courtesy of Naxos of America
A little over a month ago, Profil, which has established itself for the generous variety of anthologies it has produced, released a seven-CD collection of “early recordings” of lyric baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. While I have gotten considerable mileage out of many of the Profil releases I have downloaded, I have to say that quality has become far more variable since early in 2020. Since problems began to surface prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, I suspect that the difficulties have arisen through management problems, rather than the health of the workers being managed.
I have no idea how many (if any) of those problems have also surfaced on physical CDs. My guess is that, regardless of medium, this is a problem of workers not adjusting to digital technology, including those responsible for monitoring the quality of the finished product (assuming that such a job position has survived the workplace pathology of the digital age). Nevertheless, even if I trip over a defective track or two (or more), there is usually enough content to provide me with considerable satisfaction.
That said, I suspect that I would not be the only one to question Profil’s semantic interpretation of “early.” The time-span of the selections covers a 1948 recording of the first act duet of Rodrigue and Don Carlos (tenor Boris Greverus) in Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlos; but the overall span of the collection is over twenty years of recordings. Where recorded performances are concerned, Fischer-Dieskau was already making a name for himself in the Fifties, due at least in part to his work with pianist Gerald Moore as his accompanist. Moore was making recordings with Fischer-Dieskau as early as 1951, when the results were being released on monophonic long-playing albums.
One of those monophonic selections in this collection is the “Abschied” (farewell) song from Franz Schubert’s D. 957 Schwanengesang (swan song). When Fischer-Dieskau was joined by sopranos Victoria de los Ángeles and Elizabeth Schwarzkopf for Moore’s farewell recital in the Royal Albert Hall in February of 1967, Fischer-Dieskau revisited that early recording session with Moore. By that time, EMI had shifted over to stereophonic recording, having produced their first stereo albums in 1955. Since art song is not a “spatial” medium, the shift to stereo had more to do with EMI keeping up with the times, rather than the fidelity of the recording system.
The art song recordings, all with German texts, account for the first two CDs in the Profil collection. As might be expected, Franz Schubert is given pride of place. However, the only cycle represented is D. 957; and “Abschied” is one of only four songs selected from the collection. The next two CDs are devoted to opera excerpts. Because the performances were recorded in Germany, all of the selections are sung in German (which makes that Don Carlos duet slightly disquieting). The fifth CD presents sacred music, much of which is by Johann Sebastian Bach. Finally, there are two “Concert Singer” CDs. The repertoire includes Bach and George Frideric Handel at one end and Gustav Mahler at the other. The one Mahler selection is the Songs of a Wayfarer, which Fischer-Dieskau recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler, a recording that is available through more sources than I can enumerate.
For all my grumbling, I still take a fair amount of satisfaction from this collection, particularly the “younger voice” of the earlier recordings. I was also happy to see that two of Bach’s secular cantatas were included. One of these, BWV 212, has become a favorite for its sense of humor. Popularly known as the “Peasant Cantata,” the title is Mer hahn en neue Oberkeet (we have a new governor). After a generous number of arias (only two of which are included on the Profil CD) extolling how things will change for the better, the final chorus sets the text “Wir gehen nun, wo der Dudelsack,” loosely translated as “Let’s all go down to the pub!”
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