Kirsten Flagstad Song Recital = SCHUBERT: 4 Songs; SCHUMANN: Frauenliebe und Leben, Op. 42; BRAHMS: 3 Songs; GRIEG: Haugtussa, Op. 67; CHARLES: “When I Have Sung My Songs” – Kirsten Flagstad, sop./ Edwin McArthur, p. – Pristine Audio PACO 079, 76:59 [www.pristineclassical.com] ****:
The art of Kirsten Flagstad (1895-1962) receives excellent service by way of Pristine and master restoration engineer Mark Obert-Thorn, who revive inscriptions the great Norwegian soprano made for RCA, 1950-1952. The original vinyl LPs from which many of the songs derive (LM 1094, LM 1870, LM 1738) have passed into obscurity, since RCA seems to have lost interest in Flagstad’s post-war efforts. Of particular note, the Grieg cycle Haugtussa (26 April 1950), which Flagstad taped in Hollywood, stands between her other readings from 1940 and 1957, the latter having been issued by Decca. The extended cycle by Schumann (17 March 1952), after poems by Chamisso, rivals in Flagstad’s performance the equally heralded version by Kathleen Ferrier.
The 1840 cycle by Schumann traces, from the feminine point of view, her encounter with her beloved whom she will marry and accompany through various stages of life, until his death. Schumann omits the ninth song from the cycle, a consolation of sorts, and so ends with bereavement and a sense of the eternal return. The opening keyboard motif, with its falling figure, sets the tone of natural destiny. Flagstad excels in “Ich kann’s nicht fassen, nicht glauber,” capturing the awe and disbelief that her dreams of love move to fruition. Despite what may be construed as “stereotypical” feminine sentiments, the narrative infuses her inner life with pure poetic sensibility. Even the pregnancy blatantly stated by Chamisso has been excised to by Schumann to concentrate on the intensely personal connubial bliss of the couple. While the Kathleen Ferrier/Bruno Walter collaboration testifies to an almost extra-musical valediction, this performance retains an authenticity of style and clarity of delivery that warrants every consideration.
Grieg’s song-cycle (1898) Haugtussa takes its inspiration from the 1895 circle of poems, written by Norwegian author Arne Garborg, a neo-Romantic and Symbolist poet. The themes of the poems are closely related to Garborg’s rural background, and a number of supernatural beings, like the draug, the hulderpeople and other creatures, make an appearance. A Haugtusse is originally a female subterrestrial (a Hulder), but in this story it is an eponym of the main character, a psychic young girl, usually called Veslemøy (the “Little Maiden” of Song No. 2). Grieg set eight of the twenty poems he had worked upon, and they loosely describe events that concern the visions and somewhat thwarted love-life of the protagonist. Often, the piano part imitates at once a watery kingdom and the sense of fate. Flagstad’s head-tone still resonates, and her smoky bottom voice reaches into the mezzo range without strain. Much of the vocal style utilizes a ballad or parlando style in the manner of direct story-telling, with Flagstad’s occasionally taking a high or long-held note (as in the silvery “Bilberry Slopes”) to add pathos to the narrative. Her rendition of Elsk (“Love”) captures the mercurial, frisky, and bittersweet anticipation of the tryst. The “Kidlings’ Dance” with its yips might remind a few of her Wagnerian moments as Brunnhilde.
The Schubert (17 March 1952) and Brahms (10 April 1952) provide just the kinds of vocal elegance and virtuosity in which Flagstad exhibits as much restraint as she does vocal prowess. Schubert’s “Die junge Nonne” offers another of his ‘dark and stormy nights’ narratives that could bathe in ‘religious’ treacle, if permitted. Of the Brahms group, “Meine liebe ist gruen,” Op. 63, No. 5 bursts forth with a vehemence not easily matched, either by the composer or fellow vocalists. The “Sind es Schmerzen, sind des Freudes,” Op. 33, No. 3 offers wonderful accompaniment from McArthur, the song taken from the Tieck cycle of courtly love and loss, Die Schoene Magelone. The tissue of medieval ardor that Flagstad and McArthur weave suggest that this opus stood as his personal version of Tristan.
The sentimental aria by Ernest Charles, in English, proves that a torch song from Flagstad has the same power we might have expected from Helen Traubel or Dorothy Kirsten.
—Gary Lemco
1933 Les chefs proscrits – Ernst Viebig, Conductor – Forgotten Records
A fine conductor, unfortunately suppressed by the vicious political climate of the ’30s
