Wolf - Orchestral Lieder
Banse; Henschel; Rundfunkchor Berlin; Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra / Nagano
Harmonia Mundi HMC 901837

Release date January 2006

Wolf was a miniaturist who worshipped Wagner, the maximalist’s maximalist. When he met the Master (in 1875) and showed him some of his scores, the great man said that the next time they met ‘he looked forward to being shown larger-scale works’. Wolf’s genius lay elsewhere, as evidenced by the 300-odd songs, in which (in Eric Sams’ words) “…he was able, like Schubert before him, to condense the dramatic intensity of opera into song form”. While the vast majority of the songs were conceived for voice with piano, a small number suggest the possibility of orchestral treatment, and in the event Wolf completed twenty-four orchestrations, leaving a further group of unfinished sketches. Some of the songs are radically re-imagined, most spectacularly in Der Feuerreiter (The Fire-rider). Originally written for baritone and piano, his reworking involves a chorus and a huge orchestra. As it lasts less than five minutes, performances are understandably rare; a great pity, as it makes a tremendous effect. It’s superbly brought off here by Nagano and the Rundfunkchor Berlin, and is almost worth the price of the CD on its own. The greatly varied scoring of the songs rather counts against any of them being heard in the concert hall. The forces range from the Wagnerian orchestra of Der Feuerreiter to the Webernesque scoring of clarinet, horn and harp in Gesang Weylas. I would guess that Wolf had several voice types in mind for these songs. Nagano employs just two singers, neither of whom have very large voices. In the case of Juliane Banse, this doesn’t matter at all - the songs for female voice suit her very well, and she does consistently characterful and interesting things with them. Dietrich Henschel, a middle-weight baritone, occasionally sounds overparted. The titanic setting of Goethe’s Prometheus, for instance, really needs a Wotan-scaled voice. Songs such as the gloomy Harfenspieler songs are better suited to him. Nagano’s Berlin orchestra is a good one, and Wolf gives its excellent first horn plenty of opportunities to shine. Harmonia Mundi’s soundframe is ideally balanced and gives discreet help to the singers without spotlighting them.

Sandy Matheson