Nathalie Stutzmann’s traversal of this most emotionally devastating of song cycles is excessively mannered. I’ve admired several of her previous recordings, including recitals of French and German songs, none of which quite prepared me for the upward slides, scooping, patches of uncertain pitch, and other deficiencies heard here. Brigitte Fassbaender, in her EMI Winterreise, also exhibits some of those vocal lapses, but she overcomes them through the sheer intensity of her passionate singing (my review can be accessed by typing Q7392 in Search Reviews). Stutzmann also is intense, and some of the songs make a strong effect–for example, her restless, disturbed “Erstarrung” or the violent “Der Stürmische Morgen”. But the overall effect is of disjointedness, stemming from rhythmic waywardness and extreme tempos. “Das Wirtshause” becomes a study in stasis, while other songs are taken briskly enough to compromise the singer’s articulation of the text. I felt I was being flung from one ever-so-slow song to the next overly fast one–and some, such as “Frühlingstraum” and “Auf dem Flusse”, offer wrenching stop-and-start effects from one stanza to the next, almost as if each were a different song.
Still, there are some admirable things here: the singer’s lower register is a rich, true contralto instrument that she effectively uses to illuminate phrases, and there are moments, even within otherwise indulgently sung songs, that I felt the power of Stutzmann’s interpretations. But these and other positive reactions were swamped by my inability to accept either the vocalism or the mannerisms. A similar reaction to Matthias Goerne’s recent Winterreise (see reviews archive) makes me long for the days when the cycle was simply sung and not turned into a psychodrama. Stutzmann’s long-time recital partner Inger Södergren is at one with the singer, partnering at the keyboard with hand-in-glove unanimity.
