Composers love writing art songs, or if you are in German, lieder, as they appreciate the immediacy of words. For listeners, however, it can be a matter of taste; unfortunately, a taste for art song seems to be something that not many listeners acquire. The German Orfeo label recognizes this dichotomy and to make sure that the good lied does get out there it instituted, in 1996, its Contemporary Lieder Series. This Orfeo disc, Dallapiccola -- Hartmann -- Schweinitz: Lieder, was prepared to celebrate the 10th anniversary of this series, which has included among its composers such figures as
Szymanowski,
Rihm,
Krenek,
Eisler, and Dessau -- not exactly names that make an instant connection with listeners when it comes to song, but nevertheless composers who have them, some in large measure. For those who, when they think of lied, primarily think of
Franz Schubert and little else, this disc will seem like it is coming from the extreme left wing of lieder, and indeed, that is what Orfeo created this division of their label to represent.
The single most stunning performance here is also the shortest; soprano
Mojca Erdmann's reading of
Luigi Dallapiccola's 1964 cycle Quattro liriche di Antonio Machado. Machado was a Spanish poet whose work is less known outside of Europe than his younger contemporary,
Federico Garcia Lorca, but who is revered within Spain as perhaps the greatest of its modern poets. This is a highly lyrical, but torturously difficult setting and to
Erdmann's credit, she never allows her voice to sound glassy even as
Dallapiccola's music twists and turns through its recombinant row structures -- her singing is light, agile, supple, and pristine. Not far off that mark is soprano Claudia Barainsky in her performance of Karl Amadeus Hartmann's early cycle Lamento, composed in the middle 1930s and revised in the mid-'50s. It is a surprising composition from Hartmann, given its angularity and high level of discord -- Barainsky effortlessly floats through some extremely high passages that make one's jaw drop;
Erdmann and Barainsky are top-notch singers no matter what the repertoire.
The name of mezzo-soprano
Doris Soffel may be a familiar one to opera fans; her voice has been heard on more than 60 opera sets, and she is renowned for her interpretations of mezzo roles in
Wagner and
Richard Strauss. Here she is paired with pianist
Aribert Reimann -- whose own songs have figured in one of Orfeo's other Contemporary Lieder Series volumes -- in a cycle by Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Papiersterne, Op. 20. Schweinitz is a former student of György Ligeti who's declared he has appointed himself to the task of "re-humanizing music"; let's hope he does not view himself being alone in that regard. This cycle is both early and uncharacteristic, as since the 1990s Schweinitz has been involved in microtonal music; Papiersterne is an atonal work shot through with romantic gestures, yet not so many that one could accuse him of being a neo-Romantic. The other
Dallapiccola cycle, Rencesvals, suffers from a bellicose performance by baritone
Dietrich Henschel, who clearly puts his tendency toward the dramatic above projecting any purely musical qualities in this score.
Orfeo's Dallapiccola -- Hartmann -- Schweinitz: Leider is certainly geared for specialist tastes, and it is a taste mainly cultivated in Europe; uninitiated listeners might wonder how these works could even be called "songs" at all. For those who are accustomed, it may well provide pleasure, but at times it is difficult to tell whether the singer, or the song, is pricking up one's ears: in the best lieder collections, these two elements shake hands, so there is no difference. Nevertheless, Orfeo has every right to observe the 10th anniversary of this series the way it sees fit, and who are we to judge?