Okay. A new recording of Schubert’s Winterreise. Fine. And a rare venture by a soprano–a Bosnian singer I’ve never heard of–into this song cycle’s near-exclusive male-voice domain. Terrific. And now, who’s the pianist? Wait a minute…there is no pianist. The accompanist is–a hurdy-gurdy-ist? On one hand this is brilliant: taking a cue from the cycle’s last song, the performers re-cast all of the songs to the plaintive, rustic, poignant sound of a real hurdy-gurdy, whose unique voice lends an eerie, earthy character that haunts the singer’s every mood and step and emotion. The droning, the crude yet spot-on articulation of melody, the rudimentary suggestion of Schubert’s harmony–all of this combined with soprano Nataša Mirkovic-De Ro’s extraordinary expressive versatility–adds up to a performance that successfully rethinks, reconstructs, and returns these songs to roots that even Schubert might not have known they had.
Reduced to such bare elements, and cast in the real folk-world of the song’s narrator, we are taken on a very different winter’s journey from the more genteel one colored and shaped by the modern grand piano and recital hall (not that there’s anything wrong with that!).
As you might expect, some of Schubert’s accompaniments adapt better than others to the hurdy-gurdy’s relatively limited range of expression and particularly its harmonic capabilities. But that doesn’t really hinder Matthias Loibner, a master who proves more than able to render the essence of Schubert’s structures while not fearing to make certain judicious alterations more idiomatically appropriate to his instrument.
After listening to this several times I then took the score and followed it as I listened again. For those so inclined I highly recommend this approach. You will be impressed with the artful adaptations, not only regarding the representation of harmonies and rhythms, but in the way both performers so affectingly capture the moods of Schubert’s original songs and the meaning of Müller’s poetry.
Mirkovic-De Ro’s voice is not what you would immediately call “beautiful”, but it’s certainly attractive and easy to listen to, and her ability to vary its character and color and timbre–evoking sweet innocence, despair, longing, resignation, fear, determination–is very compelling and definitely keeps you listening, sharing the experience she is relating. There’s little to criticize in her interpretations, which are very much attuned to the more earthy aspects of the “voice” and character of her instrumental partner.
There are so many highlights that to mention them would be to mention nearly every song. But a few will suffice: No. 1 “Gute Nacht” (Good night), where Loibner’s droning sound, marked by perfectly chosen harmonic accents, immediately sets the mood (lonely, gloomy) and scene–the traveler’s dark road “shrouded in snow”; No. 14 “Der greise Kopf” (The old man’s head), which is downright scary; and No. 21 “Das Wirtshaus” (The inn), which shows Loibner’s skillful evocation of the harmony while also including the upper melodic material. No. 22 “Mut” (Courage) sounds like some kind of Celtic dance; and No. 23 “Die Nebensonnen” (The false suns) is as close to the ideal of a beautiful Romantic song as a hurdy-gurdy and soprano can achieve.
Not so successful are No. 2 “Die Wetterfahne” (The weathervane), No. 3 “Gefrorne Tränen” (Frozen tears), and No. 17 “Im Dorfe” (In the village), which demonstrates the hurdy-gurdy’s slightly clumsy attempt to elicit essential harmony and capture the busy rhythmic figures.
No. 4 “Erstarrung” (Numbness), No. 5 “Der Lindenbaum” (The Linden Tree), and No. 18 “Der stürmische Morgen” (The stormy morning) show Loibner’s amazing facility with rapid runs and arpeggios; and No. 7 “Auf dem Flusse” (On the river) is a masterpiece of minimalism, effectively reducing the accompaniment to its barest elements, allowing us to hear the voice in sharp, scintillating relief. In No. 10 “Rast” (Rest), one of the best settings and most memorably performed, we really hear a beating heart (or is it the ticking of passing time?) in the hurdy-gurdy’s repeated plucked string.
No. 11 “Frühlingstraum” (Dream of spring) is another perfect adaptation of the piano accompaniment to the hurdy-gurdy, preserving Schubert’s many original rhythmic features while affectingly supporting the voice with just enough of the harmonic detail. And what can you say about the final song but that Schubert’s piano representation of a hurdy-gurdy translates perfectly to the real instrument–which even more profoundly evokes the mood of the narrator’s forlorn, friendless desperation.
Okay, I tried to restrain myself and not mention all the songs, but my enthusiasm for this project–which is beautifully recorded–is genuine and ongoing. Schubert’s Winterreise for some reason tends to invite experimentation, alteration, reconstruction, deconstruction, etc. It’s been reworked and recast in versions for saxophone, various quartets, winds, percussion, accordion. But this one definitely is no gimmick. It’s a serious–and winning–effort to realize Schubert’s songs not in the world of the parlor for which they were written but in the actual world of the singer who lives them. Of course, there’s no substitute for Schubert’s original conceptions, but there’s definitely room for a new and profoundly engaging interpretation such as this one. Highly recommended. [2/3/2011]
