DVORÁK: Lasst mich allein. Cello Concerto, Op. 104. Zigeunerlieder. FOSTER: Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair. Wilt Thou be Gone, Love. Jan Vogler (cello); Angelika Kirchschlager (mezzo); Helmut Deutsch (piano); New York Philharmonic/David Robertson, cond.
Sony 73716 (F) (DDD) TT: 67:43
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Dvorák lite, unfortunately. The title of this CD, "The Secrets of the Dvorák Cello Concerto," immediately set my hype receptors a-quiver, and I had to fight like blazes to keep an open mind. The secret is, of course, the allusions to and quotations of Dvorák's song "Lasst mich allein" at important moments in the concerto. The composer wrote the song under his infatuation with Josefina Kounicova. The piece belongs to his op. 82 Love Songs, and "Lasst mich" was a favorite of Josefina's. She died while the composer was writing his cello concerto, and the references to the song memorialize her in music. It's an important part of the concerto, but it's not the most important part. After all, once you tell the secret, it becomes old news or at least common knowledge unless, of course, someone can use it in a new, revelatory way.

For the purposes of the listener, the performance takes precedence before the musicology. Therefore, it makes sense to concentrate on whether Vogler and Robertson can use the information to tell us something about the concerto we didn't know before. For my money the two best performances are both led by George Szell: the first with Pablo Casals and the Czech Philharmonic (EMI Great Recordings of the Century #63498); the second, for those who prefer stereo, with Pierre Fournier and the Berlin Philharmonic, (DG Musikfest 429155). I have no idea whether any of them knew about Josefina.

Vogler is a fine cellist -- smart, subtle, and sensitive. However, although he gives you the great "inward" moments of the concerto, he's curiously light and detached in the passionate sections. In short, he plays with too much Good Taste. We need a little vulgarity, at least, to get our juices moving. The New York Philharmonic turns in a suave accompaniment -- exact balances, gorgeous tone. They have improved technically so much since Bernstein and Mehta. But I miss the punch they used to have. This may be Robertson's doing. He too seems afflicted with Good Taste, to the extent that not only doesn't the orchestra add any weight to the collaboration, they sound so disaffected that you begin to suspect they and the soloist didn't record at the same time. Of course I know they did, since I can read the session information. So it's not a bad performance, but you can do better for less.

Far more successful are the chamber pieces. Angelika Kirchschlager is one terrific singer, a Mozart soprano who can perform Lieder. If this had been an album of Dvorák songs, it would have reached a higher artistic level. Vogler comes into his own here in the cello transcriptions of the songs. The intimate scale of chamber music fits him better than concerto epic. Curiously, the program includes two Stephen Foster ballads, to illustrate the atmosphere Dvorák aimed to create in the slow movement of the concerto. Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair made me parlor-sentimental, despite my ingrained cynicism. Kirchschlager and Deutsch practically turned the thing into Schubert's Mondnacht. By the way, Kirchschlager, from Vienna, sings in English better than most native speakers. Vowels here and there go a wee bit astray, but the overall sound of the sentences -- as Robert Frost might have put it -- is educated American. Wilt thou be gone, Love suffers slightly from the fact that it's a duet based on a scene from Romeo and Juliet and requires a baritone for Romeo's part. The substitution of Vogler's cello forces Kirchschlager at one point to take both parts (fortunately, consecutive), but it's the place where the lovers disagree whether the bird they hear is the nightingale (so they have time for more sugar) or the lark (in which case Romeo's got to leave). Angelika taking both sides of the argument loses the dramatic point and brings to mind the bodyguard in Stay Cool who, during an audition for a producer, doesn't realize that he doesn't have to do all the parts in the scene.

The liner notes, in the form of two interviews -- one with Vogler interviewing musicologist Michael Beckerman and the other with Beckerman interviewing Vogler -- engaged me more than the account of the concerto. Beckerman brilliantly observes that most Romantic music tends to "fall toward" a slow movement, even within movements that aren't necessarily slow. This generally happens around the middle of a movement. In a way, it mirrors in little the overall structure of a concerto or symphony. It represents the moment of greatest inward rhetorical intensity, so look to the middle of a symphonic movement for important stuff. The theory works like a charm for the cello concerto. There is also a really nice section on the coda of the finale -- one of those remarkable passages in the literature, like the introduction to the finale of Brahms's first or those typical Mahler "farewells" where the music seems to concentrate to its essence.

The sound adds nothing to the wispy reading of the concerto, but you do get a recital-hall sonic image in the chamber music.


S.G.S. (March 2006)