A Treasure-Trove of German Art Songs

The flowering of the German art song on compact disc at the time of its virtual disappearance from our concert halls remains one of the quixotic musical marvels of the age.

Britain’s admirably quirky little Hyperion label is quantitative leader (pun unavoidable) of the movement, a consequence of its projected recording of every one of Schubert’s 600-odd songs in various thematic groupings and under the musical supervision of Graham Johnson, also the expert accompanist throughout.

Hyperion achieves 20% of its goal with the release of volumes 8 (33008) and 9 (33009), sung, respectively, by mezzo Sarah Walker and soprano Arleen Auger.

Walker’s contribution is 21 songs on the theme of night. Surrounding such favorites as “Erlkonig” and “An den Mond” is a mass of unfamiliar, mostly worthwhile material, including the harmonically out of this world “An den Mond in einer Herbstnacht” and the chromatically adventurous “Die Sommernacht.” To all of them, the British singer brings pointed diction, a rich, firmly focused voice and unforced expressiveness.

Auger’s artistry gets less exposure in her tenuously themed “Schubert and the Theatre” program. Some of it, such as the ebullient “Liebe schwarmt auf allen Wegen” and the rather ordinary “Hin und wieder fliegen alle Pfeile,” is actually from operas; another seven segments are opera-like settings of florid Italian texts that the composer did not find particularly congenial.

But with Schubert--and Auger--there are always sizable rewards, in this instance the familiar “Romanze” from the “Rosamunde” incidental music, delivered with the placidity edged with tension that characterizes the best of the American soprano’s work; the fetching innocence of “Daphne am Bach” and the dramatic “Delphine,” Schubert in the latter creating a complex structure calling for the timbre of a soubrette and the heft of a Wagnerian. Auger is smart enough to convince us that she possesses both.

And, on the subject of soubrettes: Barbara Bonney, the American soprano who specializes in such roles on the operatic stage, offers a program of songs by Richard Strauss and Hugo Wolf well-suited to her light, bright and pure soprano (Deutsche Grammophon 429 406).

Happily, she avoids the cutes in her silvery delivery of Strauss’ “Standchen” and stays both musically and dramatically honest in the coloratura convolutions of his “Ich wollt ein Strausslein binden.”

The dark ecstasy of Wolf’s “Verschwiegene Liebe” and the heartbreak of his “Verlassene Magdelein”--better texts than any Strauss ever set--are, however, sacrificed to rigid clarity of line, just as pianist Geoffrey Parsons, in his determination to avoid sentimentality, winds up merely beating time.

Andreas Schmidt, on the other hand, attacks his material with fearless intensity (Deutsche Grammophon 427 334). The 30-year-old German baritone may rage more than is necessary, resorting to some Fischer-Dieskau-like barking in a few of the 15 songs that make up Brahms’ “Die Schone Magelone.” But with the assistance of veteran pianist Jorg Demus, he holds our attention with his enthusiasm, a strong, wide-ranging instrument and the artistic sensibility to convey the pathos of “Muss es eine Trennung geben” and “Ruhe, Sussliebchen” as well as the heroic aspects of these settings of Ludwig Tieck’s often blustery, mock-medieval lyrics.

A pair of reissues no lover of lieder should be without are among recent arrivals. First, a pair of the young Elly Ameling’s memorable recitals, both with Demus playing on an early 19th-Century piano, are combined into a collection of mostly familiar Schubert and Schumann (BMG Classics 77085, mid-price).

It would be difficult to find interpretations more natural and sweetly sung than these mid-1960s versions of Schubert’s “Hirt auf dem Felsen,” “Gretchen am Spinnrade” and Schumann’s “Mein schonster Stern,” to name a few personal favorites from among the 28 selections.

Equally indispensable is a collection of Schubert part-songs for male voices, both a cappella and piano-accompanied, recorded a dozen years ago--and never widely available in the U.S.--by an excellent sextet mystifyingly named the Baccholian Singers of London (Pearl 9549).

Included are 14 songs, ranging from the boozy bonhomie of “Die Nachtigall” and “Wein und Liebe,” with their barbershop quartet-like harmonies, to the tremulous intensity of “Nachthelle,” the folksy simplicity of “Mondenschein,” to that pithiest summation of musical and literary Romanticism, Schubert’s magnificent setting of Goethe’s nostalgic “Im gegenwartigen Vergangenes.”