Search - Arnold Schoenberg, René Leibowitz, Nell Tangemann :: Arnold Schönberg: Gurre-Lieder

The Apotheosis Of Late Romantic Music

Jeffrey Lipscomb | Sacramento, CA United States | 06/18/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Perhaps the great tragedy of composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) is that career success, like comedy, is so much a matter of TIMING. Schoenberg started work on Gurrelieder at age 26 in 1900, and the full piano score was completed the following year. But due to the pressures of earning a living, Schoenberg did not finish orchestrating the work until 1911. The Vienna premiere in 1913 was a success, but by that time Schoenberg had made enemies with atonal works like "Pierrot Lunaire." If Schoenberg had completed his orchestration by 1904 and gotten a performance of it, Gurrelieder would surely have been hailed as the most brilliant achievement of the age. It would thus have PRECEDED the novel harmonies of Strauss's Salome & Elektra and the massively orchestrated Mahler 8th. Just imagine if Orson Welles, who shot "Citizen Kane" in 1940, had spent the next ten years editing it. Would the film's release in the 1950's have had the same impact? Would it still be ranked in a recent critics poll as the finest American film ever made? Probably not.



This Preiser CD set contains the work's first-ever studio recording from 1952, conducted by Schoenberg's pupil Rene Leibowitz (1913-1975) with the "New Symphony Society of Paris." This was preceded only by the "live" 1932 78 rpm set from Stokowski (in surprisingly good sound on a multi-disc CD set from Andante). While grateful for the work's exposure, Schoenberg was reportedly unhappy with Stokowski's mannerisms in conducting it. This Leibowitz recording was how I first heard Gurrelieder, via its original LP incarnation (Haydn Society HSL-100), which later appeared on Vox LPs in inferior sound. The transfer on this Preiser set is fairly close to the original LPs and also to the short-lived French CD issue from Dante LYS.



Gurrelieder tells a story of thwarted love from medieval Denmark about King Waldemar and a beautiful young woman named Tove (there's a certain thematic parallel here with Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht of 1899). The lovers meet secretly at night at the castle of Gurre, which stands by a "silent lake," but when they are discovered the jealous queen has Tove murdered.



Part I has a series of incredibly rapturous arias between Waldemar and Tove. This group of nine songs, preceded by an orchestral prelude depicting dusk, was originally planned by Schoenberg as a simple lieder cycle with piano accompaniment, but it evolved into a cross between a song symphony and an oratorio/ cantata. Following these songs is a simply gorgeous interlude that portrays the couple's ecstacy, which is interrupted violently by a musical representation of Tove's death. In the tenth and last aria of Part I, a wood dove (Waldtaube) sings of Waldemar's inconsolable grief and ensuing madness.



In Part II Waldemar curses and rebukes God (there are echoes of this in both Pierrot Lunaire and Moses und Aron). In Part III Waldemar roams the night in a wild hunt with an army of the dead. For nearly an hour the only voices heard are male: Waldemar, his army (three choirs of male voices), a baritone peasant frightened by the ghoulish mob, the tenor voice of Klaus the fool, and finally a "speaker" who narrates the coming of day. The latter is Schoenberg's first use of "Sprechstimme," a vocal style of speech/song (pioneered by Englebert Humperdinck in his 1897 opera "Konigskinder"). Then the full eight-part chorus (male & female) joyfully welcomes the sun. Again, like the ending of Verklarte Nacht, a mystical contemplation of nature achieves a transfiguration, and the torment of Waldemar dissolves into pantheistic awe. Ironically, this wondrous dawn sequence is, in effect, the sunset of late romantic tonal music, for afterwards Schoenberg would rely on atonal/dodecaphonic means of expression.



Gurrelieder is an astonishing achievement in ongoing melodic development - I think Schoenberg even surpasses Wagner here. But more importantly, this gigantically orchestrated late romantic masterpiece has some of the most exquisitely beautiful music ever written. Despite huge orchestral forces, much of it plays like chamber music (the opening Prelude has a magical, transparent sound that, in my opinion, is really only approached by the opening of the Brahms Clarinet Quintet). I have heard Gurrelieder live only once, a c.1975 performance at Tanglewood, conducted by Seiji Ozawa. And no recording I have heard comes even close to capturing how this work SOUNDS when heard in the flesh.



I have heard ten recordings of this work and have kept this recording, Stokowski's, and the "live" 1962 Kubelik (DG LPs in excellent stereo sound). But my desert island choice would definitely be this one with Leibowitz. Richard Lewis's Waldemar is superb (the role really needs a Melchior, but Lewis does incredibly well with his smaller voice). Ethel Semser's Tove reminds me of how Kirsten Flagstad might have sounded in the role (wonderful!). John Riley's Taube and Ferry Gruber's Klaus-Nar are excellent. Morris Gesell's Speaker is quite simply the finest ever (his voice has a surreal ecstacy about it). The Waldtaube of Nell Tangeman is very good, if not as satisfying as Rose Bampton (with Stokowski) or Janet Baker (in Ferencsik's otherwise rather uninteresting set). This Preiser set has some of the most tender moments of any vocal work on disc: the passionate exchanges between Waldemar & Tove have an ardor and tenderness that reduce me to tears every time I hear them.



But the real hero here is Leibowitz, who carefully shapes a lyrical performance that is profoundly moving. His French ensemble, with its lambent strings, shimmering horns, and nasal but expressive winds, sounds just right to me. True, the big loud passages have some scrappy playing, and the recorded sound is not all it should be, but somehow it's all quite satisfying nonetheless (some of the details here emerge more clearly than in many of the stereo offerings). There is no libretto, but it's easy to find and download one via the internet. For stereo, I would recommend the well-conducted Kubelik, but unfortunately it is currently out of print. But if I could have just one recording of Gurrelieder, it would be the wonderful interpretation offered here by Leibowitz.



Highest recommendation.



Jeff Lipscomb"