Baritone Matthias Goerne, one of the few truly great lieder singers of our age, has now released four volumes of Harmonia Mundi’s ongoing Matthias Goerne Schubert Edition. While the ultimate extent of the project remains unknown — there are no recording sessions scheduled for the remainder of 2010 — the depth of Goerne’s artistry places what we already have on the same level of importance as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s enormous recorded legacy of Schubert songs.
As has been the case with most of Goerne’s recordings, each Schubert volume offers a different accompanist. Ingo Metzmacher, whom Goerne encouraged to temporarily put down his conducting baton, does the honors on the latest installment, Volume 4: Heliopolis. The package includes an illuminating short “bonus” DVD on the making of the recording that reveals Goerne blissfully unrestrained by concert formality.
The CD’s 19 songs abound in references to ancient Greece. “Die Götter Griechenlands” (The Gods of Greece), which sets one stanza of an extended poem by Friedrich Schiller, establishes the tone of longing that predominates in Schubert’s oeuvre. Immediately we feel Goerne’s supreme ability to communicate the most inward and deeply felt of sentiments.
As he softens and sweetens the voice, Goerne communicates a fragile vulnerability that, in turn, reflects Schubert’s sense of impending mortality. And when Metzmacher observes Schubert’s pause at the end of the line that references the shadow, his silence miraculously sustains the musical tension and deepens the emptiness of the phrase.
“Beauteous world, where are you?” sings Goerne at song’s end. Then he repeats the question with a quiet depth that embodies the mourning for the past. In twelve lines, the heart is revealed.
Listen to the Music
Schubert: "An Die Leier"
While many of the songs on this volume will never make it onto a collection of Schubert’s Greatest Hits, “Meere stille” (Calm sea), “Wandrers Nachtlied I” (the first of Schubert’s two Wanderer’s Night Songs), and “Frühlingsglaube” (Faith in spring) are among the greats.
To compare Goerne and Metzmacher’s gorgeous rendition of “Frühlingsglaube” with the far fussier version by Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore in their near-complete Schubert edition can serve as an object lesson in lieder artistry. Goerne may initially seem far less specific in his word painting, but his subtle changes of volume, color, and tone are no less expressive. Note, for example, the way in which he injects an uplifting sense of hope as his tone blossoms from within on the final lines. The performance, which is rehearsed many times on the DVD, makes for one of the most beautiful and treasurable “Frühlingsglaube”s ever recorded.
“Das Heimweh” (Homesickness) may be too long to win a place in many hearts, but the range of expression Metzmacher brings to the piano introduction makes the best possible case for its inclusion. Similarly, when Goerne proclaims like a God in “An die Leier,” we, or at least I, sit up and take notice.
Volumes could be written about the depth of Goerne’s darker voice, the sweetness of his softly touched top, and the terror of his growl. Honoring one of the finest song composers of any age, he and Metzmacher perform a host of little miracles that together make their recording a profound achievement.