BaL 19.06.21 - Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde

[Barbirollians]

She complimented Fritz Wunderlich for bringing the Lied singer's art to it and pointed out the obvious that, as it says on the tin, the work is a song. The tenor she then chose seemed to me to be more of the operatic type.

Yes , Fritz was effortful and nasal . Yet she put the boot into Patzak ( the tenor on Ferrier's recording ) as she described him without any explanation as letting down the recording

. Alan Blyth in his magisterial Gramophone Collection article in 1997 described Patzak as " the wholly idiomatic and wonderfully expressive Patzak is , as I have already inferred , the near ideal tenor "

The only downside was he did not quite retain the vocal freshness of Dermota in the early Klemperer recording - but he was "unsurpassed in verbal acuity, tonal colouring and pathetic accents" .

[vinteuil]

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She complimented Fritz Wunderlich for bringing the Lied singer's art to it and pointed out the obvious that, as it says on the tin, the work is a song.

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Yes , Fritz was effortful and nasal .

... sorry, at first I read Barbirollian's "Fritz" as referring to Fritz Wunderlich : an excusable misreading, as that was the Fritz most recently mentioned.

But it must be the Fritz on the 'recommended' recording - Burkhard Fritz...

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[Barbirollians]

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... sorry, at first I read Barbirollian's "Fritz" as referring to Fritz Wunderlich : an excusable misreading, as that was the Fritz most recently mentioned.

But it must be the Fritz on the 'recommended' recording - Burkhard Fritz...

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Yes I meant Burkhard Fritz - not Wunderlich

[Barbirollians]

Indeed, it has prompted me to order a second hand copy.

I wish these sellers would look inside the boxes - on receiving this today with the correct cover and booklet I found a CD of the original CD release of the Ferrier/Patzak/Walter inside !

[Barbirollians]

With the Christmas holidays and now Covid isolation one benefit is catching up with some recordings bought and not yet played.

There have been two Das Lieds - firstly the Connolly/Spence/LPO Nezet-Seguin live with the LPO . This is probably now my favourite modern version . Connolly is perhaps even more attentive to the text with Jurowski ( indeed I think she rather than Coote is the current top mezzo/alto in this role but I prefer NS’s conducting which is more sensitive and has more Innigkeit as Edward Greenfield used to say . No surprise that David Gutman rated this well above the Albrecht when he reviewed them both.

The second was the Ormandy - this seemed to have been panned regularly in reviews but I thought that was rather harsh. The Philadelphia strings are a big asset . I accept that Richard Lewis’s voice is not as fresh as in many of his other recordings but he still sings a lot better than others including Burkhard Fritz. Lila Chookasian is not a name known to me but she sings well in particular in the fourth song which is headily played and gets close to the spirit of the text .

Sadly, to my ears the wheels come off in Der Abschied . The orchestra starts drawing attention to itself in the wrong way and the long orchestral part before the alto returns pretty much goes for nothing . Chookasian is pretty inexpressive until those last pages but she does not come within a country mile of the greats. Glad to have heard it though.

It came coupled on one of those bargain Sony discs with Frederica von Stade singing the Five Ruckert Lieder with Andrew Davis . Her voice seems very high for these songs - fine in the three lighter songs and although some lovely singing Ich bin .. it seems very lightweight compared again to Ferrier/Baker and Ludwig . Um Mitternacht just sounds underpowered. The LPO play well but Andrew Davis’s conducting is prosaic.

[Wolfram]

With the Christmas holidays and now Covid isolation one benefit is catching up with some recordings bought and not yet played.

There have been two Das Lieds - firstly the Connolly/Spence/LPO Nezet-Seguin live with the LPO . This is probably now my favourite modern version . Connolly is perhaps even more attentive to the text with Jurowski ( indeed I think she rather than Coote is the current top mezzo/alto in this role but I prefer NS’s conducting which is more sensitive and has more Innigkeit as Edward Greenfield used to say . No surprise that David Gutman rated this well above the Albrecht when he reviewed them both.

The second was the Ormandy - this seemed to have been panned regularly in reviews but I thought that was rather harsh. The Philadelphia strings are a big asset . I accept that Richard Lewis’s voice is not as fresh as in many of his other recordings but he still sings a lot better than others including Burkhard Fritz. Lila Chookasian is not a name known to me but she sings well in particular in the fourth song which is headily played and gets close to the spirit of the text .

Sadly, to my ears the wheels come off in Der Abschied . The orchestra starts drawing attention to itself in the wrong way and the long orchestral part before the alto returns pretty much goes for nothing . Chookasian is pretty inexpressive until those last pages but she does not come within a country mile of the greats. Glad to have heard it though.

It came coupled on one of those bargain Sony discs with Frederica von Stade singing the Five Ruckert Lieder with Andrew Davis . Her voice seems very high for these songs - fine in the three lighter songs and although some lovely singing Ich bin .. it seems very lightweight compared again to Ferrier/Baker and Ludwig . Um Mitternacht just sounds underpowered. The LPO play well but Andrew Davis’s conducting is prosaic.

Lili Chookasian sings the First Norn on Karajan's recording of Gotterdammerung. I know nothing else about her career other than that.

The Connolly/Spence/LPO/N-S is real favourite. As much for Toby Spence as Sarah Connolly; so good to hear a really expressive lyric, in the Wunderlich mould, in the tenor songs.

[Barbirollians]

Lili Chookasian sings the First Norn on Karajan's recording of Gotterdammerung. I know nothing else about her career other than that.

The Connolly/Spence/LPO/N-S is real favourite. As much for Toby Spence as Sarah Connolly; so good to hear a really expressive lyric, in the Wunderlich mould, in the tenor songs.

Chookasian appears to have sung at the met for over 20 years - she was also a soloist in Bernstein’s CBS recordings of Mahler 8 and Beethoven 9 and in the Verdi Requiem with Leinsdorf.

[Wolfram]

Chookasian appears to have sung at the met for over 20 years - she was also a soloist in Bernstein’s CBS recordings of Mahler 8 and Beethoven 9 and in the Verdi Requiem with Leinsdorf.

I was going to say that you'll see her name popping up all over the place now. The Bernstein Mahler 8 recoring has been on my shelves for decades, but her name only stuck in my mind in relation to the Karajan Ring. The potted biographies of the artists in the book with the original LP release of Gotterdammerung, a thing of beauty - as were all those books, says that she was born in Chicago to Armenian parents. The Ormandy recording gets a mention in the biographical note. I'll give the prelude a spin later; she's in exaulted company with Christa Ludwig and Catarina Ligendza as her sister Norns.

There would appear to be a second recording of Das Lied featuring Chookasian, this time from Cincinnati with Richard Cassilly and conducted by Walter Susskind.

[Barbirollians]

Bryn, was that Jessye Norman Prom the one with Rattle and the CBSO? I remember being very moved by it.

What a shame it was not a BBC Legends release . Finally, got hold of an actual copy of the Norman/Vickers /Sir Colin Davis . I tend to agree with the criticisms of Davis’s tempos but there is some lovely playing and the oboist in the Abschied is touching and mysterious . Jessye Norman is the star of this recording though - so beautifully, intelligently and movingly sung. Vickers a bit too much barking for my liking.

That Abschied is so slow though.