Lotte Lehmann (1888-1976)
Lieder by Schubert and R. Strauss
In some ways the recordings that Lotte Lehmann made for American Columbia, between 1941 and 1942, represent the apex of her art as regards Lieder. By 1947, when she returned to Victor, though her interpretative powers were, of course, intact, the voice had lost some of its bloom. In 1941 when she was 53, her tone retained its old refulgence, while her knowledge of the repertory and her ability to go to the heart of each song she undertook is as heartwarming as it is on her earlier Victor discs, 1935-40. Then, in the United States, particularly at her home in Santa Barbara, she seemed to have found a new repose, reflecting her pleasure at being away from the storm and strife of war-torn Europe. As she wrote in the foreword to her book on interpretation of song, More than Singing (1945): "America, that wonderful country to which I now feel that I belong, has during this bitter time of war never forgotten that this German art (i.e. Lieder) stands above the confusion of the present time." That book is an appropriate source of inspiration for these notes as Lehmann makes revelatory comments on a great deal of the repertory included here, a distillation of the best of the American Columbia series (Volume 1 of the 1941-42 American Columbia recordings is available on Naxos 8.111095).
Latterly, Lehmann undertook Schubert's two genuine song cycles. Her Winterreise made for two companies, partly for Victor, partly for Columbia – surely a unique occurrence in the annals of recording – has had plenty of exposure on CD. Her reading of Die schöne Müllerin (for some reason minus 'Ungeduld') has received less attention.
In the aforementioned book, Lehmann gives a subjective analysis of each song in the cycle. She follows her own injunction in 'Wohin'to start the piece as if the protagonist were listening to something which is far away and then obeys her suggestion for an accelerando at "Hinunter und immer weiter", as if the singer is driven by a power that has to be obeyed. In the next song, 'Halt!', she enters into the "joyful excitement" she mentions at the start, sings "Ei Willkommen…" with typical Lehmann warmth, and brings a smile to "Ei Bächlein". For Am Feierabend, she says the lad must show immense zest for his work, and that is just what she suggests in her impetuous start, even more so at the repeat, and ends the song "with great feeling and dreamy yearning". In Die Neugierige she sings the section starting "O Bächlein" with the "beautiful floating legato" the music predicates. Here, as throughout, Lehmann's judicious use of portamento and her wonderful feeling for the text make her performance one to treasure.
For 'Mein!'Lehmann wants the singer to feel intoxicated: "Imagine that your whole body sways, as it would for example if sitting in a soaring swing: you become one with its motion". Typical of her vivid imagery, that is how she interprets it herself. Lehmann takes 'Pause'faster than most singers, saying: "Don't drag this song: the tempo is moderato and it should not be made sentimental!" She asks for the start of the second verse to be delivered with great tenderness and does it that way. Wonderful colourings inform her interpretation. The fatal question near the end beginning "Soll es das Vorspiel … ?" should be done "very softly, trembling with great restraint, as she does it.
She brings the wildness she mentions to the fierce jealousy of 'Der Jäger', and the marked accentuation suggestive of deep excitement to the next song, and Lehmann herself allows her marvellous spontaneity in word-painting to bring these two songs before us in all their desperation. The legato and dark colouring in 'Die liebe Farbe'is just right; so is the "whispered piano, trembling through tears" of the third verse. How often has one beard this sorrowful song so filled with meaning? That is followed by the "wild storming … of the whole body" in 'Die böse Farbe'. The sheer abandoned courage of Lehmann's singing here is unique in my experience.
Melancholy and veiled tone inform the deeply moving first half of 'Trock'ne Blumen', ending in the "aching sigh" of "Die Blümlein alle, die sie mir gab". In 'Der Müller und der Bach'Lehmann declares that the protagonist's soul is no longer "really on earth" so the music should be sung "without expression in a sombre monotony", while the brook's response should be sung "as if in play, with a light quality of voice", and the final verse should have deep emotion. Put all the glow, all the warmth of your heart into the address to the stream". Lehmann says she only ever sang three verses of the concluding lullaby. "Everything must he subdued, restrained, dream-like…". And so it is in her performance. This highly individual reading of the cycle will not suit the purist taste so prevalent today, but in its heartfelt, seemingly spontaneous utterance it is its own justification.
In possibly the greatest of Schubert's Heine settings, 'Der Doppelgänger', Lehmann wants the interpreter to have a voice of "saddened amazement" as the protagonist sees his double before the house of his former beloved. Her own operatic voice and training enable her to fulfil the wide range of dynamics demanded by this amazing song, in which dramatic recitative is stretched to the limits in portraying the terrifying scene. Lehmann treats the song as a miniature scene from an unspecified opera so that the fierce bitterness predicated by poet and composer is all there in her interpretation. In 'Die junge Nonne', not discussed in her book, it is the girl's inner travail within peaceful surroundings that Lehmann so unerringly captures in her typically urgent and generously conceived reading. 'Liebesbotschaft' makes a charming epilogue to the Schubert group, Lehmann singing with such open response to the wonderful text and music.
All four Strauss songs are covered in the book. Lehmann was, of course, one of the leading Strauss interpreters of her own or any era. Nobody has ever quite equalled her as the Marschallin in terms of understanding that woman's feelings and predicament. Similarly in 'Allerseelen', that great song of longing and nostalgia, she is again unsurpassed, her big, generous tone expanding naturally into Strauss's equally generous melody. Of her detailed instructions one need only point to the subito piano at "deiner süßen Blick", the "fire and enthusiasm" called for by the climax starting "ein Tag in Jahr" and the "sigh of remembrance" in the final "wie einst im Mai". This song will do as well as any as a template of what Lehmann was about as a singer. It might have been written with her in mind.
For the ineffably beautiful 'Morgen!'Lehmann suggests and gives us "a quality of lightness and softness" and, even more important, as later interpreters have often failed to note, she says: "For heaven's sake, never drag this song". She concludes: "Sing vibrantly, with restraint, under the enchantment of perfect bliss" for the phrases beginning "Stumm werden wir…". Lehmann ideally reveals the Innigkeit of this perfect song. She is just as good in 'Zueignung', that paean to new-found love. Note how she follows her own description of the way to interpret the repeated "habe Dank": the first sung in a veiled piano, the second filled with "exuberant enthusiasm", and the last with exaltation. In the famous 'Ständchen', besides her familiar ability to portray love in music, she catches the "seductive vivacity" of the early part of the song and the "great passion" of the ending with "an expression of enchanted ecstasy". This is another model interpretation.
© 2007 Alan Blyth
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SCHUBERT: Schwanengesang, D. 957: Der Doppelgänger
Recorded 4 March 1941 in Los Angeles. XCO 30016 (American Columbia 71509-D)
SCHUBERT: Die junge Nonne, D. 828
Recorded 4 March 1941 in Los Angeles. XCO 30013 (American Columbia 71509-D)
SCHUBERT: Schwanengesang, D. 957: Liebesbotschaft
Recorded 19 March 1941 in Los Angeles. CO 30017 (unissued on 78 rpm discs)
R. STRAUSS: Allerseelen, Op. 10, No. 8
Recorded 2 July 1941 in Los Angeles. CO 31694 (American Columbia 17385-D)
R. STRAUSS: Morgen!, Op. 27, No. 4
Recorded 2 July 1941 in Los Angeles. CO 31695 (American Columbia 17384-D)
R. STRAUSS: Zueignung, Op. 10, No. 1
Recorded 2 July 1941 in Los Angeles. CO 31696 (American Columbia 17385-D)
R. STRAUSS: Ständchen, Op. 17, No. 2
Recorded 2 July 1941 in Los Angeles. CO 31697 (American Columbia 17384-D)
SCHUBERT: Die schöne Müllerin, D. 795 (Text: Wilhelm Müller)
Recorded 22 June 1942 (Tracks 8-11, 14-19, 22-23) and 25 June 1942 (Tracks 12, 13, 20, 21, 24-26) in Los Angeles
Matrices: XCO 32966 through XCO 32979
First issued on American Columbia 71771-D through 71777-D
