I should have learnt long ago how foolish it is to make an 'outright recommendation' in these pages, because as soon as you have done so another version of the same work comes along to improve on that recommendation. And so it is once again. In August I poured praise on Holl's version of Winterreise and I don't renege on anything I wrote then, but this new reading by Bar is so wonderfully vivid, so immediately conveying the young man's Angst that it almost puts out of mind all others.
I did point out in the previous review that there are two very different streams of interpreting the work, one incisive and dramatic such as Fischer-Dieskau's (DG), and Schreier's (Philips (CD) 416 289-2PH2, 3/86 part of a two-disc set), another resigned and dark-hued emphasizing the melancholy in the songs, such as Hotter's (also EMI) and Holl's (Preiser/Harmonia Mundi). The point about Bar is that he seems to encompass both schools in his extraordinarily perceptive and wideranging account of the cycle. Nobody in my experience in recital and on disc, except perhaps Schreier, shows quite such anguish and intensity: the bitterness as he rages against the world and his former loved one is almost frightening to hear. It is also adumbrated in the desperation he brings to such lines as ''wie weit noch bis zum Bahre'' in ''Der greise Kopf'' and ''Treue bis zum Grabe'' at the end of ''Die Krahe''. His tone here turns bleak and almost hard, as if death is the only fate worth contemplating. The sheer range of colour that he brings to these songs astonishes me, but even more wonderful is the immediacy of the singing. Both can be heard in ''Die Wetterfahne'', taken fast, which I have never heard quite so fiercely accusatory as here—even from Fischer-Dieskau. No less notable is Geoffrey Parsons's on-rushing accompaniment followed by his precise sounding of the falling ice drops in ''Gefrorne Tranen'' where Bar finely contrasts the paradox of the ice and the burning heat within the protagonist's breast. This is a great and wholly original interpretation. Then in ''Erstarrung'' we catch the other aspect of the performance, its youthful impetuosity, the search for signs of happy times producing just the right touch of vibrato.
Bar is as successful in matching the drained-out feeling of the later songs, just as Hotter does. ''Das Wirthaus'', for instance, sung in an empty mezza voce with the single word ''matt''—''tired''—sounded in a properly dried-out manner. The enigmatic three suns inspire yet another tone, resigned yet more positive with the line ''und sie auch standen da so stier'' given special emphasis, leading on to a marvellously haunted ''Der Leiermann'', helped by Parsons's veiled accompaniment. The last word ''drehn'' is rightly numbed and piano.
Throughout, Bar's use of the text is nothing short of masterly, with not a hint of overemphasis or a bulge in the line, such as Fischer-Dieskau's is prone to, and he produces a legato to match Hotter's. Sometimes you may find his tone a trifle occluded as compared with Schreier's or Fischer-Dieskau's, and some higher notes are a little strained, but by and large the vocal attack is as startling as the interpretation. To complete my pleasure, David Murray (the producer) has got the sound absolutely right in the best EMI tradition of recording Lieder: forward, yet with just enough space around voice and piano. Anyone having one of the other versions listed above will want to have this one too. Perhaps only Schreier's quite matches it in sheer spontaneity and utterance—and that has some well-known drawbacks in the recording and a less even partnership. Newcomers needn't hesitate to go for Bar, certainly a version for the 1990s.
The other new performance is very different. Whereas Bar is a protesting youth, Carl-Heinz Muller, a baritone new to me though he was already 54 when he made this disc—presents a much more self-pitying figure, choosing slower, more conventional speeds and phrasing that is in a slightly self-conscious manner, with not too much help from his pianist. The voice itself sounds fresh and light, rather tenorish in a Fischer-Dieskau way. I enjoyed hearing the performance because of the pleasing sound and obvious intelligence exhibited. If it were in a field where there were fewer satisfying performances, this one would be worth contemplating; as it is, it isn't quite in the class of the version to which it comes closest, that by Fischer-Dieskau, and certainly it won't run against Bar.'