Naxos Pfitzner Song Project: Volume Three

Caspar David Friedrich’s Woman before the Rising Sun, whose spirit complements that of many of the songs on this new album (courtesy of Naxos of America)

A little more than a month ago Naxos released the third volume in its project to record the complete songs composed by Hans Pfitzner. (Sadly, this is another situation in which Amazon.com had made a hash out of the Web page for this selection. The Product Details are correct, but the Editorial Reviews were written for a decidedly different album! However, in contrast to last week’s observation about the Web page for Kathleen Ferrier remembers, the URL appears to be accurate. Nevertheless, those purchasing the album would be advised to check the details in the Cart before placing the order!) The fact that this third volume was released in the same year as the second (given that the first had been released in October of 2013) is a hopeful sign that the project is now proceeding at a satisfying pace. My past conjecture that the completion will result in five CDs still holds.

The pianist on the third volume is again Klaus Simon. However, the album is shared by two vocal soloists. Britta Stallmeister, from the first volume, returns to sing the Opus 35 set of six love songs all based on texts by Pfitzner’s contemporary, the pioneering German intellectual Ricarda Huch. She also sings the unpublished “Weihnachtslied” (Christmas song), joined by the children’s choir of the Freiburg Christuskirche, prepared by Chorus Master Hae-Kyung Jung. This track, the last one on the CD, is a world premiere recording. The remaining selections on the album are sung by mezzo Tanja Ariane Baumgartner. Given that the individual volumes of this project appear to be organized according to vocal range, my conjecture is that the third volume completes the account of the songs written for soprano voice.

From a musical point of view, there are unlikely to be any mind-bending surprises among the 23 selections on this new release. As has already been observed, Pfitzner described himself as an anti-modernist; and, in this respect, it is worth noting that melancholia tends to be the disposition that pervades most of those 23 songs. Nevertheless, both vocalists deliver expressive performances that respect underlying structure without going overboard in rhetorical expressiveness. While I cannot credit Pfitzner as a daring pioneer venturing in new directions (which I’m sure his ghost would appreciate), I have now been to enough song recitals to appreciate that too many vocalists tend to fall back on a limited number of “usual suspects” in the repertoire. Pfitzner’s music may not be pioneering or adventurous; but these songs could well serve to provide a refreshing departure from the same-old-same-old served up by too many recitalists.