Any good Hugo Wolf boxed sets?

[ccar]

FiDi is very variable, BMW, to my ears, but often imparts insights while teaching us rather too emphatically about the song in question. I admire several of the performances on his Goethe-Lieder disc with Richter (of course it is pure pleasure to hear Richter playing this wonderful music) - the Harfenspieler songs and several others. But there is always that apprehensiveness while listening that he will begin to bark to warn you of an important message coming up. Some of the songs - "Gesang Weylas" (one of the non-Goethe encores) need a richer, more commanding voice to realise those amazing Melodiebögen (melodic arcs?) and dramatic declamations ("Prometheus").

Weyla's Song
You are Orplid, my land!
Distantly gleaming peaks -                                                                                                                         
The ocean breaking on your sun-lit strand                                                                                           
Breathes misty vapours, moistening the gods' own cheeks.
Primeval waters are ascending now
Renewed about your hips, my child! Ah, you  -                                                                                                 
To your divinity bow                                                                                                                     
Kings, who form your retinue.

Thank you for this nice post mjwal. And for your translation of Gesang Weylas. I did look at others (Emily Ezust and Richard Stokes) and I believe yours is much more revealing.

As you clearly worked with the poem so well, I would ask to share my reading with you. The part I feel is the center of the poem is the verse of "renewal of the primeval ascending waters" - Uralte Wasser steigen/Verjungt um deine Huften, Kind! . I take it as Weyla is also lookiing at death and renewal in the Orplid Paradise, to which even the Kings must bow. If this is a reasonable way of understanding it, the poem is not only a mythical or epic contemplative dream, but also an elegiac acceptance. And it is in this sense I feel Wolf's peaceful but sorrow music completely attuned with the poem.

And with the poem and music in mind, listening to the various singers may help us (or not) to perceive different meanings or "interpretations" of the poem. In the Fischer-Dieskau/Moore 1957 version, I note how Moore presents so very well the music murmuring character. Fischer-Dieskau also begins nicely but to the end of the song he uses a strong declamatory emphasis in the Sich Konige verse. For me, in spite of the crescendo indication, this is not the center of the poem and the forceful tone may rob its more intimate sense. And it pushes the song into an abrupt ending, instead of a more fading closing as, for me, the poem asks and the music suggests. In this, I really prefer the way Souzay sings it, with a more moving and restrained stillness. In the live Wolf Salzburg recital (1977) Richter gives to the song a very intimate tone and Fischer- Dieskau is globally much more interesting. But in the earlier Fischer-Dieskau/Richter  (Budapest 1973) the overemphatic reading of DFD is there right from the beginning and, for me, it takes all the magic from this beautiful poem and song.

[ccar]

I don't even know Roswaenge's later Feuerreiter, ccar. I haven't got that whole Raucheisen collection, only some LPs.

For me the latter version is really no match for the one he recorded for the HWS.  But if you are interested you don't need to get the Raucheisen collection. The Preiser CD I mentioned (cover is above) has the 2 Der Feuerreiter and other of his lieder recordings.    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Helge-Rosvaenge-Selected-Songs-Greig-Borresem/dp/B0000023QV/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1281548495&sr=1-14

[Mandryka]

I will recommend Elizabeth Schumann's Wolf (w/Moore '45) and Strauss recordings ('27-38) - I have them on a World Record Club LP

Unfortunately, as far as I can see, never on CD.

There's so much that I want to hear which is only on vynil that I may just go buy myself a turntable.

. . .  I am now considering whether to continue after all and put it on the net for free for interested music-lovers...It is actually one of the most aesthetically radical novels of the 19th C.

You should. The internet is global and it's here to stay, and this type of art is timeless. Over the course of time your work on the web will provide some stimulation to lots of people, I'm sure.

. . . to the end of the song he uses a strong declamatory emphasis in the Sich Konige verse . . .

Indeed -- Sich Konige is a bit of a trap.

I haven't heard Souzay sing it. Flagstad does it estremely well, as does Schlusnus.

Both Flagastad and Schlusnus are among my favourite singers. There's a Schlusnus Wolf CD which I like a lot. All the intensity and intelligence of FiDi, but a much more direct, simple style.




Sorry about the enormous picture 

[ccar]

Unfortunately, as far as I can see, never on CD.

I very much second mjwal for Seefried and Elisabeth Schumann. Wonderful artists with heartfelt unaffected singing. 

The Elisabeth Schumann/Gerald Moore Wolf (1945-46) is well hidden in a CD box "Les Introuvables de Walter Legge" - it includes In der Fruhe, In dem Schatten meiner Locken, Mausfallen-Spruchlein, Auch kleine Dinge, Wie glanzt der helle Mond and Und willst du deinen Liebsten . There are also some other Wolf lieder dispersed in her latter live recitals. 

 

[mjwal]

Ccar, thank you for your comments - I agree with your interpretation of the song (& poem), I can imagine how FiDi does it in the recording w/Moore, in the one w/Richter there is a hushed quality about much of the interpretation, as you say, but the vocal line is lacking in majesty, which must also be present. Souzay has that
fabulous murmuring-glory-of-yore manner, I love it. I do wish that Schorr, Kipnis or Panzéra had recorded it, though. I was also going to include Brigitte Fassbaender and Lotte Lehmann - but I do not know the former's Wolf recital for DG, though I have her earlier EMI Wolf recordings; the great Lotte did record it of course, regally and intensely too, with especial deep-toned attention to the "Uralte Wasser" passage you stress the importance of,  but makes too much of a significant pause before the emphatic "Könige..." (Nearly all her Lied recordings are on Naxos now.)
I am glad I don't need the second recording by Roswaenge, both means and space are limited as the fibrous old needle scrapes through the final grooves.
Thanks for the encouragement, Mandryka, I may well plough on despite my incurable indolence. And thanks for the Schlusnus tip - I have him singing almost everything except Wolf. I have already ordered it, ready for my return to Germany in the autumn.

[Mandryka]

I hope you enjoy the Schlusnus. He was a fine singer, particularly so I think in Mahler and Brahms.

In Gesang Weylas he puts a very slight pause between Sich and Konige -- this makes it just a bit less emphatic I think.


Hopefully it's not too late mjwal, but this is probably a better buy than the album in the picture above -- better selection.

[Mandryka]

I just wanted to share this beause I am enjoying it so much -- Kirstan Flagstad singing Gesang Weylas. She does Sich Konige very well I think!

I also wanted to play around with this wicked new flash thingy. Just press play and it should play though your computer.


http://www.goear.com/files/external.swf?file=aecf3c0

[mjwal]

Great - yes, she has an arch of meaningful melody there, because it floats - lofts - so grandly without ever distracting attention from the poetic sense - what a breathing technique. I did find that there was a slight distonation there on "Könige" where the voice seemed to mew a bit, but maybe it was the reproduction. As far as the new plaything is concerned: thumbs up, but next time make it louder, I had to turn my volume control up far past its usual position to even hear it.
Thank you - my experience of this song has been enriched.

[Mandryka]

Great - yes, she has an arch of meaningful melody there, because it floats - lofts - so grandly without ever distracting attention from the poetic sense - what a breathing technique. I did find that there was a slight distonation there on "Könige" where the voice seemed to mew a bit, but maybe it was the reproduction. As far as the new plaything is concerned: thumbs up, but next time make it louder, I had to turn my volume control up far past its usual position to even hear it.
Thank you - my experience of this song has been enriched.

Isn't that bar just above the play pause stop thing for volume? I can't check because the sound on my computer is not working.

[Wendell_E]

Isn't that bar just above the play pause stop thing for volume?

Yes, and the bar to its right is for balance.

[mjwal]

Thanks for the information about the on-screen player - I am very slow to grasp these things and have also got into awful predicaments by experimenting.

[Mandryka]

Please report back.  I find Bostridge to be hit or miss in Schubert, but excellent in Britten

(which I have as part of EMI's boxset of Rattle conducting Britten)
and also Handel.

Both Bär and Bostridge have arrived. I thought I would start to put them through their paces by listening to Verborgengeit.

I though Bostridge didn't show up at all well: unsteady, strained in the dramatic passages. I really thought there wasn't much to recommend his singing in this song.

Bär on the other hand was wonderful – limpid voice, supple, delicate, melancholy, expresive. This Bär  Cd has got off to an excellent start.

Verborgengeit is a song which seems to have been done by practically everyone who has recorded Mörike Lieder. I think Fassbaender is hard to beat for interiority and intensity, but Bär is very good. And so are Schlusnus and Slezak.  And then there's Erb, Hotter, Schreier. Lots of good singers.

But there may be good things in Bostridge's  CD – I'll post if I find anything.