Brahms’ lieder may never achieve the popularity of Schubert and Schumann’s contributions to the genre, but they form a body of important and highly satisfying works, all the more so when performed with the artistry Brigitte Fassbaender brings to them. The 18 selections on this disc date back to 1982, and the touch of hardness in the upper treble is a clue to their early digital provenance. Other than that, the recording pleases, with good balance between piano and singer and the presence you get when you hear a recital in a small hall. As for Fassbaender, she was one of the great mezzo exponents of lieder (as well as ranking among the best opera singers of her time). She’s entirely at home in these songs and wisely chooses a mix of the familiar and the not-so-familiar, all sung in a warm voice, clear and bell-like at the top of her range. Irwin Gage’s sympathetic accompaniments are a huge plus too, contributing commanding keyboard flourishes at the start of “Auf dem Kirchhofe” and numerous felicitous touches elsewhere, as in the dry staccato bass line in “Über die Heide”.
Musical values dominate in Fassbaender’s readings–she doesn’t resort to overemoting or special “singers’ tricks” yet she never seems understated. In “Von ewiger Liebe” she makes a smooth transition from the scene-painting opening to the lovers’ urgent declarations and brings vocal variety to the buildup to the final climax. Vesselina Kasarova, in her rendition on RCA, is more overtly dramatic, with a heated urgency to the ecstatic final stanzas; Fassbaender is more the story-teller, letting the drama speak for itself. Both are valid approaches, and both are worth hearing.
Brahms’ two viola songs, Op. 91, get beautifully flowing readings from Fassbaender, ably aided by Gage’s piano and the velvety viola of Thomas Riebl. Jessye Norman’s version on DG is irresistible for the sheer lusciousness of her creamy voice, but her readings are more about her voice than about the poems, while Fassbaender’s version is up there with Janet Baker’s on EMI as an example of Brahms singing that ideally balances music, text, and drama.
Most of the songs here are of a darker hue, mini-dramas of lost love, faithless beaus, unfulfilled romantic yearning, and similar themes of Romantic angst–but there’s a nice sprinkling of brighter selections such as the folkish Ständchen Op. 106 No. 1. Fassbaender excels in all, applying generous helpings of vocal color to make them come alive. An unreserved recommendation is modified slightly by the absence of English translations of the supplied German texts and the 51-minute playing time.
