In June of 2017, SOMM Recordings released Kathleen Ferrier remembered, 26 tracks of performances by the English contralto Kathleen Ferrier, nineteen of which were previously unpublished. There is no questioning that Ferrier was one of the leading vocalists of the twentieth century and that her early death from breast cancer on October 8, 1953 was a tragic one. Nevertheless, by keeping my attention focused on the listening experiences afforded by her relatively modest recording legacy, I have tried my best to treat her as an impressive contralto, rather than as a cult figure. Even so, I have enough curiosity for “all things Ferrier” to devote my attention whenever previously unreleased archival material sees the light of day.
So it was that, in writing about Kathleen Ferrier remembered, I concluded that none of the performances had much to add that could not “be gleaned from the better-mastered recordings, most of which were released on CD to commemorate her 100th birthday.” That rather lukewarm reception dropped several degrees Fahrenheit with last month’s latest Ferrier release from SOMM. The title of the album is In Celebration of BACH (honoring the capitalization on the cover and in the booklet). (As may be gleaned from the URL, the indexing of this recording by Amazon.com is grotesquely distorted. Hopefully, it will be repaired sooner, rather than later. Readers may be better off doing a search on “Kathleen Ferrier Bach” than on following the above hyperlink.)
This release comes dangerously close to the threshold of misrepresentation. It is clear from the design of the cover that the release was intended for that “all things Ferrier” crowd:
courtesy of Naxos of America
However, this is very much an album of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, rather than a showcase for Ferrier. It presents the BWV 243 setting of the Magnificat canticle, two cantatas performed in their entirety and sung in English, BWV 11 (“Praise our God,” also known as the “Ascension” oratorio) and BWV 67 (“Hold in affection Jesus Christ”). It then concludes with the “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” chorale from BWV 147 (“Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life”). In BWV 243 Ferrier sings one solo (“Esurientes implevit bonis”), one duet (“Et misericordia”), and one trio (“Suscepit Israel”). In addition, she has two solo tracks on each of the full cantata recordings; and, as they say in paraphrase, “That’s all she sang.” (Perhaps she sang along with the chorus for the BWV 147 track.)
The cantata recordings were made in Kingsway Hall in London in October and November of 1949. Reginald Jacques conducts the Jacques Orchestra and The Cantata Singers. BWV 243 was recorded on June 10, 1950 in Vienna with Volkmar Andreae conducting the Vienna Philharmonic and the chorus of the Vienna State Opera. Readers (particularly those who know only the current century) should bear in mind that this was a time when the attribute “historically informed” had not entered the general working vocabulary. Both conductors were clearly going for a “symphonic” sound appropriate to a large concert hall with little thought to the resources that would have been available to Bach or the setting in which he could deploy those resources.
From a personal point of view, that means that I tend to cringe just as much in listening to these conductors as I do when I haul out one of my recordings of Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting Bach. This is not so much a “celebration” of Bach as it is a reminder of what attitudes towards his music were like half a century ago. Personally, I prefer not to be reminded of those times (having survived them); but I know that those practices were clearly part of Ferrier’s skill set. My guess is that Ferrier’s admirers will be happy to take what they can get!
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