Schubert – Wanderers Nachtlied
Matthias Goerne; Helmut Deutsch; Eric Schneider
Harmonia Mundi HMC902109.10
This is the eighth volume in Matthias Goerne’s epic project to record Schubert’s songs and cycles. Goerne meets every expectation of delivering the drama and emotion of the texts by Rückert, Goethe and other poets, especially as he masters so well the musical vehicle in which Schubert has set them.
But these performances transcend preoccupation with technical and stylistic correctness. At this stage in the singer’s relationship with his composer one begins to ask just how deeply one artist has ventured into the soul of the other? There is, in Goerne’s singing, a sense of ownership of Schubert’s ideas, and with that, an exercise of interpretive license quite unlike anything other Schubert singers have ever done.
The single item that will stop listeners in their tracks is the title lied, Wanderers Nachtlied, oddly buried partway through the second disc. The speed and dynamics of this interpretation are not just unconventional, they are wildly unorthodox. First impressions are shock and incredulity. How Goerne sustains the pianissimo and daringly slow tempo is technically stunning. Even more so is the realization that this is not a self-indulgence but a bold re-invention of Schubert’s original impulse. It’s unlikely that the composer ever intended this lied to be sung this way, but Goerne does it and makes it work, credibly and movingly. Simply masterful. Goerne has a unique artistic conviction that informs all his singing. It’s what will make his Schubert recordings an interpretive benchmark.
