Customer Reviews

Schoenberg: Gurrelieder / The Two Chamber Symphonies ~ Ozawa / Inbal

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

OK, if the name Arnold Schoenberg sets your teeth on edge just THINKING about his music, you can relax. The "Gurrelieder" is a large choral work in the style of Wagner or Mahler: that is, Romanticism to the Nth degree. There is not a hint of the atonal/serial/12-tone music which Schoenberg pioneered and was famous for. The music is full and rich and totally melodic. Many passages are as reflective as Wagner's "A Siegfried Idyll" and others as heart-stopping as Mahler's "Resurrection Symphony." This is positively THE performance to buy for several reasons---firstly, the soloists are perfect for their roles and all in their prime: James McCracken, a terrific heroic tenor at the Metropolitan Opera is not as well known as he should have been because he, for some reason, did not record alot. (His first rate 'Don Jose' is featured on the Leonard Bernstein DGG recording of "Carmen" starring Marilyn Horne.) Tatiana Troyanos, an American mezzo, had a huge career at the Met thanks to being championed by music director James Levine, but she recorded little and now after her premature death, we are left with few recordings to treasure. (She played 'Octavian' opposite Kiri Te Kanawa's 'Marschallin' in a legendary video of "Der Rosenkavalier" which, unfortunately, was never released as CD's.) And what is there left to say about Jessye Norman at her best??? Her voice here is simple and yet overwhelmingly emotional. The Boston Symphony Orchestra under Ozawa is tops, the all-important choral parts are taken by the formidable Tanglewood Festival Chorus and the sound on this Philips set might have been recorded yesterday. Add to all this that Schoenberg's two "Chamber" Symphonies are given as bonuses and the fact that Philips is selling the CD's at bargain prices, Well, how can you resist? Very Highly Recommended.

Schoenberg's Gurrelieder is a hard work written for a grand ensemble. But this recording is really excellent. Especially the voice of Jesse Norman, Tatiana Troyanos's marvellous performance on Lied der Waldtaube, three men's choir in the third section and the eight voice choir's performance in the final section is really worth to listen again and again. And also we can't pass by Eliahu Inbal's Chamber Symphonies recording, it is also great.

I hadn't realised just how many recordings of this monumental work there were out there until I started a little research and I can claim to be familiar with only four -although I have listened to some excerpts of others. The other odd thing my investigations revealed was just how many totally contradictory opinions you can glean from a trawl through the Amazon reviews, both US and UK.

OK; in the end you can only tell it as you see - or rather hear - it yourself. My departure point and single biggest discriminator is the quality of the soloists. I realise that you need a wonderful conductor, orchestra and choir to do those massive sonorities justice and the final, blazing paean to Nature and the sun from combined forces has to be right, but the emotional core of this overlong, rambling, unbalanced, but ultimately fascinating, work lies with the outpourings of feeling from the hero, heroine, two bemused onlookers and, finally, the recitalist of the poem. I agree that several conductors seem to lose detail in a soup of sound - or maybe that is as much a location and recording problem - but I can forgive some of that when the voices are right. (Gielen's relatively new recording sounds to my ears to be serious undercast, although Diener repeats her touching, slightly low-key assumption of Tove.)

First, I will not budge on one fact (i.e opinion!): nobody, but nobody, not even Troyanos, begins to approach the depth, strength and variety of colour that Janet Baker brings to her Wood Dove narration. Her voice, in the rather elderly and hissy live, Danish recording conducted by Ferencsik, is awesomely powerful and resonant yet also delicate and moving. She conveys every nuance of emotion in a tour de force of a performance. Troyanos is good but just compare key moments such as "Tod ist Tove". Everyone else, barring Troyanos (and perhaps Fassbaender on the Chailly set) is an also-ran in this part - and some are quite disappointing - particularly Jennifer Lane in the Craft performance.

Regarding Waldemar, there are, to my ears, a lot of rather windy, over-parted tenors who have a go at this role; strangely enough, Alexander Young, Baker's and Arroyo's partner, makes a success of it simply by treating the role quite lyrically and focussing his lighter voice tellingly instead of trying to blast. O'Mara, on the Craft, is very good; having heard him live I suspect that the recording is kind to him, as his voice in the flesh is not that large, however pleasing and musical. No; for me McCracken in the Ozawa set is close to ideal in timbre and attack - if only he had attempted to sing more quietly in the more intimate passages. However, his is still a thrilling assumption of the role and the right, huge voice for this frenetic, despaired and desperate character - and it is possible that the close recording is partly to blame for his prominence in quieter passages.

I need a soprano of real heft and amplitude of tone as Tove - but someone who can fine down her large voice from the more ecstatic moments to accommodate the declarations of love. Arroyo (Ferencsik -again) and, of course, Jessye Norman for Ozawa, have huge, beautiful voices and their competitors,such as Melanie Diener, while being perfectly adequate, rather pale in comparison.

The strength of the Craft set lies in the coherence and splendour of the choral singing and his control of tension - but the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, too, won a Gramophone Award for their contribution to Ozawa's recording. The soloists in Ozawa'a performance are, as I mention above, recorded rather too closely but the ambience of the Boston Symphony Hall is kind. The Ferencsik does not have as stellar an orchestra or choir as Ozawa but they still generate excitement and depth of sound. The best overall sound is to be found on the Craft (formerly Koch, now Naxos).

So, ultimately, I find myself returning either to Ferencsik or Ozawa for the sterling solo performances and it is the latter that I would cling to at a push - while always regretting that it was not Baker who sang for Ozawa. I don't think that Chailly provides the same thrills; his soloists (Fassbaender apart) strike me as competent but bland - though I do enjoy Hotter's declamation even if he had an inauthentic voice type for the spoken role, if we are to heed the composer's wishes for a lighter ex-tenor sound.

P.S. Having since discovered the superb Munich recording on Oehms (see my review), wonderfully played and conducted by Levine and impressively sung by Heppner and Voigt, I unhesitatingly recommend that one even above the other versions I recommend above. The buyer is spoilt for choice.

This is one lush, romantic score. Its like 'Tannhauser meets Salome.' Having both Troyanos and Norman in fabulous voice would seal the deal regardless of the rest of the cast. But with James McCracken you have the perfect tenor for this music. The equally underappreciated Jess Thomas made a good recording of this role as well. But McCracken was special. No one sounded like him. And his recording opportunities were shamefully rare.
This music demands a tenor with power and conviction. McCracken had those qualities like no one before or since. The only problem with this recording is that the voices are too far forward. Given more reverb this Gurrelieder would have been perfect.

The reviews already posted will give any reader pause for thought among the available recordings.

1)I had the honor to be in the chorus when the Philadelphia Orchestra performed this work in Ann Arbor Michigan in 1957 (or was it '58). One cannot underestimate the complexity of this work for the performers. As part of a chorus of 150 men, we were completely drowned out in "Gegruesst, gegruesst o Koenig" by the brass section and the percussion including an anchor chain (8" links about 2" in diameter) dragged over an aluminum plate. Finally they suspended microphones about one foot over our heads so we could be heard. Here the chorus really comes through with flying colors.

2) No one has mentioned the outstanding work of Werner Klemperer. Well-remembered from television, here he turns in a great performence in the sprechstimme part as the peasant. Not only is it a great performance but a true "gift" to his father, the conductor Otto Klemperer.
Enough said.

There is so much in Ozawa's 'Gurrelieder' to be excited and intoxicated with. Yes, this is Schoenberg's music! He is such a maligned artist and yet so much of his output is rich and exotic in a romantic style - if you have doubts just listen to his transcriptions of Bach and Brahms, Johann Strauss jnr even!! Where would I direct the attention of a sceptic in 'Gurrelieder'? That's such a difficult idea because there is so much of variety and yet also a great homogeneity. But, for me, the GREAT moment is 'The Song of the Wood Dove' and Tatiana Troyanos' remarkable singing. Play this in isolation and people who have shunned Scheonberg will never guess the source. But then, looking for highlights, how could I go past the stunning closing chorus? No, you really have to listen to all of it. It's tight and to the point - unlike the drawn out passages in Wagner - and yet it is also monumental and so obviously a product of the twentieth century that built on the foundations of Berlioz, Wagner and Brahms.

There is no question about Arnold Schoenberg's gigantic oratorio "Gurrelieder"'s greatness as being on the very same rarefied plane as any of mankind's other masterpieces in music (e.g., the Beethoven 9th Symphony, the High Mass in b {natural} by JS Bach, the Wagner opera "Tristan und Isolde", or Stravínskiy's ballet "Vjesná Svjashchjénnaja" ("Le Sacre du Printemps"), and most probably no single conductor's reading of this super-score will totally satisfy everybody. Certainly the ingredients for a superb performance are present: a truly great orchestra, worthy choirs for the 3rd part, wonderful soloists. The one thing that is however missing in this recording is a truly involved conductor who can truly bare his heart on his sleeve like a Kegel or a Sinopoli - or a Stokowski. So many, many of the really great moments of passion, tenderness, pain, and outrage (e.g., the interlude prior to the Song of the Wood-Dove) go for nothing in the hands of Seiji Ozawa - they're just brushed aside and not truly developed in terms of the eloquence and lushness this huge piece calls for. Whatever Ozawa's greatness in Berlioz or whoever else, he almost feels mechanical in his approach - which is not what Schoenberg, any more than Mahler, Wagner, Chaykóvskiy, Puccini, or Richard Strauss, would have had in mind. No, thanks to him (and it was his interpretation through which I first came to know this chef-d'oeuvre), I can't really recommend this recording almost at all.

Those who want something with more of a forward look (to the 20th-century) would do better to go with Chailly, Boulez or Gielen (with those seeking bargain-packages including other pieces being directed to the first 2); for those who want more atmosphere, I'd suggest Kegel (on Berlin Classics - my preference of the Gurrelieder recordings currently available) or probably Sinopoli. Also well worth considering is Levine (Ben Heppner is the best Heldentenor of them all, bar none!!).

Ozawa has had a checkered career on records (as in life), so his detractors below sound plausible. But the acclaim he won for this Gurre-Lieder from 1979 (in gorgeous, state-of-the-art sound) is well deserved. Ozawa is less incisive but still competitive, I think, with Sinopoli, Boulez, and Chailly, and the recent Berlin performance on EMI under Rattle seems pale by comparison. The languorous mood and dreamlike pacing suit the score very well. This is musicmaking of the kind Ozawa rarely achieved, and his vocal soloists are commanding, particularly Jessye Norman as a Tove of true Isolde stature, her voice as magnificent as we have ever heard it. But James McCracken and Tatiana Troyanos are scarcely far behind. (Indeed, the three of them should have recorded Tristan.) They outsing the competiiton with the sole exception of Ben Heppner on Levine's incandescent live recording from Munich (Oehms).

Yet one shouldn't overlook the two companion pieces, the Chamber Sym. #1 and #2, performed with equal vibrancy by Eliahu Imbal and his Frankfurt orchestra in 1974. The first work is given in its lush re-orchestration for full symphony and comes across as a lost Struass tone poem. Anyone phobic about Schoenberg's later idiom will be delighted. Only the Chamber Sym. #2 represents the composer's atonal maturity, and although it is not easy listening, I am grateful to own it as part of this fantastic two-fer, one not to be missed. Why, oh wh, did Ozawa lapse from this inpsired level and pull the BSO down with him?

I purhased this performance on vinyl years ago and now MUST seek it on CD! This performance so moved me that after it's first listening...i found myself frozen in my listening chair! I just knew I HAD to write to Seji and tell him my feelings and Did! Every day for 5 days I tried to write, but could not because i had just finished listening to it again. Finaly I just din't listen and wrote my letter. Buy it!

Norman, McCracken, and Troyanos are all incredible singers. The orchestra and the choir played and sang respectably, but in this work they were in serious need of some direction, and they obviously didn't get enough. With simpler music, a rotten conductor can get away with murder, but with something as large and challenging as Gurrelieder, shabby conducting leads to volume imbalances so large that several melodic lines get drowned out and tempos so brisk that the handful of players that can still be heard end up skipping and slurring many notes.

To prove my point, listen to one of the more complex numbers on this one like "Gegrusst, o Konig" or "Seht die Sonne" and then listen to the same section conducted by a real conductor like Boulez, Chailly, Sinopoli, or Rattle. I guarantee you it will be a night and day difference. Luckily, Ozawa managed to keep it somewhat together while Norman and McCracken were singing, so it's not a total loss.