American Record Guide Reviews
Lehmann's Winterreise

by Douglas Stalker; Nov/Dec 1999

Schubert: Winterreise; Pearl GEM 0033, Koch

Here is a historical recording that I would actually buy. It will help me understand Winterreise and how to sing it. Lotte Lehmann was a famous singer, of course, but she was also a noted teacher. Her book Eighteen Song Cycles is a standard work on the interpretation of songs. It first appeared in 1945. I suspect that most lieder singers have read it. She has almost 20 pages of song-by-song comments on Winterreise. She covers everything from the dynamics for a short phrase to the attitude to adopt for a whole song. For example, about the second verse of 'Rast': "Begin the second verse very quietly. Enunciate the consonants in "so brennen meine Wunden" sharply. Notice the sudden piano after the crescendo: your wound is so painful it hurts you even to mention it." Who wouldn't be intersted in hearing a performance of Winterreise by an expert like this?

Elena Gerhardt was probably the first woman to sing Winterreise, in a recital back in 1928. Lehmann was probably the second. She waited until she was 53 [52]. Her first performance was in February 1940 in New York. She recorded the first 11 songs for Victor the same month and the rest for Columbia in March 1941. She never recorded the entire cycle for one label. This Pearl disc combines the two recordings to get the entire cycle. Lehmann sings in a romantic, expressive style. For example, she often uses portamento and ritardando to intensify a song. That was the standard approach to lieder back then. There is still a lot to be said for the style, even though vocal Puritanism is in style now.

Since this disc goes back to the '40s, it has hiss, along with a few crackles. Neither bothered me, probably because the voice is close and immediate. Her voice dominates, and you can hear what it actually sounds like as opposed to what you hear on many historical recordings. After hearing Lehmann, I want to hear some other sopranos doing this cycle. Christa Ludwig, Margaret Price, Brigitte Fasbaender, Julianne Baird, and Lois Marschall have recorded it. Sopranos don't bark out phrases like some baritones. No texts.