Renée Fleming’s New Lieder Album on Decca

from the Amazon.com Web page for the recording being discussed

This Friday Decca will release its latest recording of soprano Renée Fleming. The album is entitled simply Lieder, and it is her first first devoted entirely to German art song in almost two decades. Pianist Hartmut Höll is her accompanist for a selection of songs by Johannes Brahms and Robert Schumann’s Opus 42 setting the the cycle of poems by Adelbert von Chamisso entitled Frauen-Liebe und Leben (a woman’s love and life). The last five tracks are devoted to the orchestral version of Gustav Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder cycle with Christian Thielmann conducting the Munich Philharmonic. As is usually the case, Amazon.com currently has a Web page for processing pre-orders.

I have enjoyed many opportunities to experience Fleming’s work. Here in San Francisco I have seen her perform at both the War Memorial Opera House and Davies Symphony Hall. During my time with Examiner.com I also wrote about a three-video release of her performances in three productions at the Paris Opera. This collection was particularly fascinating for its diversity, since the three selections were Jules Massenet’s Manon, Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka, and Richard Strauss’ Capriccio, each of which has its own distinctive way of departing from the usual bill of fare.

In spite of these many positive experiences, however, I must confess that my reaction to this new album was mixed. I was most impressed with Fleming’s approach to the Mahler set. On the instrumental side these are some of Mahler’s most intimate orchestral selections; and even “Um Mitternacht” (at midnight), which is the only selection that requires brass and rises to the highest climax of the collection, requires little more than the resources of a chamber orchestra.

Calling the set a “cycle” is probably incorrect, since Mahler himself never specified an order for them. For that matter “Liebst du um Schönheit” (Lov’st thou but beauty) was only orchestrated after Mahler’s death by Max Puttmann, who worked for publisher C.F. Kahnt. Among my many recordings of this collection, I do not have one that matches the ordering selected by Fleming (possibly in consultation with Thielmann). While I do not make this out to be a big issue, I definitely approve of the decision to avoid using “Um Mitternacht” as the “grand finale.” For all intents and purposes, it is the “outlier” of the bunch; and saving it for the end raises the risk that it will obscure all that preceded.

Sadly, I did not feel that Fleming’s relationship with Höll achieved the same depth of interpretation that the Mahler selections offered. There is a lightness to the eight Brahms songs (each taken from a different source) that neither Fleming nor Höll managed to capture. On the other hand the Schumann offering was more than a little overwrought (which, in the context of the Mahler performance, is saying something). As a result I suspect that this is an offering that will appeal to those passionately dedicated to “all things Fleming,” leaving the rest of us to enjoy this repertoire through other sources.