Lieder.
>
> A few weeks ago, addicted as I am to films about the
> Nazi period, I saw one called "Mephisto", about an
> actor who struggled with the decision whether to accept
> success offered by party membership and all that. Circa
> 1981. This kind of story would be ideal for a "remake"
> featuring a musician.
Too many musicians to choose from.
And it is not clear any of them
struggled with the decision at all.
dk