Gundula Janowitz had a way offooling us with music it didn't seem she ought to be singing

SUNDAY BONUS UPDATE: I thought we might add one more of Tove's Gurre songs -- see below. -- Ken

THIS, CLEARLY, IS SOMETHING G.J. WAS BORN TO SING --

"Ich weiss, dass mein Erlöser lebet, und dass er erscheint am letzten Tage dieser Erd'. Wenn Verwesung mir gleich drohet, wird dies mein Auge Gott doch sehn." -- Hib 19:25-26
"Ich weiss, dass mein Erlöser lebet: Denn Christ ist erstanden von dem Tod, der Erstling derer, die schlafen." -- I Korinther 15:20

"I know that my redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And tho' worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." -- Job 19:25-26
"I know that my Redeemer liveth: For now is Christ risen from the dead, the first fruits of them that sleep." -- I Corinthians 15:20

Gundula Janowitz, soprano; Munich Bach Orchestra, Karl Richter, cond. DG, recorded in the Herkulessaal of the Residenz, June 12-28, 1964

by Ken

Further to last week's post ("Before we take our closer look at Gurre-Lieder, I want to think about two performers who make one performance a special case"): Yes, I suppose the above is essentially the first aural image that comes to mind when I think of Gundula Janowitz: purity of expression in a lyric soprano of narrow tonal range but almost unearthly beauty.

For those unfamiliar with Karl Richter's German-language Messiah recording, which DG emphatically did not put out on its "authentic" early-music "Archiv" label, I've always loved it. I know Richter is regarded almost as an enemy by latter-day Pure-Authentic Baroquians. For me, however, what he was was a great musician, whose greatness not surprisingly reached its peak, just as the Baroque era did, in the music of Bach and Handel. Richter made a later Messiah recording in English -- in London, in 1972 -- which DG didn't put out on Archiv either. I like that version too, but Richter's Messias with his Munich Bach cohorts remains special for me, not least for its solo quartet, which we might think of as simply a DG "house cast": in addition to Janowitz, Marga Höffgen, Ernst Häfliger, and Franz Crass. But in the grand scheme of things, goodness, what a lineup!

If the Janowitz of "Ich weiss, dass mein Erlöser lebet" might be thought of as her "essential" vocal self, we already heard it represented in last week's short version of the rapt moment she made -- in a live Vienna State Opera performance, remember -- of the minuscule but highly exposed (to put it mildly; it's unaccompanied!) role of the Young Shepherd in Act I of Wagner's Tannhäuser, at the moment of the scene change from the fleshly pleasures of the Venusberg to the late-spring radiance of the Wartburg valley.

It just so happens that I also made a clip of a fuller version of this prime Wagnerian scene-change coup de théâtre -- which will now encompass the entire role of the Shepherd.

Before we take our closer look at Gurre-Lieder, I want to think about two performers who make one performance a special case

The ruins of Gurre Castle (as of 2007), in the far northeast of Denmark (on the map Gurre looks like a stone's throw across the water from Sweden) where King Valdemar I is supposed to have tucked away his beautiful, dearly beloved mistress Tove -- until, well, thereupon hangs a tale.

Which we'll get to. Just maybe not right away.

So it begins --


Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rafael Kubelik, cond. DG, recorded live in the Kongress-Saal of the Deutsches Museum, Munich, March 9-12, 1965

Staatskapelle Dresden, Giuseppe Sinopoli, cond. Teldec, recorded live in the Semper Oper, August 1995

Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Litton, cond. Live performance from Grieg Hall, in the Bergen International Festival, June 4, 2008

Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips, cond. Live performance from the Vienna Festival, in the Vienna Konzerthaus, June 10, 1969

In time, these Gurre-Lieder, or Songs of Gurre, come to Tove's declaration, "Nun sag' ich dir zum ersten Mal, 'König Volmer, ich liebe dich'" (replaying the performances we've already heard) --

Now I say to you for the first time, "King Volmer, I love you."
Now I kiss you for the first time, and fling my arms around you.
And if you were to say I had earlier said it
and ever given you my kiss,
then I say, "The king is a fool,
who recalls vague rubbish."
And if you say, "Indeed I am such a fool,"
then I'll say, "The king is right."
But if you say, "No, I'm not that,"
Then I'll say, "The king is bad."
For I have kissed all my roses to death,
all the while I was thinking of you.

Gundula Janowitz (s), Tove; Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips, cond. Live performance from the Vienna Festival, in the Vienna Konzerthaus, June 10, 1969

Jessye Norman (s), Tove; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. Philips, recorded live in Symphony Hall, April 1979

by Ken

Believe it or not, we're making progress, even if it's of a kind of sidewise sort. I remember there was a plan to illustrate the special qualities I hear in the conducting of Josef Krips (1902-1974), which at the time seemed to require nothing more than plucking an abundance of for-instances out of the Sunday Classics Archive. I'm not so good at just-plucking-out, however, and as soon as I started, the project began to grow and shift, especially when I found myself taking a better listen than I have before to a performance I've owned for ages: Krips's 1969 Vienna Festival rendering of Arnold Schoenberg's monumental cantata-oratorio-or-whatever (I'm not aware of a term that begins to cover it), Gurre-Lieder.

At that point it seemed necessary to pause the Krips quick-tour and spend a jot of time with Gurre-Lieder, one of the most arresting and astonishing musical creations I know. No sooner had I set out on that tack (well, maybe many, many hours of toil after I set out on that tack), I realized that before we got to that, it might be useful for me to explain why that particular performance exerted such a fascination for me. Which meant a closer look at conductor Krips and the singer who incarnated King Waldemar's inamorata Tove, which is to say the soprano Gundula Janowitz (born 1937).

Again, I first thought this could be accomplished easily and painlessly by a simple raid of the archives. And probably it could have. But again, my mind doesn't work that way. Soon enough I was back at work crafting whole new sets of audio clips and puzzling out a navigable path through them. And in just a moment we're going to partake of a teasing taste of G.J.


BUT FIRST, BACK TO THE BEGINNING -- OF GURRE-LIEDER