Hindemith Sancta Susanna, etc
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Paul Hindemith
Genre:
Opera
Label: Chandos
Magazine Review Date: 9/1998
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 70
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CHAN9620
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Sancta Susanna |
Paul Hindemith, Composer
Ameral Gunson, Old Nun, Mezzo soprano BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Della Jones, Clementia, Contralto (Female alto) Leeds Festival Chorus Maria Treedaway, Maid, Speaker Mark Rowlinson, Farmhand, Speaker Paul Hindemith, Composer Susan Bullock, Susanna, Soprano Yan Pascal Tortelier, Conductor |
| Nusch-Nuschi Dances |
Paul Hindemith, Composer
Anne Howells, Annina, Contralto (Female alto) BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Helen Donath, Sophie, Soprano Luciano Pavarotti, Italian Tenor, Tenor Murray Dickie, Valzacchi, Tenor Otto Wiener, Faninal, Baritone Paul Hindemith, Composer Yan Pascal Tortelier, Conductor |
| Tuttifäntchen |
Paul Hindemith, Composer
Alois Pernerstorfer, Alberich, Baritone Alois Pernerstorfer, Alberich, Baritone Alois Pernerstorfer, Alberich, Baritone Hilde Konetzni, Gutrune, Soprano Hilde Konetzni, Gutrune, Soprano Hilde Konetzni, Gutrune, Soprano Josef Herrmann, Gunther Ludwig Weber, Hagen, Bass Max Lorenz, Siegfried, Tenor Paul Hindemith, Composer |
| (3) Gesänge |
Paul Hindemith, Composer
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Fiorenza Cossotto, Amneris, Mezzo soprano Fiorenza Cossotto, Amneris, Mezzo soprano Fiorenza Cossotto, Amneris, Mezzo soprano Montserrat Caballé, Aida, Soprano Paul Grindlay, Second Devil Paul Hindemith, Composer Renato Bruson, Giorgio Germont, Baritone Renato Bruson, Giorgio Germont, Baritone Renato Bruson, Giorgio Germont, Baritone Robert Stewart, Third Devil Susan Bullock, Soprano Yan Pascal Tortelier, Conductor |
Author: Robert Layton
Sancta Susanna is one of the three early stage works Hindemith composed in the wake of the First World War, its companions being Morder, Hoffnung der Frauen (1919) and Das Nusch-Nuschi (1920), based on a play for Burmese marionettes and represented here by its dances. The whole opera has been recorded by Gerd Albrecht (Wergo, 7/89). Hindemith earned a living in the Frankfurt Opera during this period and so it is natural that he nurtured operatic ambitions. Sancta Susanna enjoyed a certain notoriety during its time. Fritz Busch refused to conduct its premiere on account of its blasphemous plot. It tells briefly of a young nun, Susanna, inflamed by the legend she hears from Sister Clementia, of a girl coming naked to the altar to embrace the lifesize figure of Christ on the Cross. For this blasphemy she is buried alive. Aroused and undeterred Susanna strips off and rips the covering from Christ’s torso. She is terrified when a huge spider falls on to her head from the crucifix and, horrified by her deed, begs the nuns to wall her up. A drastic cure for arachnophobia or blasphemy!
The opening of the opera is extraordinarily atmospheric, quite magical in fact, closer to Schreker or even some Szymanowskian vision than anything in the mature Hindemith. The opera is short, concentrated, highly imaginative and resourceful in its use of sonority; and its expressionist musical language is so powerful that one feels at the end of its barely 23 minutes that one has heard a much longer piece. It is superbly done here. No praise can be too high for the singers and for the delicacy, eloquence and power of the playing that Yan Pascal Tortelier draws from his orchestra. MEO wrote warmly of the only other recording of it, by the RIAS forces listed above under Gerd Albrecht, but it would have to be very good indeed to represent a serious challenge either artistically or as a recording to the present issue. As so often from this source, the recorded sound is of demonstration quality in its unforced naturalness.
In discussing the gorgeous Straussian Drei Gesange, Op. 9, MEO called them “very vehement and passionate and at times wildly over the top” and thought their “assured craft and confident ambition breathtaking”. Indeed they are, and Susan Bullock performs them with thrilling panache. They are written for a large orchestra and there is little of what we think of as Hindemith in them. Nor is there much in Tuttifantchen, a children’s pantomime first performed in Darmstadt in 1922, and “almost unimaginably different in its blithe simplicity” (to quote Calum MacDonald’s note). There is even a quotation from Debussy’s “Golliwog’s Cakewalk”. For the most part Tuttifantchen is totally uncharacteristic, not unpleasing but really rather nondescript. The dances fromNusch-Nuschi were once coupled with Hin und zuruck and Der Damon on a 1971 Vox Candide LP and, as one would expect, are even more expertly done on this CD. There is some quite extraordinary music here and Sancta Susanna, which I confess I did not know before, is a great find.'
The opening of the opera is extraordinarily atmospheric, quite magical in fact, closer to Schreker or even some Szymanowskian vision than anything in the mature Hindemith. The opera is short, concentrated, highly imaginative and resourceful in its use of sonority; and its expressionist musical language is so powerful that one feels at the end of its barely 23 minutes that one has heard a much longer piece. It is superbly done here. No praise can be too high for the singers and for the delicacy, eloquence and power of the playing that Yan Pascal Tortelier draws from his orchestra. MEO wrote warmly of the only other recording of it, by the RIAS forces listed above under Gerd Albrecht, but it would have to be very good indeed to represent a serious challenge either artistically or as a recording to the present issue. As so often from this source, the recorded sound is of demonstration quality in its unforced naturalness.
In discussing the gorgeous Straussian Drei Gesange, Op. 9, MEO called them “very vehement and passionate and at times wildly over the top” and thought their “assured craft and confident ambition breathtaking”. Indeed they are, and Susan Bullock performs them with thrilling panache. They are written for a large orchestra and there is little of what we think of as Hindemith in them. Nor is there much in Tuttifantchen, a children’s pantomime first performed in Darmstadt in 1922, and “almost unimaginably different in its blithe simplicity” (to quote Calum MacDonald’s note). There is even a quotation from Debussy’s “Golliwog’s Cakewalk”. For the most part Tuttifantchen is totally uncharacteristic, not unpleasing but really rather nondescript. The dances from
Hindemith Sancta Susanna, etc
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