I first got to know
Schubert's Die Winterreise cycle back in the 1950s (Hans
Hotter, with either Gerald Moore or, later, the 1942 version with
Michael Raucheisen when Hotter was in younger and fresher voice).
I have listened to the work often since then; it's a wonderful song
cycle with complex harmonies, melodies and modulations. My latest
version sees Christian Gerhaher with Gerold Huber.
Winterreise is a
gloomy, pessimistic work. It sounds even gloomier with this latest
version that, right from the start and Gute Nacht, radiates an
air of acute depression. Gerhaher is a superb singer with a most
attractive light baritone. To my ears, Huber – usually a thoroughly
reliable partner – does not make the most of Schubert's highly
important piano part; in Die Krähe, for example. I find
Brendel (for Matthias Goerne) or Helmut Deutsch (for Jonas Kaufman)
preferable. The 24 songs have English translations; bad translations,
that show the drawbacks with skimping overheads and employing what
could almost be a teenage translator with a dictionary. Who else
would translate Der Leiermann as “the Lyre Man”? Just
listening to the piano, it's obviously about an organ-grinder, or a
hurdy-gurdy man. Good though this version is, I think I'll stick to
Hotter, Goerne or Kaufman for my Winterreise listening.
To lift the gloom
engendered by listening to Winterreise, I next listened to
César Franck's Symphony in D minor. This is a superb
symphony, full of colour and melody, that seems to have gone quite
out of fashion. Before around the 1960s it appeared regularly in
concerts and recordings. In concerts now it has been superseded by
wall-to-wall Mahler symphonies, and few new major recordings of
Franck's work have appeared over the past few decades. It was an old
warhorse of Thomas Beecham, and Giulini (1957 recording) and Pierre
Monteux (recorded 1961). It seems to feature less and less in
programmes and in catalogues and this is a great loss to music lovers
everywhere. As always, I enjoyed it greatly.
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