MOZART: Così fan tutte (complete opera) – Irmgard Seefried, Nan Merriman, Ernst Haefliger, Hermann Prey, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Erica Köth, with the RIAS-Kammerchor and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/ Eugen Jochum – Deutsche Grammophon

by | Jun 9, 2007 | Classical Reissue Reviews | 0 comments

MOZART: Così fan tutte – Irmgard Seefried, Nan Merriman, Ernst Haefliger, Hermann Prey, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Erica Köth, with the RIAS-Kammerchor and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/ Eugen Jochum – Deutsche Grammophon 000875302 (3 CDs), 3 hrs., 1 min., ****:

During a 10-year period starting in the mid-1950s, a steady stream of Mozart opera recordings conducted by legends like Karl Böhm (Magic Flute and Così fan tutte), Erich Kleiber (Marriage of Figaro), Carlo Maria Giulini (Figaro and Don Giovanni), Herbert von Karajan (Così), and Ferenc Fricsay (Abduction from the Seraglio and Flute) changed the Mozartian landscape by bringing the orchestra and the engineers into play in what we would now recognize as a precursor of the modern-day standards that made it possible to understand and embrace the original instrument aesthetics.

Accompanying these milestone recordings were a series of highly idiosyncratic recordings (i.e., slower, slower and slower still) from Otto Klemperer (Flute, Figaro and Così) and a delightful Abduction in English from Yehudi Menuhin and his Bath Festival forces with Mattiwilda Dobbs and Nicolai Gedda (reissued a few years ago by Chandos).

Also among them, in 1963, was the most underrated Mozart opera recording from this period, Eugen Jochum’s Così for Deutsche Grammophon. According to one source, the project was going to be conducted by Fricsay, but the great Hungarian had died early in the year and Jochum was the obvious choice to replace him, Böhm having just recorded the opera for EMI and Herbert von Karajan still just getting his feet wet with the yellow label.

The cast was nothing special aside from the incomparable Hermann Prey as Guglielmo. Irmgard Seefried was winding down her illustrious career, although she does cast a special radiance which compensates in part for her increasing difficulty with fast passages and high notes. Nan Merriman is too dour by far and Erika Köth too edgy, Ernst Haefliger a touch too bland and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau more than a touch overdone.

Two factors intervened to make their singing almost besides the point. One was the conducting of Jochum, a fabulous conductor who somehow never got the projects he deserved or, when he got them, also got engineers who were able to capture his characteristic intellectual warmth (just the way the movie camera likes some actors and not others, the microphone seems to like some musicians, even conductors, and dislikes others). The recorded sound is not great in this Così either, but the conducting is: fast and funny, alert and powerful, always listening to the orchestra and making sure the singers don’t get in their way too much.

And letting the Berlin Philharmonic have its way in those days was like unleashing the world’s most beautiful musical instrument. The orchestra was in its heyday, just realizing how much of a superstar orchestra it could be under Karajan (and how much money he could bring in), with the great tradition of Furtwängler still coursing through its veins, and benefitting from an influx into its ranks of brilliant new musicians like flutist Karlheinz Zöller (who, along with the Philharmonic), would make Böhm’s Magic Flute for DGG in 1965 an unforgettable experience). The strings make every bar a treasure with their precision and, even in their fastest scurryings, an incredible beauty of tone. The woodwinds are just as spectacular, the full German oboe sound glorious at the opening of the Overture, and the bassoons miraculous whenever Mozart, as he loved to, used them for counterpoint or emphasis.

I remember listening over and over to this set, miniature score in hand, when it first came out, marvelling at each musical revelation and illumination. Oddly enough, as I said, the recording was nothing special, better than DGG had been in the 50s but not as good as it was soon to become under Karajan, opulence and all.

This reissue comes up sounding good, still light in the bass, but overall miles clearer than 40 years ago, with the voices surprisingly impressive and the Philharmonic as glorious as ever. It might not be my first choice for Così (that would be one of the original instrument versions) but it’s one of the half dozen best opera recordings from a modern orchestra’s point of view. And it’s priced so reasonably that you can’t afford to miss it!

– Laurence Vittes
 

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