When I reviewed the mid-price reissue of the Schwarzkopf/Fischer-Dieskau set six years ago, I expressed surprise that this collection had not been recorded complete since that version was made in the mid 1960s. Now a pair of the most accomplished among the current generation of Lieder interpreters has dared to challenge the hegemony of the old favourite in the company of the late, lamented Geoffrey Parsons: this issue is a fit memorial to his considered art.
The songs are performed not in the published order but in one devised by Bar for several recitals of the set given by this trio, and now carried over into the recording studio. Bar attempts a justification of this procedure in a note in the booklet, saying: ''We tried to tell little stories, in longer or shorter sequences – stories that do justice both to the overall character of the cycle [is it truly a cycle?] and the miniature world of each individual song''. The results are debatable as I hope to show.
For the ten religious songs the reordering works well. In any case here the two singers show a deep and rewarding comprehension of the agony and ecstasy of poems and music. Listen, too, to von Otter's sense of smiling wonder in ''Ach, des Knaben Augen'' as the holy mother looks into her son's eyes. By contrast in ''Muhvoll komm' ich und beladen'' she changes to a searing, soul-searching manner that captures completely the woman's remorse, magnificently so at the climactic ''Nimm mich an''. Bar is as tense and inward in the great ''Herr, was tragt der Boden hier'', capturing the voices of penitent and Christ to perfection. Note, too, Parsons's deliberately heavy gait in ''Die du Gott gebarst''. I listened enthralled throughout this extraordinary group with no wish to make comparisons and so break the spell.
That wasn't quite the case when I reached the more numerous secular songs. With von Otter, apart from downward transpositions that make the piano parts sound unduly dark and Parsons consequently a shade heavy-handed, there is little to quarrel with. She teases, flirts, falls in love with the best of them, alert with her words, but never overdoing the archness as Schwarzkopf sometimes does. She is wonderfully airy in ''Mogen alle bosen Zungen'', finds just the implied sadness, as does Parsons, in the indisputably great ''Bedeckt mich mit Blumen'', the passion of the equally great ''Geh, Geliebter'' – both on a par with Schwarzkopf's famous readings – and she even discovers subtle overtones in some of the more modestly inspired songs. Although by choice she isn't quite so insistent in her syllable emphases as Schwarzkopf, in the event she is hardly less keenly attentive to the detail of these finely honed pieces.
Bar is not only up against the perhaps more formidable challenge of Fischer-Dieskau but also against his own reordering. He does not have – how could he? – the immense tonal range and emotional charge of the older baritone. ''Herz, verzage nicht geschwind'' is broader, more biting in Fischer-Dieskau's reading, for instance, ''Ach im Maien'' that much more mellifluous, but you could say that Bar's more contained, but by no means reticent approach has its own, Wolfian justification. But it is entirely Bar's fault that songs Nos. 21 and 24, which RW, in his typically perceptive but all-too-short notes, pointedly indicates should be sung as a group, lose some of their force when separated as here, thoughtfully as Bar sings each in its turn with a timbre reminiscent of Janssen in his old Hugo Wolf Society readings (Pearl, 6/94). Then surely ''Treibe nur mit Lieben Spott'' is expressly designed to follow ''Seltsam ist Juanas Weise'', which doesn't happen here.
I don't want to make too much of these points as the readings as a whole are worthy of the collection. In spite of being recorded at three different sessions from 1992 to 1994 the sound is remarkably consistent. In the modern manner there is more space around the voices than on the closer-miked DG set, where Fischer-Dieskau is very much a presence in the room with you: you listen to the new pair in more of a recital ambience.
This new version doesn't replace the old, which also has the advantage of price over the newcomer, but those who want another, fresh, valid view of the Spanisches Liederbuch or just want to hear von Otter in her element will wish to acquire these two absorbing discs. R1 '9508109'