Okay, Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn) isn't really a "book of spells," but the three volumes of wildly diverse German folk poetry were a creative wellspring for Mahler. (Wikipedia can get you up to speed.)
LET'S START OFF WITH WHAT CYNTHIA PHELPS*
MIGHT CALL A STANLEY DRUCKER MAHLER "MOMENT"
*You recall from last week NY Phil principal violist Cynthia P.'s quote at the time Stanley D. retired (2009), at which point they'd been fellow principals since she joined the orchestra in 1992:
"I think the thing I'll miss most about Stanley is his unbelievable creativity, his ability to make a moment anytime he has the opportunity."
OH, ONE MORE THING: As we listen to a pair of performances of one itty-bitty Wunderhorn song setting, just for now I'm not going to identify the performers. For this moment, we can call them, oh, "Team X" and "Team Y."
MAHLER: Songs from "Des Knaben Wunderhorn":
"Lob des hohen Verstandes" ("In Praise of High Intellect")
Once in a deep valley,Team X
a cuckoo and nightingale
struck a wager:
Whoever would sing a masterpiece,
whether he won by art or luck,
he would win the bet.
The cuckoo spoke: "If you consent,
I have chosen a judge."
And he instantly appointed the ass.
"For since he has two large ears,
he can hear all the better,
and know what is right."
Soon they flew before the judge.
When he was told about the matter,
he decreed that they should sing.
The nightingale sang out sweetly!
The ass spoke: "You confuse me!
Hee-haw! Hee-haw!
I can't get it into my head."
Thereupon the cuckoo immediately began
his song with thirds, fourths, and fifths.
It pleased the ass, who said only: "Wait!
I will pronounce your judgment.
"You have sung well, nightingale!
But cuckoo, you sing a true anthem!
And held the beat precisely!
I say that from my great wisdom!
And even if it costs a whole country,
I thus pronounce you the winner."
Cuckoo, cuckoo! Hee-haw!
-- translation by Cecilia H. Porter
Team Y
by Ken
The song, of course, is one of the dozen free-standing settings Mahler made in his first fully mature years -- roughly the decade 1892-1901 -- from the strange and wonderful, almost indescribably diverse three-volume collection of German folk verse Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn). (Again, keep the Wikipedia link handy.) "Lob des hohen Verstandes" falls in a category we might call "Wacky-Satirical Plays on Nature," the most familiar of which would be the riverside sermon preached to the wild assortment of fishes by the good St. Anthony of Padua: "Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt." We're going to be hearing that too.
Speaking of diversity, our two performances sure embody it, don't they? One thing they have in common is some pretty spiffy clarinet-playing (we'll talk about that later), but even that is different. Obviously one performance is sung by a man and the other by a woman, and just as obviously, one performance is a good deal perkier, if nothing else just plain quicker, than the other, which gives the song a markedly different character, I think. Maybe less obviously, or at least more subjectively, I would venture that one is warmer, more endearing, more user-friendly, though the other is equally, and cherishably, precise in its realization of the wealth of detail Mahler has crafted into both the vocal line and the orchestral setting.
WHICH REMINDS ME: WE CAN ACTUALLY SEPARATE
THE SONG FROM ITS ORCHESTRAL SWADDLING
After all, like Mahler's other Wunderhorn settings, "Lob des hohen Verstandes" was composed first for voice and piano. If we get the orchestras cleared away, making room to wheel in the piano so Team Z can take their places, it'll sound like this:
Team Z
AS I'M SURE YOU'VE FIGURED OUT, TEAM Z . . .
. . . is actually Team X, with Conductor X wielding a piano instead of a baton. So who then is/are Team X? Maybe we shoujld listen to our two performances again.
Team X
I'll say it straight out: I really love good old Columbia KS 7395.
Walter Berry, bass-baritone; with Stanley Drucker, clarinet; New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded in Philharmonic Hall, Oct. 17, 1967 or Feb. 18, 1969
Oh yes, and "Team Z" --I've said it before and I'll say it again: The Team X DKW, which came into the world in this gatefold album with the Team Z performance as a "bonus LP" (sweet deal!), is one of my favorite records. The orchestral recording was made, in what configuration I've never had any idea, in two single-day sessions 16 months apart; the piano-accompanied performance, as noted, is a live performance of the full Wunderhorn set in Vienna in April 1968, smack in between the October 1967 and February 1969 Philharmonic Hall orchestral-recording dates.
Walter Berry, bass-baritone; Leonard Bernstein, piano. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded live in the Vienna Konzerthaus, Apr. 24, 1968
And now that we've listened twice to Stanley D.'s bravura delivery of the 1st clarinet part, at the breakneck tempo chosen by Maestro Bernstein for Team X (you'll note the more moderate pace of the piano-accompanied performance), you may understand why "Lob des hohen Verstandes" was one of the first things I thought of when I began thinking about "Stanley D. moments." I'm sure the maestro went into the performance knowing that Stanley D. could deliver the goods. More to the point, though, heknew he had the whole orchestra playing this extraordinary orchestral part like chamber music, in collaboration with a pair of soloists -- you'll recall that at this time Christa Ludwig (whom we'll be hearing again in "Antonius von Padua") and Walter Berry were still a married couple -- who are about as close to ideal as I for one can imagine, ardently embracing the extraordinary emotional range of the Mahler Wunderhorn songs.
SO WHAT ABOUT TEAM Y?
Like the Team Z piano-accompanied Vienna Wunderhorn, the Team Y recording took place smack in between the two NY Phil recording sessions. Obviously that recording hadn't been released when this one was made, in March 1968, between the second and third of three live performances in London's Royal Festival Hall. John Steane's booklet note for EMI's 2000 "Great Recordings of the Century" CD reissue reminds (which I've finally gotten around to reading, and found in it a few points worth thinking about) us how little known, relatively speaking, the Mahler Wunderhorn songs were at the time. They certainly weren't un-known, but it's worth remembering -- yet another quarter-century later, when these songs are about as standard as standard repertory gets -- how different it was in 1967-69.
Certainly EMI's "brand name" team of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and George Szell drew a new kind of attention to the Wunderhorn collection. For some of us, though, it's not necessarily the dream team that it is for other folks. Let's just say, for the benefit of newcomers, that Schwarzkopf isn't on my "favorite singers" list, while Fischer-Dieskau -- well, I'll have more to say when we get to his "Antonius von Padua." For now, suffice it to say that especially in repertory with the potential to tickle the ham actor in him, I often found it wise to approach with caution.
So over the years I really haven't listened to this Wunderhorn recording that much. Now that I've gotten back to it, I've come to treasure it, and this song -- often almost a throw-away in performances of the set, an interlude of modest comic relief is a prime example of why, and it always comes back to George Szell. Outwardly he seems to be deploying a poker face. But note, for starters, the extremely moderate pace he sets for the song (I doubt that I've heard a longer performance), and then note how, with hardly so much as a hint of a wink, he's coaxing from the London Symphony, in top form, playing as rich in character and depth as it is in clarity.
So let's hear from --
Team Y
And this is becoming one of my favorite George Szell records.
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, soprano; with Gervase de Peyer, clarinet; London Symphony Orchestra, George Szell, cond. EMI, recorded in Kingsway Hall, Mar. 8-9, 1968
A LOT OF THE PLEASURE OF THE WILDLY VARIED DKW
SONGS LIES IN WONDERFULLY VARIED PERFORMANCES
So, for example, appreciative as I am of Szell's more measured approach to "Lob des hohen Verstandes," I'm not sure Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was the ideal singer to fill those larger spaces. Nevertheless, she copes -- she had a long history of deploying strategies to get her voice through challenges it might not have been quite up to, and the fussiness and coyness she can't quite escape are arguably not entirely appropriate in this sort of song. Still, for a performance by a soprano, I'd much rather hear the vocally more affirmative, even luscious Barbara Bonney, who even offers us an actual trill.
Barbara Bonney, soprano; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly, cond. Decca, recorded in the Grote Zaal of the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, June 19-23, 2000
I really don't think it's necessary for the singer to "act out" the song, as for example Bernd Weikl seems to think (though note Claus Tennstedt's characteristically vividly drawn orchestral part). Compare the unfailing dignity and almost courtliness of the fine Swiss bass-baritone Heinz Rehfuss, who knows that his conductor has his back.
Bernd Weikl, baritone; London Philhamonic Orchestra, Klaus Tennstedt, cond. EMI, recorded in Abbey Road Studio No. 1, 1985-86
Heinz Rehfuss, bass-baritone; Orchestra of the Vienna Festival, Felix Prohaska, cond. Vanguard, recorded in the Grosser Saal of the Vienna Konzerthaus, May 27-June 1, 1963
It may be worth noting that when Lenny B. came to rerecord the Wunderhorn songs, he had a less frenetic go at "Lob des hohen Verstandes," and had as his male soloist the sturdy, dependably full-toned Andreas Schmidt, who made a career of giving hearty satisfaction in a broad of German baritone repertory. "Hearty satisfaction" isn't a bad description for the performance of Geraint Evans, backed ably by fellow Welshman Wyn Morris in one of his early Mahler outings, en route to becoming one of our most probing Mahlerians. Last but far from least, from both a vocal and a communicative standpoint, it would be hard to better Thomas Quasthoff, with excellent support from Claudio Abbado, at his best in making satisfying, seemingly straightforward sense of music of such rich complexity.
Andreas Schmidt, baritone; Concertgebouw Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein, cond. DG, recorded live in the Grote Zaal of the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, October 1987
Geraint Evans, baritone; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Wyn Morris, cond. Delysé-Nimbus-IMP Classics, recorded March 1966
Thomas Quasthoff, baritone; Berlin Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado, cond. DG, recorded live in the Grosser Saal of the Philharmonie, February 1998
NO ONE'S LIKELY TO CLAIM "LOB DES HOHEN VERSTANDES"
AS A "FAVORITE" SONG, BUT "ANTONIUS VON PADUA" --
Yes, "Anthony of Padua's Fish-Preaching" is another matter. Now, seeing that this song too has lots of high-class clarinetting, we're going to start with the same two Knaben Wunderhorn recordings we started with for "Lob des hohen Verstandes," both featuring stellar clarinetists: the NY Phil's Stanley D. and the LSO's Gervase de Peyer. (We heard a lot of Gervase just recently: "Do I hear a clarinet?," Oct. 3, 2022.) Again, though, Stanley D. is a lot more likely to make you think, "Gee, I never heard it quite like that" -- not for the sake of being different but for the sake of capturing something special that he and the conductor in some combination have heard in the music. In other words, that "unbelievable creativity" Cynthia Phelps was talking about, "his ability to make a moment anytime he has the opportunity."
One obvious difference between the previous and the present Bernstein-NYP and Szell-LSO performances: In both cases there's a change of cast.
MAHLER: Songs from "Des Knaben Wunderhorn"
("The Youth's Magic Horn"): "Des Antonius von Paduas Fischpredigt" ("Anthony of Padua's Fish-preaching")
Christa Ludwig, mezzo-soprano; New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. CBS-Sony, recorded Oct. 17, 1967 or Feb. 18, 1969
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; London Symphony Orchestra, George Szell, cond. EMI, recorded in Kingsway Hall, Mar. 8-9, 1968
I expect that when it comes to divvying up the Mahler Wunderhorn songs between a male and a female singer, whether for live performance or recording, while there are a number of songs that either clearly or traditionally fall to one gender, and other songs that can be sung as duets (which doesn't necessarily mean they should be, but that's another discussion), when it comes time to assign this song, I suspect emotions run high.
Remembering, for example, that Christa Ludwig and Walter Berry were still married at the time they Wunderhorn-ed with Lenny B., I wonder whether there weren't some shaprp marital dialogues, "Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt" being, after all, such a perfect fit vocally and temperamentally for Berry. Yet once we've heard what Ludwig made of it, as we just did, is anyone going to suggest that it shouldn't have been assigned to her?
On further exploration, not only do I discover that there's a recording of Walter B. singing "Antonius von Padua," with piano accompaniment (by the very good pianist Rudolf Buchbinder), from a 1979 Salzburg Festival recital issued by Orfeo, which obviously I haven't heard, but I'm reminded of something I'm sure I once knew: that in fact he sang "Antonius von Padua" with Lenny B. and the NY Phil! (you can watch it on YouTube). On the Young People's Concert A Toast to Vienna in 3/4 Time, broadcast on Christmas Day 1967, in a three-song DKW sequence Christa sang "Rheinlegendchen," Walter sang "Antonius von Padua," and together they sang "Verlor'ne Müh'."
I'm excited to hear Walter B. and Lenny B.'s
"Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt"
[Sorry the sound isn't better, but heck, this is from 1967 TV.]
Walter Berry, bass-baritone; New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. From the Young People's Concert A Toast to Vienna in 3/4 Time, video-recorded in Avery Fisher Hall, broadcast Dec. 25, 1967
Please, don't ask me to choose between Christa and Walter! Hmm, would audiences -- either in the auditorium or later in record stores -- have objected if Team X had performed "Antonius von Padua" twice? Like maybe the second time as an encore?
I KNOW WE'VE HEARD THE SONG BEFORE
And sure enough, a peek in the SC Archive turned up a heap of audio clips, but a quick search didn't turn up the posts they might have appeared in. It's possible that some of the clips were made for posts-in-the-making that never got made. In any case, it seems a shame to let them just sit in the archive gathering e-dust.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau has already raised an issue that's worth contemplating as we listen to our performances. Do we want the singers to act out the events of the story, or to tell the story? It's not always a clearcut distinction, but when I hear contrived histrionics, my general response is "thanks but no thanks." Whereas, well, listen for yourself --
Janet Baker, mezzo-soprano; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Wyn Morris, cond. Delysé-Nimbus-IMP Classics, recorded March 1966
This is the young Janet Baker, and she has clearly set out to tell us an engaging story, sometimes almost confidentially, while the orchestra does the heavy dramatic lifting. Of course this admirably suits her particular light-mezzo vocal resources. I happen also to find it enormously winning.
And at the other extreme, vocally --
Longtime readers will recall that when it comes to Mahler singing of the female persuasion, the singers who for me stand in a class by themselves, for both vocal fit and innate feel for the music, are Christa Ludwig and Maureen Forrester -- though if you want to give me Yvonne Minton or Jessye Norman, I probably won't complain. We've already heard from Christa L. (and we're going to hear more, indeed some pretty startling stuff); happily we can also hear Maureen F. sing the story of our favorite fish-preaching saint. I won't say that Maureen was underappreciated in her time; I think everyone understood how good she was, and that there wasn't another contralto voice of that caliber anywhere. (Yes, there was Lili Chookasian, but she was actually older, b1921 vs. b1930).
But I guess somehow people sort of took singing of that vocal range, solidity, fluidity, and deep beauty as something we could always find, you know, somewhere. Oh yeah? Like where? It can't be possible that her recordings have actually gotten better year by year; it just seems that way because we've had no one to replace her. Certainly this is an "Antonius von Padua" like no other.
Maureen Forrester, contralto; Orchestra of the Vienna Festival, Felix Prohaska, cond. Vanguard, recorded in the Grosser Saal of the Vienna Konzerthaus, May 27-June 1, 1963
What do these three performances have in common?
No, I'm not for a moment suggesting that they're in any way alike -- and certainly not from the vocal standpoint, where they could hardly be more different. Let's listen, and then consider what the performances have in common.
John Shirley-Quirk, bass-baritone; Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bernard Haitink, cond. Philips, recorded in the Concertgebouw, April 1976
Lucia Popp, soprano; Concertgebouw Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein, cond. DG, recorded live in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, October 1987
Matthias Goerne, baritone; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Riccardo Chailly, cond. Decca, recorded in the Grote Zaal of the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, June 19, 20 & 23, 2000
All three singers, in their different ways, acquit themselves well:
• John Shirley-Quirk doesn't have much vocal glamor to offer, but he works diligently with the verbal and musical text, and with beautifully sympathetic support from Bernard Haitink he serves up a highly pleasurable account.
• I wouldn't have thought of the ever-so-soprano-y Lucia Popp for most of her DKW assignments, but she's worked them all out vocally and really digs into the stories. It doesn't hurt that her partner here, while he may not be the fellow who pulled off that miraculous DKW recording two decades earlier, is still Lenny B., with as deep an appreciation and relish for the way these songs are put together and work as anybody who's ever performed them.
• Finally, Matthias Goerne does do a fair amount of "acting out," not entirely believable, but he does sing the song really well, with some nice plush at the bottom of the voice, and this is after all quite a tale he has to tell.
Well then, you say, there's the orchestra? And the hall in which it plays and records? Yes! This is the orchestra that grew into the acoustically gorgeous hall it was made to play in, where all the instruments seemed to project and blend so effortlessly -- and so the orchestra had to be top-notch in all its departments because everything was going to be heard. The orchestral DKW after all, is essentially orchestral chamber music, and what better a team could you ask for than Team Concertgebouw?
Finally, let's bring back our pals Thomas Q. and Claudio A.
Thomas Quasthoff, baritone; Berlin Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado, cond. DG, recorded in the Grosser Saal of the Philharmonie, February 1998
And considering the strong impression they made in "Lob des hohen Verstandes," is there any reason not to expect even better things with the more flamboyant material of "Antonius von Padua"? Thomas Q. kind of puts me in mind of that beautifully unforced narrative we heard from the young Janet Baker, except with a fuller and quite beautiful sound. And again, he's got such a good collaborator in Claudio A., who has his Berlin Phil playing like, well, the Concertgebouw Orchestra! It's all so beautifully laid out and executed with such energy and enthusiasm. At the end I'm thinking, yes, I'll definitely want to listen to that again.
NOW, WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU SWAP OUT THE DKW
ORCHESTRA FOR JUST A PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT?
As we already noted, Mahler composed all these songs originally with piano accompaniment, and there's no reason to think that even after creating the orchestral versions he didn't consider the piano originals utterly performable. I would venture that "Antonius von Padua" has been heard a lot more in piano-accoompanied form than most of the other Wunderhorn songs, or indeed of Mahler's songs generally, partly because the piano part -- at least in the right hands -- captures a surprising amount of the "local color" of the orchestral accompaniment, but also undoubtedly because the song has such wow-factor appeal as a recital offering. Singers planning recital programs know the effect they can have on their audience if they can really deliver the song.
We've already heard Christa Ludwig and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sing "Antonius von Padua" with orchestra. Now we're going to hear them hooked up with two really special pianists.
Christa Ludwig, mezzo-soprano; Leonard Bernstein, piano. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded live in the Vienna Konzerthaus, Apr. 24, 1968
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Gerald Moore, piano. EMI, live recording from the Salzburg Festival, July 1962
Christa Ludwig, mezzo-soprano; Gerald Moore, piano. EMI, recorded in Abbey Road Studio No. 1, London, Nov. 11-20, 1957
Lenny B. naturally brings all his "inside knowledge" of the song to his piano-playing -- you have to love, for example the feathery-shimmery soft sound he gets in the passage depicting the nightingale's singing. And then, Gerald Moore is, well, Gerald Moore, who could make a piano sing in ways perhaps nobody else could have even if they'd thought to try.
In the case of "Antonius von Padua," I note as sheer coincidence that both DFD's and Christa L.'s performances with Gerald M. are a lot slower than both singers' other performances of the song. Indeed I don't think I've ever heard a performance as gradual as the Ludwig-Moore studio recording. This is really putting it out there, and I happen to love it! I expect Maureen Forrester, with that voluminous contralto sound, could have pulled this off, if she'd had a mind to, and maybe Jessye Norman (did she record the song? looking quickly, I haven't found a trace), but other than that? And I wonder if any pianist besides G.M. would have the nerve to try it.
APPENDIX: OMG, IT'S ST. ANTHONY CAVORTING IN
THE MIDDLE OF MAHLER'S RESURRECTION SYMPHONY!
The "canonical" 12 Wunderhorn settings Mahler composed in the decade (roughly) 1892-1901, which of course Mahler never intended or even thought of as a set, but which make up what we think of as the "set," don't at all delimit Mahler's immersion in the Wunderhorn collection, even solely in terms of song-source material. In what we know as his "early" songs there are a number of specimens, and even in the prime decade of Wunderhorn sourcing there are songs that found permanent places in the symphonies of what we might think of as his "Wunderhorn period": Nos. 2-4. "Urlicht" ("Primal Light"), possibly the most beautiful song -- or anything else -- that Mahler ever wrote found a home in Symphony No. 2 as a transition from the rambunctious third-movement scherzo (about which more in a moment) to the stupendous, ultimately heaven-storming "Resurrection"-themed finale; and "Das himmlische Leben" ("Heavenly Light"), a counterpoint of sorts to "Das irdische Leben" ("Earthly Life") became the finale of Symphony No 4.
Now as to that "rambunctious third-movement scherzo" of the Resurrection Symphony, well, listen for yourself, noting as you listen the striking, if not startling, range of timings advancing from Boulez 2005 to Klemperer 1965. In between, given that there's a lot of wonderfully inventive clarinet writing, some solo but much of it for paired clarinets, a combination Mahler was hardly the first composer to discover can be so felicitous, I'm especially pleased to represent all four New York Philharmonic Resurrection recordings made while Stanley D. was a member of the orchestra, from the classic 1958 Bruno Walter recording (in which I presume he's playing 2nd clarinet) to the live performance recorded in 2003 as part of the NY Phil Mahler symphony cycle of the last of Stanley D.'s Philharmonic music directors, Lorin Maazel.
MAHLER: Symphony No. 2 in C minor (Resurrection):
iii. In ruhig fliessender Bewegung (In peacefully flowing movement)
Vienna Philharmonic, Pierre Boulez, cond. DG, recorded in the Grosser Saal of the Vienna Singverein, May-June 2005
with Stanley Drucker, 2nd clarinet; New York Philharmonic, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded in Carnegie Hall, Feb. 17, 18 & 21, 1958
with Stanley Drucker, 1st clarinet; New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded in Manharttan Center, Sept. 29-30, 1963
with Stanley Drucker, 1st clarinet; New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. DG, recorded live in Avery Fisher Hall, April 1987
with Stanley Drucker, 1st clarinet; New York Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel, cond. New York Philharmonic, recorded live in Avery Fisher Hall, June 19-21, 2003
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond. EMI, recorded live in the Herkulessaal, Munich, Jan. 29, 1965, released 1998
In the matter of timings for the movement, in case you're wondering about the progress of Lenny B. from his 10:06 in 1963 (quicker than Walter, though not as quick as Boulez would one day take it) to his 11:25 in 1987 (closer to Klemperer's 12:01), the timing for his in-between Resurrection -- recorded in 1973 in Ely Cathedral with the London Symphony and the rest of the forces of his Edinburgh Festival performance (which Lenny and Columbia Masterworks then considered the official Resurrection of his Columbia Mahler symphony cycle) -- is a suitably in-between 10:50.
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