MUSIC UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

Janet Baker is an exceptionally gifted singer. During the heyday of her career, from which she officially retired in 1989, the English mezzo-soprano ranked among those singers who deliberately renounced the apparent glamour of an international career and the unavoidable stress with which it is accompanied, and instead deliberately set out upon a straightforward and individual path. In his standard work Die großen Sänger, Jürgen Kesting writes that Janet Baker was not necessarily a singer who arouses great passion, but “one who had to be aroused to passion”. She was born in Hatfield in Yorkshire and was more at home on the concert podium than on the stage. This again gives proof of her interpretative art, often more meditative, which she celebrated in a well-nigh encyclopaedic concert repertoire (which ranged from Bach’s cantatas and Handel’s operas through Mozart’s concert arias to the major orchestral Lieder cycles of the turn of the century). “Singing Lieder entails placing a piece of music under the microscope,” thus Janet Baker, who was made a “Dame of the British Empire” in 1976, defined the Lied which she so favoured. And as she – like many other singers – did not develop an aversion to the recording studio – quite the opposite, “I love the studio – singing with a microphone” – we now luckily have a large number of recordings at our disposal, which reflect Janet Baker’s style and her technical ability to perfection.

The recordings at hand present Dame Janet Baker in repertoire from the Classical and early-Romantic repertoire, containing opera and concert arias as well as Lieder. These include Sextus’ arias from Mozart’s late opera La clemenza di Tito, K. 621. In “Parto! Parto, ma tu ben moi”, Mozart creates a concertante “singing” contest between the vocalist and the solo clarinet. There is both a figurative and literal similarity to the Clarinet Concerto. In the emotional aria-rondo “Deh, per questo istante solo”, the remorseful Sextus once again approaches Titus and begs forgiveness for the assassination plans (which Titus finally grants him). In 1785, Mozart wrote perhaps his best-known piano Lied, “Das Veilchen”, K. 476. During the three verses, he develops the musical interpretation of the text of this miniature dramatic scene in various different ways (major-minor alternation, recitativo). The “Abendempfindung an Laura”, K. 523 (dating from 1787) is a sensitive little gem, in which Mozart translates into music his state of mind one month following the death of his father. The tenderly rocking accompaniment and the misty harmonics create an image of the impressively comforting retrospective Lied.

Ludwig van Beethoven composed his famous concert aria “Ah! Perfido”, Op. 65 in 1796. The text of the recitativo accompagnato is based on the work of Pietro Metastasio. A jilted lover abandons herself to her feelings – she speaks of revenge and reconciliation, before turning to the gods at the end with a request for forgiveness. This dramatic scene is introduced by an effective and impassioned recitativo, before the E-major Aria effectively sets the contrast between the pain of parting and rebellion. The scene and aria “No, non turbarti”, WoO 92a comes from
La tempesta (likewise, the text here is by Metastasio), which dates from 1801/02. Especially, the overture to the music composed in 1809/10 to Goethe’s play Egmont is a masterly contribution to the genre, and is still included in the modern-day concert repertoire. Here, both Clärchen’s technically demanding Lieder are included: “Die Trommel gerühret”, in which the accompaniment is presented in the style of military music, as well as “Freudvoll und leidvoll”, with its extreme mood swings, the composition of which is closely modelled on the text.

The four works by Franz Schubert on this recording are taken from different genres: choir with solo alto, opera, theatrical music and dramatic oratorio. Schubert composed his “Zögernd leise”, D. 920 – which became known as “Ständchen” – for Anna Fröhlich, who had asked Franz Grillparzer to write a text for the birthday party of her student Louise Gosmar. The three-part piece, which is Gesellschaftsmusik (especially commissioned occasional music), is presented here in the version for alto and female choir. On his journey of discovery, which led him to Singspiel and opera, the master of the Lied came across two icons of the opera in particular: Gluck and Mozart. Schubert ventured into “grand opera” with his Alfonso und Estrella, which he based on Franz von Schober’s text from 1821/22. In February 1820, he wrote the dramatic oratorio Lazarus oder die Feier der Auferstehung to a text by August Hermann Niemeyer. Only the first act has been handed down to us intact (which also includes Jemina’s aria “So schlummert auf Rosen die Unschuld ein”); fragments from the second act are also in existence, whereas the third act was not put to music at all. Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern is a romantic play by Helmina von Chézy, for the première of which Schubert wrote not only three interludes and two ballets, but also a number of smaller pieces. These include the wonderfully cantabile Romanze recorded here – “Der Vollmond strahlt” – which unfortunately was not able to prevent the play from being a total disaster.