Othmar Schoeck - Elegie (Andreas Schmidt)

Information

Composer: Othmar Schoeck

• Elegie, Op. 36

Andreas Schmidt, baritone

Musikkollegium Winterthur

Werner Andreas Albert, conductor

Date: 1998

Label: CPO

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Review

Yes … yet another Schoeck review. I am quite unapologetic. Schoeck  has been a major discovery for me.

This Elegie recording is not the first. There is another with the singer Arthur Loosli previously on LP but now reissued on CD from the Swiss company Jecklin-Disco. Jecklin have recorded all Schoeck’s songs on a series of 11 CDs. I have not heard the Loosli recording but it must in any event date from the 1960s so cannot hope to match the CPO in terms of recording quality alone.

The cycle sets poems in German by Nikolaus Lenau and Joseph von Eichendorff. The cycle is very substantial: 24 songs spanning just short of an hour. Schoeck’s music seemed untouched by the great war. The cycle was prompted by Schoeck’s love affair with the concert pianist Mary de Senger whom he first met in 1918. This is richly singable and listenable music though largely unvaried in tempo - mostly slow. Without a voice of character and chameleon colour such as Schmidt’s it could easily sound depressingly mournful. As it is Schmidt has a fresh and lively voice which he colours to catch the psychological drama of the individual poems and the overall progress of the cycle. Elegie is hardly at all violent or raging. There is an urgency behind some of the songs e.g. the slightly chilly Nachklang. Most however have Schoeck’s accustomed and utterly beguiling nostalgic musing sadness - something akin to Ivor Gurney’s two Housman cycles for male voice and string quartet. Herbstklage is wonderfully judged - a sweetly joyous song. The notewriter identifies the cycle as Schoeck’s last diatonic and openly late-romantic work. For me it is difficult to draw this line as all of Schoeck works I have heard are late-Romantic. The opera Penthesilea with its strange and strained harmonic palette is an exception, being quite modernistic. In any event this cycle is a sombre, doleful, introspective work. The spirit of the work is not that far removed from Mahler’s songs without the jauntiness or the desperation. Elegie must catch you in the right mood. When it does it casts a complete and hypnotic enchantment.

The full texts of the poems in both German and English are given in the CD booklet. The notes are in German, English and French. The notes are by Schoeck expert Christopher Walton. Altogether a most distinguished issue lovingly prepared, performed and recorded.

— Robert Barnett

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Othmar Schoeck (1 September 1886 – 8 March 1957) was a Swiss Romantic composer and conductor known for his extensive output of art songs. He studied at the Zurich and Leipzig conservatories under Friedrich Hegar and Max Reger. Based in Zurich, he worked as a composer, accompanist, and for over 20 years, chief conductor of the City Orchestra of St. Gallen. His notable works include the opera Penthesilea and concertos for violin, cello and horn. Schoeck's music was championed by renowned conductors and singers of his time, and in recent years, his work has seen renewed international recognition.

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Andreas Schmidt (born 1960 in Düsseldorf) is a German bass-baritone. Trained by Ingeborg Reichelt and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, he debuted in 1984 with the Deutsche Oper Berlin and has since performed major roles in leading opera houses worldwide, including La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera and Vienna State Opera. Schmidt is active in concert, opera and recital performances, collaborating with acclaimed pianists and appearing at prestigious festivals like Bayreuth and Salzburg. His extensive discography spans works by Bach, Brahms, Mahler, Mozart, Wagner and Schubert, among others.

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