Landmark Schöne Müllerin performances on record

[Mandryka]

I'm getting into it - so far focussing on Aksel Schiøtz and Jorma Hynninen. Who has brought something special to this cycle?


I must say, Hynninen's Schubert is very good, here and his two Winterreise recordings. Recommended enthusiastically.

There was a bit of discussion a while ago here.

https://www.for3.org/forums/forum/classical-forum/record-review/building-a-library/18208-bal-9-06-18-schubert-die-sch%C3%B6ne-m%C3%BCllerin

[smittims]

I don't mind admitting I've always preferred this work to Winterreisse, even though Constant Lambert would probably say 'because, my dear sir, you have an essentially trivial nature'. But I disagree with the verdict that it is 'sentimental' by comparison. I think it's closer to real life as most of us live it .

I read a lot of praise for the Aksel Schiotz/Gerald Moore version before I eventually heard it, and , heigh-ho, I wasn't bowled over. Maybe it's because I've always admired the Gerhard Husch/ version. By any standards, that is surely a 'landmark', or at least a 'classic'.

I enjoy Olaf Bar/Parsons and Ian Bostridge/Mitsuko ,though I'm not sure they qualify as 'landmarks'. Nor our old friend Dietrich, unavoidable as always, (an aquaintance of mine says 'I am allergic to that man's voice'); I even wonder (is this lese-majeste?) if it's really his piece; at any rate , I don't think it suits him as as much as Winterreise .

Casting back in my memory, I recall a 'live' performance at the Royal Northern College in, I think, 1978, by Alexander Young and David Lloyd, which, I thought, just caught the spirit of this sometimes elusive work, so that's a landmark for me. It was followed, after a buffet tea, by John Shirley-Quirk and Martin Isepp in Winterreisse , much darker. I don't think the contrast between the two works could have been better made.

[Mandryka]

I'm going to suggest that Bostridge/Uchida is a major masterpiece - whatever you think about his accent. It combines a meticulous attention to detail in the best Bildungsbuergertum tradition with feeling, expressiveness, angst. Bostridge is able to move from the faux-naive folk music style at the start of the cycle to the quasi-cosmic style later on. His voice still has some of the freshness of his early recording with Johnson. Uchida has excellent judgement about when to keep in the background and when to bring the piano part into the foreground.

[gradus]

Did Wunderlich ever record it? I should have thought it would suit him very well.

[richardfinegold]

There is more than 1 Wunderlich recording, but I think that only one was official, the rest performances released posthumously. I could be wrong.

[oliver sudden]

Wunderlich is indeed very special in the cycle. Like Das Lied von der Erde it offers him an excellent opportunity to sing his own name.

Also very partial to Prégardien with Staier, and Schreier with Schiff.

[gurnemanz]

Did Wunderlich ever record it? I should have thought it would suit him very well.

Out of curiosity (should get out more) I did the research via this site, where five recordings are mentioned. I checked availability as best I could.

Hotel Esplanade, Berlin, 1957-08-12 Kurt Heinz Stolze (piano)
Ars Produktion | Neuheiten (ars-produktion.de)

WDR recordingCologne, 1959-03-12. Kurt Heinz Stolze (piano)
Die Schone Mullerin : Wunderlich, K-H.Stolze (1959) : Schubert (1797-1828) | HMV&BOOKS online : Online Shopping & Information Site - ANDRCD9062 [English Site]

SDR recording. Rec. at Villa Berg, Stuttgart, 1964-03-05. Hubert Giesen (piano)
(Complete recording not yet released.)

WDR recording. Saal 2, WDR Studios, Cologne, 1965-10-18 Hubert Giesen (piano)
Schubert, Fritz Wunderlich, Hubert Giesen - Schubert: Die Schone Mullerin (Luxembourg 1965) - Amazon.com Music

Rec. at Akademie der Wissenschaften, Munich, 1966-07-02 - 1966-07-05. Hubert Giesen (piano)
Widely available eg Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin - Deutsche Grammophon: 4796501 - download | Presto Music
see here for info, reviews etc: Fritz Wunderlich Discography: Schubert - Schoene Muellerin a. o. / Giesen 1966 (andreas-praefcke.de)

Only 1957 and 1966 seem to be available - as mentioned in this BBC mag review of 66
Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin - Classical Music (classical-music.com)

[Mandryka]

From Markus Schäfer and Tobias Koch's landmark recording -- though possibly a landmark which no-one else dares go to. .

Baron Carl von Schönstein, to whom Schubert dedicated the first edition of Die schöne Müllerin, published in five volumes in 1824. An original copy of the first edition contains handwritten comments and modifications in Schönstein’s own hand Just like the 2nd edition of the cycle published in 1830 by Diabelli in Vienna, and like the handwritten copies of several of the songs passed around in Schubert circles, Schönstein’s variants, alternatives and modifications reveal that – despite all respect towards the composer’s intentions – it was common practice to approach the score with a certain amount of creative
freedom. Vestiges of the 19th-century art of improvisation are preserved in these well-documented, justifiably proven alterations. Improvisation was a matter of course in music practice
back then, and it lay at the very heart of the musical parlor game invented in Staegemann’s
home.


Musicians of Schubert’s time reacted to signals they recognized in the score. Repeat signs,
for instance, were always understood to indicate that one should vary the music the second
time around. That also applies to the great number of songs with regularly recurring stanzas
that we find in Die schöne Müllerin, inviting the singer and pianist to embody each stanza in
an appropriate, different way.


Markus Schäfer and Tobias Koch have intensely studied the performance practice of Schubert’s
time. However, their take on Berger’s and Schubert’s Lieder is not intended to be an act of purely
reconstructive historicism, but rather a consciously subjective appropriation and transformation
of a historical practice – far beyond merely ornamenting the original notes. The two musicians
strive to achieve a kind of improvisational trance to emphasize and direct our attention to
details in the text and the music. This not only takes place in the vocal part, but also in the piano
part. In their approach, the piano is allowed to react to the voice or inspire it: by modifying
texture and range, by introducing new accompaniment figures or by imitating the sound of
horns when they are suggested in the text – even by inserting additional bars or by quoting
previously written songs. Such reminiscences do not appear literally in the score, but it contains
them in nuce, nevertheless

We could not yet imagine that we were embarking on a new kind of adventure when we started working together on the two Müllerin settings. Our wide-ranging study of the sources led us to new insights, which started acquiring a life of their own and helped us acquire an increasingly unfettered vision of Schubert’s heartbreaking song cycle. We were fascinated to observe the extent to which familiar elements now stood on their head. What had hitherto seemed a matter of course now revealed itself as just one of many possible interpretations. Even the “miracle” of apparent unity between music and text only occurs in the uniquely intuitive moment of a rendition, whether on stage or in the salon. For that to emerge, on every occasion, a creative process needs to take place on both sides – even when we are listening to a recording. If performers and listeners make up their minds in advance and if their expectations are cut-and-dried, they are partially obliterating something that should always remain alive and which should have its immediate effect in the moment.

To what extent is “historically informed” performance practice supposed to be truly historically informed? To what extent will audiences regard our experimental approach as postmodern? Will they understand the crucial question we are raising on the subject of faithfulness to the original? These works were handed down to us and we have been entrusted with their care. In all honesty and with all due respect, how could we otherwise approach them than with wholehearted sincerity, no holds barred?

https://static.qobuz.com/goodies/68/000162386.pdf

[oliver sudden]

I think I would probably dislike that intensely but I also think I very much need to hear it.

[smittims]

I'm always very wary of this sort of thing. In my experience it has led to some very unwarranted anachronistic performances which are intended to serve more to publicise the musicians than truth to the work. Yes, it is well-known that musicians interpreted music their own way, in an age before it was customary or even possible to hear the composer or his disciples perform it, but it's too easy to go too far and tip over into travesty. The 20th-century trend towards Werktreue, pioneered by such artists as Artur Rubinstein in Chopin and Felix Weingartner in Beethoven, was at first regarded as cold and clinical but soon became welcomed as a much-needed correction of approach.

[Mandryka]

I think their point is that werktreue performers have misunderstood the meaning of the score. That to perform the score strictly and literally is to be false to the composer's intentions. The "correction" of werktreue was, in fact, a move away from historically informed performance. That's now widely accepted in early keyboard music - no-one would dream of playing like harpsichord like Walcha and Karl Richter and claiming to be HIP! I can see it starting to have an effect in 19th century music performance.

I'd say what they do is well worth hearing, especially for the pianism.

(I see they've recorded Winterreise too, and Tobias Koch was involved in a Schwanengesang recording.)

What they say reminds me of Daniel Leech-Wikinson's work - I wish I could buy a hard copy of it

https://challengingperformance.com/the-book/

[Mandryka]

I had a listen (twice) to Mauro Peter last night - he was the pick of the pack in the last BBC Radio 3 Building a Library on this cycle. It strikes me as immaculate and restrained, humble. Werktreue in spades! I think the technical term is "museum quality" The BL programme, from 2018, is still streaming - I haven't listened yet but will do.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p069qtv7

[gurnemanz]

I remembered a previous thread in 2022 which mentioned the Schäfer/Koch version and found it via search . I wanted to get a link to it but couldn't succeed in doing so. So, for what it's worth, I have copied and pasted my comment from there:

Originally posted by Mandryka View Post
I think you should see it as an improvisation which retains Schubert’s pitch patterns.

Fair enough but surely a key feature of improvisation is spontaneity, ie being different on each occasion (a la Bob Dylan in his live shows), where each performance is a one-off event. In any repetition of such an interpretation, ie a recording, you might want to hear a subtly different improvisation rather then the same one again and again.

I have listened to Winterreise with Markus Schäfer accompanied by Tobias Koch. They state: "We diverge from what is familiar, as well as from the 'Urtext', in a multitude or striking musical details: we introduce other notes, different embellishments, interpolated recitatives, additions, rests, transitions, unexpected turning points... We plead in favour of the listening habits of Schubert's day: more spontaneity, more individuality, an emphasis on the unique role each musical moment can play for interpreters and for the audience".

I'm happy to listen to all that. It's a fascinating and insightful experience, even with the ultimately irritating out-of-sync left/right hand effect, but not one I feel the need to repeat. If all that stuff is improvised and spontaneous they would presumably do it differently another day. So I'll listen to that one with new open ears.

[gurnemanz]

There was a bit of discussion a while ago here.

https://www.for3.org/forums/forum/classical-forum/record-review/building-a-library/18208-bal-9-06-18-schubert-die-sch%C3%B6ne-m%C3%BCllerin

I went back there and found my list:

I have about twenty Schöne Müllerins and v difficult to single out a favourite. Gerhaher with Huber (superb accompaniment), mentioned above, is excellent. I also like the Prégradien/Staier. The earlier East German Peter Schreier with Norman Shetler, Wunderlich, Kaufmann, Werner Güra (also seen live at Wigmore) Thomas Quasthoff is not far behind FD. Julius Patzak with Michael Raucheisen recorded in 1943 in Berlin. Souzay. I'm not really a Pears fan but like Britten's piano. Matthias Goerne with Christoph Eschenbach should definitely be a BaL contender. Two other historical favourites are tenor Aksel Schiøtz and baritione Gerhard Hüsch.

Since then I have only acquired one more - not a recent recording: Ernst Haefliger accompanied by Jacqueline Bonneau. (He also recorded a good version with Jörg Ewald Dähler on fortepiano.) I have had a soft spot for Haefliger since I got my first LP of Dichterliebe over 50 years ago (this one). I waited several decades for it to appear on CD and eventually it did via a very rewarding Haefliger box which came out a couple of years ago: https://www.prestomusic.com/classica...fliger-edition. The Schöne Müllerin with Jacqueline Bonneau is in that collection. Maybe not a 'landmark' but very good.

[Barbirollians]

Bostridge/Johnson with DFD readings.