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.
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.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!
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.
WAGNER: Tannhäuser: Act I, scene change and Shepherd scene, from Venus (Paris version of the opera), "Nie ist Ruh dir beschieden," through the Shepherd's song, "Frau Holda kam aus dem Berg hervor," and the Pilgrims' Chorus
[VENUS has responded angrily to TANNHÄUSER's intention to renounce the Venusberg life of fleshly pleasure.]
VENUS: Never will rest be given to you,
never will you find peace!
Come back to me if once you seek salvation!
TANNHÄUSER: Goddess of pleasure and delight, no!
Not in you will I find peace and rest!
My salvation lies in Mary!
VENUS falls back and disappears. The scene changes quickly. TANNHÄUSER, who has not moved from where he was standing, is suddenly in a beautiful valley. The sky above him is blue. Upstage left is the Wartburg; to the right, even farther away, is the Hörselberg. On the left, halfway up the valley, a mountain path leads downstage, where it then turns to the side. In the foreground there is also a picture of Our Lady. A low mountain range leads up to it. The sound of sheep bells is heard coming from the mountain to the right. A YOUNG SHEPHERD sits on a high ridge, facing towards the valley with his shawm.
SHEPHERD: Lady Holda came down from the mountain
to roam among flowers and meadows;
my ears perceived right merry sounds;
my eyes delighted to see her.
Then I dreamed many a merry dream,
and when my eyes were hardly closed
there beamed forth the warm sunshine,
and May, sweet May was come.
Now I play my merry reed pipe,
for May is come, dear May!
[He plays the shawm. The song of the older PILGRIMS is heard. Coming from the direction of the Wartburg, they proceed along the mountain path to the left.]
PILGRIMS' SONG: To Thee I turn. Lord Jesus Christ,
who art the hope of pilgrims!
Be praised, thou Virgin pure and sweet,
show favor on our pilgrimage!
[The SHEPHERD, hearing the song, stops playing the shawm and listens absorbed.]
Ah, heavy weighs the burden of sin,
and no longer can I bear it;
nor yet shall I seek quiet rest,
but gladly turn to devout labors.
At the high feast of divine grace
I shall humbly atone for my guilt;
blessed is he who holds to his faith:
he shall be redeemed by penance.
[The SHEPHERD, who has continued to play the shawm, stops as the PILGRIMS' procession reaches the slope opposite him.]
SHEPHERD [waving his cap and shouting to the PILGRIMS]:
Good speed! Good speed to Rome!
Pray there for my poor soul!
TANNHÄUSER [who has stood rooted to his spot in the middle of the stage, sinks to his knees overcome with emotion]:
The Almighty be praised!
Great are the wonders of Thy mercy!
[The PILGRIMS and SHEPHERD will exit in different directions.]
-- translation by William Gann, ©️1961 Capitol Records;
Venusberg text & most stage directions by Alfred Clayton, ©️2001
[Shepherd scene at 0:53] Christa Ludwig (ms), Venus; Hans Beirer (t), Tannhäuser; Gundula Janowitz (s), A Young Shepherd; Vienna State Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan, cond. ORF broadcast of the performance of Jan. 8, 1963 (released by DG in 1998)
[UPDATE: Oops, sorry, had the wrong clip above -- should be OK now.]
[Shepherd scene at 0:55] Waltraud Meier (ms), Venus; Peter Seiffert (t), Tannhäuser; Dorothea Röschmann (s), A Young Shepherd; Chorus of the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, Staatskapelle Berlin, Daniel Barenboim, cond. Teldec, recorded at NLG, Berlin, May-June 2001
I thought, as long as we were listening (and I'd done all that text prep), we might hear an additional version of this excerpt, in more up-to-date recorded sound -- performing the same text (that snatch of the Venusberg scene we heard is Wagner's revised Paris Tannhäuser, segue-ing back into the Dresden version), and with another top-quality lyric soprano as the Shepherd -- unless maybe you get the sense that Dorothea Röschmann -- a singer who's given me some real pleasure in a number of broadcasts and recordings -- sounds a bit less like a young shepherd on his beat than a lovely soprano performing a pretty recital piece. (The Tannhäuser, like the Dutchman and Lohengrin with which Daniel Barenboim completed his Teldec traversal of the canonical Wagner operas, has for me a makeshift, "let's get this thing done" quality.)
IN MY KIND-OF-DEFENSE, THIS SORT-OF-EXPLAINS . . .
Hearing Janowitz as the Shepherd, I mean. It sort-of-explains how it was that in all the years I'd owned a CD issue of the 1969 Krips-Vienna Festival Gurre-Lieder with Janowitz as Tove, I'd never paid it much attention. Schoenberg's monumental work, after all, at the time still fairly infrequently performed, seems to call for more exhaustive preparation than I was imagining Josef K. and his large forces had to prepare -- and Tove didn't seem particularly like "Janowitz country."
Surely Tove's songs ask for a heftier voice -- a more, say, Sieglinde-type sound, like perhaps that of, say, Inge Borkh, who'd sung the music so well in my first Gurre-Lieder recording, the 1965 Kubelik-DG -- we'll hear, or Jessye Norman, who made this music so triumphantly her own when she took it up firt in Seiji Ozawa's Philips recording.
SCHOENBERG: Gurre-Lieder: Part I, vii. Tove's 3rd song,
"Nun sag' ich dir zum ersten Mal"
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.
Inge Borkh (s), Tove; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rafael Kubelik, cond. DG, recorded live in the Kongress-Saal of the Deutsches Museum, Munich, Mar. 9-12, 1965
Gracious, that is really fine -- so beautifully sung, so beautifully conducted. Let's not stop there though. In time Jessye Norman made a special thing of Tove's songs, starting with Seiji Ozawa's Philips Gurre-Lieder recording, again really beautifully conducted.
Jessye Norman (s), Tove; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. Philips, recorded live in Symphony Hall, April 1979
But as it turns out, Janowitz is pretty special too -- in her own way.
Gundula Janowitz (s), Tove; Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips, cond. Live performance from the Vienna Festival, in the Vienna Konzerthaus, June 10, 1969
SUNDAY BONUS UPDATE: As promised, another Tove song -- her first
SCHOENBERG: Gurre-Lieder: Part I, iii. Tove's 1st song, "O, wenn des Mondes Strahlen leise gleiten" ("Oh, when the moonbeams softly glide")Oh, when the moonbeams softly glide,
and peace and rest pervade the world,
then the vast ocean seems not to be water,
yon wood appears not made of bush and tree.
Those are not clouds which adorn the heavens,
valley and hill are not the surface of the earth.
The play of shape and color is mere froth,
and all is but reflected glory from God's dreams.
Inge Borkh (s), Tove; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rafael Kubelik, cond. DG, recorded live in the Kongress-Saal of the Deutsches Museum, Munich, Mar. 9-12, 1965
Jessye Norman (s), Tove; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, cond. Philips, recorded live in Symphony Hall, April 1979
Gundula Janowitz (s), Tove; Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips, cond. Live performance from the Vienna Festival, in the Vienna Konzerthaus, June 10, 1969
In all three cases, the abundant but distinctly individual virtues of the performance run true to form for what we heard in the later song. The Borkh-Kubelik and Norman-Ozawa performances thoroughly delight me, but the Janowitz-Krips -- that one has a special radiance, coming from both soloist and conductor, I think, which sets it apart. I'll try to talk about it more when we come back to Gurre-Lieder, after some more consideration of Janowitz's special qualities as a performer and some of Krips's. I don't think it's much of a coincidence that both will prominently feature Mozart.
MY SIEGLINDE REFERENCE MIGHT'VE BEEN A TIPOFF
Because when Herbert von Karajan began his great Ring cycle recording-and-production project with Die Walküre, he continued his happy collaboration with Janowitz, tapping her as his Sieglinde. Later she would be his Gutrune in Götterdämmerung, but that's a gimme -- of course she could sing Gutrune. Well, she could sing Sieglinde too, holding her own mightily as the twin sister of Jon Vickers's Siegmund. Every time I return to Karajan's Walküre I'm reminded how much I love it -- I'm not sure that that isn't the most completely satisfying performance of Act I I've heard.
We're going to hear Janowitz and Vickers really cranking up the heat at the end of Act I, when we survey Janowitz's post-Weber repertory. For now, though, we can rehear a juicy clip from the SC archive.
through Hunding's entrance
[You can find online German-English texts for Die Walküre here, and of course we're starting from the very top.]
Jon Vickers (t), Siegmund; Gundula Janowitz (s), Sieglinde; Martti Talvela (bs), Hunding; Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. DG, recorded in the Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Aug., Sept. & Dec. 1966
WHICH I THINK IS AS FAR AS WE CAN GET TODAY
Ironically, the next thing I would have done was to go back a few years -- to the earlier days of Janowitz's and Karajan's collaboration, specifically when he cast her as Marzelline in his 1962 Vienna State Opera production of Fidelio (which he directed as well as conducted), and then on to the first hearing a lot of music lovers had of Janowitz, when she sang Pamina in Otto Klemperer's 1964 EMI recording of Mozart's Magic Flute. The irony is that that's where I had planned to start this post, before some other things kind of crept in.
Well, that music is ready to roll (with pictures in place, even!), and that can still lead us into wider consideration of what Janowitz did with Mozart. Next time, I'm afraid.
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