Hugo's Wolf Den

[Mandryka]

This is one I hadn't heard for a few years but this afternoon I thought it was very enjoyable and expressive.  Just one voice, so it risks getting a bit boring for the length of a CD, but he inhabits the music so well that it was OK for an hour. Karl Engel may be a weak link, but he's perfectly able to play the notes.

[Mandryka]

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Been listening to these two on and off the past 24 hours - first time in a very long time.

The DG has really been cleaned up compared to my old transfer - in a sense it makes it easier to hear but in another sense you kind of lose something - some timbre and of course the sense of the hall.

The DG, an Innsbruck concert, is about 5  years earlier, and for me the earlier the performance the better when it comes to to FiDi, though there's not much in it. He was pushing 50 though even in the earlier concert so neither is in his . . . something . . . can't find the word. Richter was pushing 60 when he gave the Munich recital. 

I confess to finding  the Orfeo horrid! And to enjoying a bit more at least part of the DG - the parts when he's not barking.

[Mandryka]

A younger FiDi generally on good form - it's still recognisably FiDi, every syllable, every attack, every vowel, every consonant is nuanced, studied, refined, coloured. But he's younger, it can be a bit shouty sometimes but on the whole there's less growling and woofing than later. Seems to be taken from a number of concerts - I don't have the details any more.  Not my sort of thing at all.

Moore seems OK.

[Mandryka]

https://audite.de/de/product/CD/95599-edition_fischer_dieskau_i_h_wolf_moerike_lieder.html

Eureka. He was 30 max . He still had a nice voice -- slightly Hottery sometimes, not at all like the later stuff. THIS is the FiDi I can enjoy.  Straightforward but expressive singing.

I sometimes wonder whether he developed his "distinctive" refined style to compensate for the changes which were happening in his voice from the 1960s. Anyway it was a good call, because he had fans big time.

[Mandryka]

Souzay/Ameling Intalienisches Liederbuch, which never made it to CD as far as I know, is now streaming near you.

[Mandryka]

I think a really satisfying performance of the Geistliche lieder from the Spanisches Liederbuch in the Oxford Complete Lieder series. One really nice thing is they use four singers - soprano, mezzo, tenor, baritone.

The Spanisches Liederbuch has been much less frequently recorded than the Italianisches Liederbuch - which seems a great shame. There are very few modern sounding, I mean intimate and not operatic, performances on record.  This is one of them, maybe the only one.

[Mandryka]

Souzay/Ameling Intalienisches Liederbuch, which never made it to CD as far as I know, is now streaming near you.

The great thing about this is the young Elly Ameling - IMO in better voice than the recording she made with Tom Krause - 12 years later. However - Krause is good! It may be a case of mixing the tracks from the two recordings - though even thinking about it sounds a bit nerdy.

[Mandryka]

Wolf wrote the 53 settings of poems by Eduard Mörike in a period of intense and IMO inspired composition in 1888 - they mark his late style, both in the quasi-declamtory vocal writing and the characterful piano part - "piano accompaniment" does not do it justice - this is proper polyphony for voice and keyboard.

There are lots of performances on record of selections, but as far as I know only two which tackle all 53. I think Joan Rogers and Stephan Genz on Hyperion is not very rewarding - Rogers is shrill and sour, Genz is more tolerable, but at the end of the day he's very average, as is Roger Vignoles.

The two volumes on Stone records are live, the singers were all young and fresh at the time, and IMO it is by far the more satisfactory of the two. It's live, the singers were all young and fresh at the time of the recording, and their pianist, Sholto Kynoch, is excellent.

Would that I had a spontaneous understanding of the text! The booklet on the Stone Records site is downloadable and is full of interesting thoughts.


https://stonerecords.co.uk/album/hugo-wolf-the-complete-songs-vol-1-morike-lieder-part-1/

[Mandryka]

I was wrong to say there were just two complete Mörike Lieder recordings - there's also Dietrich Henschel. The previous two are not totally satisfactory for me. The one on Stone Records has a mixed bunch of singers some of which I don't like, and I don't like Joan Rogers at all. This one looks very promising. Henschel is a baritone in the fi-di style.

 Time to see whether this is cyclical, Wolf imposed an order on the songs.

On Spotify but not easy for find, search for the pianist, Fritz Schwinghammer.

[Mandryka]

And a third complete Mörike Liede has come my way - Frauke May's got a fabulous voice for me, flexible, full of life,  and text aware.  Bernhard Renizkowski is sensitive and tender.  Well recorded to boot. I think it may well be top tier Mörike