Art-Song Intimacy Preserved on Schubert Recordings

As the notion of the art-song recital sinks slowly in the West (and probably the East as well), recordings proliferate of the musical species rarely encountered on stage.

The promulgators are, not surprisingly, small labels, chief among them the U.K.’s Hyperion, which continues its praiseworthy complete Schubert Edition with three additional recently released single-CD volumes. This brings the current total to 15, representing about a third of the composer’s 600-odd songs.

Baritone Thomas Hampson is in charge of one (33014) devoted to songs on texts related to classical antiquity, with soprano Marie McLaughlin guesting for a pair of duets involving Hector and Andromache and Antigone and Oedipus. Hampson returns the favor for McLaughlin’s own program (33013) in a setting of a scene from Goethe’s “Faust.”

Hyperion’s third new Schubert release (33015) deals with those favorite thematic twins, night and death, with soprano Margaret Price as protagonist.

The supportive, occasionally too-laid-back pianist in all three is the guiding spirit of the series, Graham Johnson.

Hampson’s set is terrific, a generous selection that includes a good deal of unfamiliar first-rate music, sung with a voice at once strong, colorful and intelligently employed, creating a series of palpable dramas without overstepping the intimate boundaries of the art song.

His delivery of the shattering “Gruppe aus dem Tartarus,” the pensive-lyric “Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren” and, particularly, the heartbreakingly nostalgic--for a vanished age of gods--”Die Gotter Griechenlands” are prime examples of textual sensitivity combined with superior vocalism.

McLaughlin’s light, bright soprano is pleasing throughout her set, but in contrast to the songs’ wide emotional range a certain sameness in her work can be detected, as well as occasional overemphasis when she tries to put a personal stamp on the familiar, as in a fussy, rhythmically diffuse “Gretchen am Spinnrade.”

McLaughlin’s way with the three lovely settings from Walter Scott’s “Lady of the Lake” (including “Ave Maria”) is, however, exemplary: verbally pointed, direct in expression, pure in tone.

Price’s program (33015) might serve as a master class for aspiring vocalists. Her delivery may be on the cool side, but, with respect to clarity of line, smoothness of register transitions and accuracy of intonation, it represents a contemporary gold standard.

Be prepared to sacrifice some thrills for the sheer sculptural beauty of Price’s singing of such rarities as “Der blinde Knabe” and “Der Morgenkuss” and the accuracy and lack of affectation in a pair of glorious standards, “Der Winterabend” and “Die junge Nonne.”

Schubert’s ultimate test for male singers, his “Winterreise” cycle, arrives in triplicate, if you can believe it.

The young German baritone Andreas Schmidt, with the canny assistance of old-pro pianist Rudolf Jansen, portrays an energetic, youthful wanderer who nonetheless ages perceptibly (in outlook, not voice) as this tale of hopeless love progresses to its bleak conclusion (Deutsche Grammophon 435 384).

If Schmidt’s interpretation does not as yet cut very deep, the instincts are right and the voice impressively solid. It is, however, time for him to jettison the Fischer-Dieskau imitations.

The past master himself, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, appears with what must be at least his sixth recorded “Winterreise,” taped in 1990 when he was 65 (Sony 48237) with a stellar pianist, Murray Perahia, as his self-effacing partner.

The veteran baritone gives the impression of grasping at notes rather than hitting them head on. The voice is thin and blanched, the dramatic instincts thwarted by spent physical resources.

Our third “Winterreise” is something of a curiosity: an intensely theatrical interpretation by a great opera singer, Jon Vickers, captured live (location unspecified) in 1983 in the twilight of a distinguished career, but hardly exhibiting diminished powers. The fluent, docile pianist is Peter Schaaf.

Vickers is so intent on showing how much remains of his instrument at age 57 that he consistently over-sings: too loudly, too softly, too emphatically, too wayward rhythmically and at often agonizingly slow tempos (VAI Audio 1007, two CDs).

It’s fascinating in its fashion, a fashion bearing little relationship to the intimate art of the art song.