Customer Reviews

Hans Hotter sings (Carl) Loewe Ballads

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Historic releases are usually designed for record collectors who are interested in performing traditions of the past. This sample of Carl Loewe ballads issued by the Austrian label Preiser deserves a wider audience. The main attraction is the name of the great German bass-baritone Hans Hotter (1909-2003) who both had a huge voice and was a great interpreter of chamber music, but there are two more reasons to buy this Preiser CD.

1) Hotter is captured here in cooperation with the eminent ensemble pianist Michael Raucheisen (1889-1974) considered by many singers the greatest accompanist of his day: to take just one example, Lady Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, a singer who had world-class pianists at her disposal in the post-war years, nevertheless called Raucheisen her best accompanist. In the dark years Raucheisen led a Lieder project and united the best singing forces remaining in Germany (incl. Hotter and Schwarzkopf - the latter even recorded several Loewe songs with Raucheisen early in her career) in order to record all German Lieder. The present collection - 18 ballads and Lieder by Carl Loewe (1796-1869) - was recorded by Hotter & Raucheisen in 1943-1945, when the singer's voice was in its absolute prime. 17 from these 18 Hotter/Raucheisen items were issued at the HAFG Hotter CD (Carl Loewe Edition, vol. 1), but I recommend this Preiser transfer. Besides, Preiser adds a rarity - Loewe's setting of Goethe's `Wandrers Nachtlied II' ('Der du von dem Himmel bist') which is absent from the HAFG CD. Hotter's abundant voice recorded astonishingly well and the sound of reviewed CD is good, except for track 4 and a few other spots.

2) This Hotter-Raucheisen CD is one of the most successful items in Carl Loewe's discography and still remains unsurpassed. Ballads and songs by Carl Loewe (1796-1869) have always been held in esteem by every lover of Romantic music and Romantic poetry - from Robert Schumann and Richard Wagner to record collectors of our day, cf. the recent Loewe series on CPO with first-rate soloists as bass Kurt Moll (vol. 14 Carl Loewe: Lieder & Balladen, Vol. 14) or baritone Andreas Schmidt (vol. 7 Carl Loewe: Lieder und Balladen, Vol.7) and Cord Garben at the piano. There has been a long performing tradition: it flourished in the end of the XIX - first half of the XX century (which can traced on two excellent historic anthologies - on Preiser (ASIN: B0000023QA, alsoCarl Loewe: Ausgewählte Balladen) and on Pearl (The Songs of Carl Loewe) - for the most part, in an enjoyable or acceptable sound), but after the WW II it died out. Hotter and Josef Greindl (1912-1993) were the only noted Loewe specialists who still turned to this composer in the post-war decade. In 1957, Hotter recorded 5 Loewe songs with Gerald Moore: these are issued on Testament 1198 (Hans Hotter Lieder Recital). He repeated two songs - `Odins Meeresritt' and `Hinkende Jamben' and added three new ones - `Edward', `Der Erlkoenig' and `Die wandelnde Glocke', none of which he recorded in the war years to my knowledge. All these Hotter-Moore items are glorious and recommendable, but if you want to hear Hotter's voice when he did not strain in the upper register, turn to this Hotter-Raucheisen CD.

Nobody seemed to tell Hotter that Carl Loewe is a B-class composer and the collisions of his ballads shouldn't be taken seriously (cf. Fischer-Dieskau's comments to his own records) - here you get a pure intonation and warm feelings of a man mourning his dead girlfriend in `Der Wirtin Toechterlein' (track 2), pitying the lost bride in `Treuroeschen' (track 2), pope Gregor's fate (Tracks 8-10) and even the abandoned granddad (`Urgrossvaters Gesellschaft', track 12) or expressing the wish of a loafer that his job were done by some friendly dwarfs (track 14 - `Die Heinzelmaennchen'). This sense of the ballad style and histrionic abilities displayed by Hotter are likely due to Raucheisen's guidance and to the fact that Hotter was firmly rooted in the tradition which had such Loewe champions as Hotter's fellow-townsman, Munich bass Paul Bender (1875-1947), see Bender's recital on Preiser (Lebendige Vergangenheit: Paul Bender) - of course, with Raucheisen at the piano. Bender's artistry is unsurpassed, but his voice was already weak and in a ruined condition to the moment he started recording Loewe's ballads with Raucheisen. On the contrary, Hotter's voice in 1943-1943 was just overwhelming as its range some 3 octaves) and volume concerns - it was prima facie overlarge for chamber recordings, but the singer and Raucheisen somehow managed to direct this mighty flood to the right riverbed. Try track 10 - `Ein Klippeneiland liegt im Meer' - if you want to hear how effectively a natural Flying Dutchman (a role Hotter sang and recorded in the war years) could sing a Lied. But Hotter is equally amusing in humourous songs (tracks 13, 14 & 15), where the soloist has to patter the words and to lessen his voice.

Raucheisen and Hotter picked up 13 Loewe ballads and one vocal cycle - `Gregor auf dem Stein', vol. 38: from these, the ballad `Treuroeschen', Op. 2, Nr. 1, and `Gregor auf dem Stein', Op. 38, are rare guests on CDs and you will scarcely find better performances. The only item, where Hotter is less satisfying and lacks rhythmical flexibility, is `Prinz Eugen', Op. 92 (track 16) - but nobody can match Gerhard Huesch in this difficult piece, IMHO. `Die verfallene Muehle', Op. 109 (track 17), is one of Loewe's most beautiful songs for a bass voice. Hotter's variant is excellent, but if you love Loewe and this piece, try to hear Kurt Moll (on CPO or Harmonia Mundi) here. Just as fine is Hotter's rendition of Loewe's `Odins Meeresritt', Op. 109, but there are many outstanding performances of this masterpiece - by Rudolf Bockelmann, Kurt Moll and Oskar Czerwenka (Czerwenka's excellent solo recital on Preiser is unfortunately not available on the amazon.com).

Warmly recommended - for everyone who loves Lieder and great singing and especially for people who love Hans Hotter and Carl Loewe's settings of romantic poetry. If you want to learn Loewe's opus, this CD can serve as an ideal starter.

A final comment: I looked at the amazon.com pages and found that many Loewe CDs - both historical releases and some volumes in the recent CPO edition, are currently out-of-print and overpriced. Therefore, the modest price of this Hotter Loewe-CD is one more valid argument to buy it now.