Customer Reviews

Schumann: Songs of Love & Loss

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This CD contains a recital that mixes the familiar and unfamiliar. In the two cycles that are acknowledged masterpieces, the Liederkreis Op. 39 and Frauenliebe und Leben Op. 42, the singer comes up against the greatest lieder singers of the past (not all of them female, since the Liederkreis cycles are generally sung by men). Connolly's timbre is less bright and soprano=like than, say, Janet Baker's, but it isn't as rich as a contralto's like Kathleen Ferrier. She uses it sensitively, despite a certain lack of charisma or "face." And there's no doubt about her sensitivity and artistry. She sang a lovely Brangane under Simon Rattle when he brought Act II of Tristan to the Proms this summer.

The two cycles were both written in the miracle year of Schumann's songs, 1840, while the rest of the recital jumps ahead to his late career, overshadowed by mental illness and declining musical powers. There has been something of a crusade to revive forgotten or undervalued music from this sad period, and Connolly joins that effort. She sings plaintively, and her accompanist, Eugene Asti, is low-key and musical in his own right, even if a mere shadow of romantic intensity. But the songs themselves tend to wander in a passionate but formless romanticism.

Some of this must be attributed to Connolly, whose soft-grained approach lacks rhythmic precision; her singing is all about a sustained lyric line unbroken by events. You can hear this especially in the Liederkreis songs, where "Mondnacht" works well because it spins out as a long, mesmerizing arc, while an intensely dramatic song like "Waldgesprach" seems to swim. A matronly quality in the singer's tone doesn't help. Frauenliebe fares better, since this monologue from a heartbroken girl can be sung in almost a monotone of tenderness and sadness. Still, the absence of girlish innocence, along with the mushy rhythmic sense, makes this CD no rival to the great accounts of Frauenliebe by Baker and Ferrier, among others.


Here's the complete program:
Mein Schöner Stern! Op. 101 No. 4

Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart, Op. 135

Requiem Op. 90/7

Liederkreis, Op. 39

Frauenliebe und Leben, Op. 42

I had such high expectations for this CD. The Lieder of Robert Schumann are like a late-in-life child for me, a little bundle of joy to be hugged and coddled. The CD of the Dichterliebe sung by Werner Güra excited me so much (I've reviewed it) that I immediately cast my lines in the murky amazon for more such magic flounders. Alas, my 'catch' so far has been meager.

There can hardly be a better-trained mezzo-soprano on Earth than Sarah Connolly. Her resume is long and deep. She's been superb on CDs and DVDs of Purcell, Handel, Gluck, and Mozart. In other words, she is 'mistressful' at historically-informed vocal technique. Thus I presume that her interpretation of these Schumann piano-songs is a matter of deliberate choice; she has the control to choose.

To my ears, she's made the wrong choice, and I can't fathom why. She has 'resuscitated' the 1950s in order to sing music of the 1850s. Her vibrato is constant, insistent, and a quarter-tone wide. Is it intended to enhance the timbre or to enrich the affect? If so, it's misguided. It spoils her singing for me.

But it's endemic to the interpretation of Lieder -- Schubert's, Schumann's, others' -- by female singers. Güra, Hampson, Bostridge, Goerne, Fischer-Dieskau, NONE of the great male Lieder singers depend on such an exaggerated mannerism. Why do the women?

A beautiful, confident sound with a tad too much vibrato -- the tones are loosening in pitch (she's doubtlessly pushing for a bigger sound). However, it cannot be mistaken for a profound interpretation such as any of Janet Baker's, where one never is conscious of the sound, the mechanics of singing or breath-control, or verbal emphasis. One is in the still presence of the composer and his art. Thus does the veil fall as Dame Janet sings.