Honegger – Jeanne d’Arc au bucher
Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR; Helmuth Rilling
Hänssler Classic CD 098.636
German conductor Helmuth Rilling is known here mainly for his authoritative performances of Bach. But his repertoire is, in fact, remarkably broad and adventurous, and his recorded output is prodigious. In this live recording he undertakes a magnificent work whose rarity in our concert halls is baffling.
The two leading parts, Joan and Brother Dominic, are spoken rather than sung. But for the rest, French composer Arthur Honegger drew on a mixture of musical styles, from jazz and folk song to Gregorian chant and Bach chorales. These make for many wonderful moments, but the most moving is near the end, when the Virgin, sung by Canadian soprano Karen Wierzba, soars radiantly over the huge choir and orchestra as Joan is burned at the stake and ascends to heaven.
Rilling brings out the disparate moods of the work – the irony, absurdity, humour, mystery and profound spirituality. But these disjointed elements don’t always come together in the unified vision that Honegger and his librettist Paul Claudel sought.
Sylvie Rohrer as Joan and Eörs Kisfaludy as Dominic are affecting but unidiomatic, and momentum is sapped by the slow pace of their extended dialogues. It’s the Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart, founded by Rilling in 1954, that steals the show, especially with the soloists frequently overpowered by the massive forces behind them.
The booklet essay and soloist biographies are in French and English, but the libretto is given only in French, without even a synopsis in English.
