Watershed 1965 ‘Gurrelieder’ Retains Its Punch

The major impetus for widespread appreciation of Schoenberg’s youthful, Wagner-obsessed “Gurrelieder” was provided by a 1965 performance recorded live in Munich by Deutsche Grammophon. Employing the choral and orchestral forces of the Bavarian Radio under Rafael Kubelik, it captured the size and scope of the massive score to a degree until then considered impossible.

There were shortcomings in this first stereo recording of the work, but, while one acknowledges them again in the reissue in Deutsche Grammophon’s 20th-Century Classics series (431 722, two mid-priced CDs), the impact of this production has, if anything, increased with time and subsequent recordings.

Perhaps we should wait until the release later this year of Sony’s Mehta-New York Philharmonic “live” performance for a wider discussion of “Gurrelieder” on recordings. But the fact remains that concert tapings were a different matter when DG and Kubelik made their recording, without the dubious benefit of post-performance studio touch-ups that make the “live” tag on many of today’s issues disingenuous at best.

What still impresses about Kubelik’s 1965 job is, to revive the cliche, its blazing intensity. If the listener doesn’t recall what sweep means in a conductor’s work, the definition is provided here.

The Bavarian Radio Symphony, en masse as well as its principals, reaches unexpected peaks of brilliance for its inspiring boss. The singing of soprano Inge Borkh, as the ill-fated Tove of the gorgeously overheated plot, which Schoenberg’s music matches calorie for calorie, is hypnotic, with a wild vibrato that only adds to its expressive impact.

And although Hertha Topper’s delivery of the work’s most famous set piece, the monologue of the Wood-Dove, may not eradicate memories of Janet Baker and Brigitte Fassbander in other recordings, it is a congruent, affecting piece of work, as is the role of the Speaker, delivered with histrionic skill, rather than the usual singsong hysteria, by Hans Herbert Fiedler.

“Gurrelieder” admirers will, however, be most concerned about the casting of the lovelorn protagonist, Waldemar, who is asked to encompass the decibels of a Siegfried and the finesse of a Tamino. Kubelik’s Waldemar, Herbert Schachtschneider, possessed neither.

To these ears, however, the German tenor’s blasty vocalism projects a certain helpless sincerity, a not at all inappropriate erotic lunacy that eludes the tasteful, better-equipped Siegfried in the more recent Chailly-led studio performance for London.

DG’s superb transfer also includes a bonus, absent from more recent, higher-priced “Gurrelieder” recordings: a stunning collection of songs by Schoenberg, Berg and Webern sung by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, with pianist Aribert Reimann, initially released in 1971.

The symphonic poem “Pelleas und Melisande,” created at the same time as Part I of “Gurrelieder,” is likewise a fabulous exhibition of orchestrational skill and another example of torrid late-Romantic art. Its melodies are not as compact or explosive as those of the vocal work. Rather, the young Schoenberg tended in this instance to delay climaxes, creating at times near-intolerable suspense.

It is difficult to imagine a more complete realization of the Tristanesque side of Schoenberg’s “Pelleas” than that heard in the 1974 Herbert von Karajan-Berlin Philharmonic recording, which returns to circulation as part of a Second Viennese School program via the 20th-Century Classics series (Deutsche Grammophon 427 424, three mid-priced CDs).

Widely criticized for being “too beautiful” when it appeared in 1974, the Karajan interpretation strikes these ears as close to ideal. An approach that could seem overly meticulous in some of the late conductor’s work here exposes the refined detail--and with it the aching heart--that underlies a score that can, in the wrong hands, be impossibly dense.

The orchestral execution may at times suggest the glassy perfection of Karajan in excelsis , but the score’s dark and dangerous moods are not subordinated to technical perfection.

To those with the ability to do so, a comparison is suggested with a recent edition of Schoenberg’s “Pelleas” from the Israel Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta (Sony 45870). Here, the music’s heat is palpable from the outset, and the structure of the piece is constantly subjugated to this heat. Karajan, with his more equable temperament and a more secure orchestra, projects an infinite variety of dynamic and textural subtleties. His interpretation heats up slowly and releases shatteringly.

In addition to containing the major orchestral works of Berg and Webern, which deserve a column to themselves, the Karajan-BPO set offers Schoenberg’s “Verklarte Nacht,” in a reading at once obese and slick, and his first 12-tone work for large orchestra, the Opus 31 Variations, sounding remarkably unthreatening but hardly dull.