The disc’s playing time is short, the string playing is plain sounding—competent and in tune,

but far from luxurious—and the performance wouldn’t be a first, second, or third choice for a record-
ing of what is, for me, the most affecting piece of chamber music ever composed for strings. Yet, it’s
a performance of real integrity that has the virtues of well-chosen tempos, textural clarity, precise,
well-sprung rhythm, tight ensemble, and excellent recorded sound.
The Kuijken Quartet consists of two generations of the Kuijken family: the younger Sara (first
violin) and Veronica (viola), along with the older Sigiswald (second violin), and Wieland (cello).
Wieland and Sigiswald are, of course, distinguished representatives of the performance of Baroque
music on period instruments. Here, the group plays on modern instruments, with no “historic” ten-
dency intended in their interpretation, according to Sigiswald’s booklet notes. Nonetheless, the
group’s very short staccatos, sparing use of vibrato—listeners who prefer more conventional string
playing will probably find Sara Kuijken’s tone anemic, particularly in the first movement—and over-
all approach betray their background.
The Quartet’s restrained sound works to particular advantage in the slow movement, in pas-
sages such as the close of the first section and the transition out of the middle section back to the be-
ginning material. Their rhythmic precision is an asset throughout, and helps make the finale a par-
ticular success. It’s buoyant, gracefully emphatic, and has the needed ethnic swing.
Among many fine recordings of the quintet, I turn most often to the Melos Quartet’s version
with Rostropovich for its expansive, dramatic interpretation, and to the Hollywood String Quartet’s
splendid 1951 recording with Kurt Reher. The string playing in both of these versions offers the color
that is missing from the Kuijken’s probably intentionally limited palette. Paul Orgel

SCHUBERT Die Schöne Müllerin. SCHUMANN 2 Lieder. WOLF 4 Lieder • anton dermota (tn); hilde
dermota (pn) • decca 480 8151 mono (78:25)
SCHUBERT Schwanengesang1. 7 Goethe Lieder. STRAUSS 3 Lieder • hermann prey (bar); 1Walter
klein, karl engel (pn) • decca 480 8171 (78:52)
SCHUBERT 15 Lieder. SCHUMANN 2 Lieder. WOLF 2 Lieder • heinrich schlusnus (bar); sebastian
peschko (pn) • decca 480 8175 mono (75:54)
From Decca’s 50 Most Wanted recitals come three Schubert CDs of great appeal. The Prey disc
is well known as one of that much recorded artist’s finest recorded performances, and so it remains,
brought up fresh in Decca’s splendid remastering of what was always a fine stereo product from the
Sofiensaal. The crack recording team of Erik Smith and Gordon Parry was in charge, and also in
London for the remaining selections, save that the fabled Ray Minshull replaced Smith for the Goethe
Lieder. I had occasion in Fanfare 38:6 to write a rather condemnatory review (something that gives me
no pleasure!) of a recent recording of Schwanengesang. Hearing Prey and Klein in this music cleanses
the ear, so to speak, and it seemed a particular pleasure to hear their eloquent, expressive phrasing and
the baritone’s uniquely beautiful tone. I saw him more in opera (which was wonderful), but it was my
loss to have had relatively few opportunities to catch Prey in recital. He was a famed Strauss singer (I
saw him in Capriccio), and the three Strauss selections are memorable, particularly a “Befriet” of al-
most overwhelming vocal beauty. In these songs and the Goethe Lieder, Karl Engel is the pianist, and,
possibly even more sympathetic than Klein. Both add to the beauties of this disc with their collabora-
tions. The sessions with Engel date from 1964; that with Klein from the year before.
A singer more famed in Europe than the Americas, and approximately half a generation senior
to Prey, was tenor Anton Dermota. Born in 1910, his career crested just after World War II when he
emerged in Vienna, a finished artist, technically adroit, and well suited in particular to the Mozart
roles. I have a truncated broadcast recording of Mozart’s Abduction in which the 35-year-old artist
sings a Belmonte the equal of any (that “any” including Häfliger, Simoneau, Gedda, and Streit, down
to the present day Villazón). He sang those roles plus Strauss and, famously, Wagner’s David, in
Vienna and around the world, but not at the Met. He and Bing never came to terms. Dermota was a
Decca artist for many years and recorded not only his major operatic roles, but also Lieder. His pi-
anist wife, Hilde Berger-Weyerwald (who used her married name on their recordings), was his usual
accompanist. Dermota became a vocal professor in Vienna and lived until 1989.

478 Fanfare November/December 2015

 I recall the record at hand so well! I recall the LP but I did not listen to it those long years ago
(it was recorded in December1953). Some American critics at the time dismissed the tenor’s work
as that of an opera singer daring to enter the sacred vineyard of the Lied. (High Fidelity, by contrast,
was positive.) At age 18 I was not sufficiently informed to question those negative reviews, nor to
note that probably 90 percent of the great Lieder singers of the 20th century also sang opera.
Surprisingly, Decca never released the LP in Europe.
When Fanfare’s review copies of the 50 Great Recitals arrived on my doorstep, the first disc to
which I turned was Dermota’s. I’ve probably heard it a dozen times, now, on three or four different
sound systems. The monaural sound has been splendidly remastered; there is no blasting in the
tenor’s higher register and the piano sound true. Balance is good. It is typical of the splendid record-
ing work Decca was doing in the early and mid-1950s. And is it operatic? Hardly. It is expressive
and sensitive to the text (Dermota had good diction in both German and Italian). Compared to such
a current performer as Bostridge, or a baritone (who shall be nameless) whose shamelessly overacted
version of Schubert’s Maid I heard broadcast from Australia not long ago, Dermota is moderate in
expression. I find him just fine in his response to the text and in best vocal form. His wife’s playing
bespeaks their years of recital collaboration. Too bad it took me six decades to get acquainted with
this recording; I’m glad I finally heard it!
Definitely of an earlier school is the singing on the third disc considered here. And what
singing it is! Few are still living (or at least, listening) who recall Heinrich Schlusnus, the great lyric
baritone who, first active in the 1920s and 1930s, and having sung through the war years, sang on
until cancer cut his life short. He was still singing as beautifully as ever when he died at age 64 in
June 1952. There is a notable Rigoletto, auf Deutsch, from 1944, also am I vespri siciliani from a
half dozen or so years later, and also from that late period a DG recording of Beethoven’s An die
ferne Geliebte that would melt stone.
So, too, would the present selections, taken from 78-rpm recordings made in Zurich (July 1948)
and Geneva (June 1949) and issued on two LPs by Decca, one 12 inch and one 10 inch. I had never
before heard a note of these. How thrilling this singing is, and, with only a couple of exceptions (a
bit of high note blasting or congestion) in restored sonics which enable us to hear this great singer
and his long-time keyboard partner almost as if in the room. Lieder singing by artists of his genera-
tion is generally more reserved; emotion is not at all heart on sleeve. But the emotion and feeling are
there, as is also an almost constant attention to Schubert’s inherent lyricism. Schlusnus had a high,
basically lyric instrument. I suspect his best tessitura was much like that of his great Italian prede-
cessor, Battistini. Still, in “Der Atlas,” he manages the lower passages well and brings, at least for
the duration of that song, great tonal weight, as is necessary (he impressed me even more than Prey
in this selection). Similarly, the force and flexibility needed for several other songs are readily avail-
able (cf. “An Sylvia”). His interpretation of Schumann’s “Der Hidalgo” is beyond compare the finest
I’ve ever heard. The opening Schubert “Serenade” is very different from that of Prey, but both are
of incredible vocal and interpretive beauty. His successors in the German vocal pantheon were Karl
Schmitt-Walter and Josef Metternich. I love both of those singers, but they did not equal Schlusnus.
I suppose his contemporary, Hüsch, came closest.
I’ve already turned in my Want List for 2015. The editor won’t give it back. Go to your piggy
banks and invest in this one. In fact, invest in all three of these sterling reissues. James Forrest

SCHUBERT Sonatas (Sonatinas) for Piano and Violin1: in D, d 384; in a, d 385; in g, d 408. Violin
Sonata in A, d 5742. Rondeau brilliant in b, d 8953. Fantasie in C, d 9344. Arpeggione Sonata, d
8215. Adagio in E for Piano, Violin, and Cello, d 897 “notturno” 6 • 1-6piers Lane (pn); 1-4,6tasmin
Little (vn); 5,6tim hugh (vc) • chandos 10850(2) (2 cds: 148:49)
Tasmin Little and Piers Lane join together here for a compilation of Schubert’s canon of six
works for piano and violin that others before them have similarly recorded, most famously perhaps,
Daniel Barenboim and Isaac Stern. But we’ve also had a couple of fairly recent comparably consti-
tuted sets from Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien on Hyperion, and from Julia Fischer and
Martin Helmchen on Pentatone. This new release from Chandos, however, adds the Arpeggione

Fanfare November/December 2015 479

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
permission.