Viktor Ullmann (1898-1944)
Little Cakewalk – Lieder       
Shira Karmon (soprano), María Garzón (piano)
rec. 2022/23, Atelier 73, Unterretzbach, Austria
Texts and translations included
Gramola 99292 [64]

Viktor Ullmann’s songs have been recorded in full on a competing two-disc release from Arco Diva (review) so let’s cut to the chase and say straightaway that this Gramola release won’t enchant many listeners. That’s not because we only get a selection of four of the eight Geistliche Lieder, Op.20 or because others are entirely missing – this doesn’t pretend to be a complete recording of all Ullmann’s songs – it’s more for the distressing quality of soprano Shira Karmon’s singing.

She’s aptly described in the notes, quoting a review, as being a ‘theatrical soprano’ with a ‘voice full of fire, with an elemental force that makes us forget everything around us.’ That much, at least, is certainly true because when she sings she makes me forget that I want to listen to Viktor Ullmann’s songs. In fact, she makes me forget why I ever wanted to listen to this disc in the first place, other than I admire Ullmann.

‘Theatrical soprano’ means, in this case, a kind of expressionist cabaret voice, squally, unfocused, unsteady, disorganised with a grating metallic shrieking tone and a wobbly vibrato. I tried a drastic treble cut and I’m here to tell you that it didn’t help.

I suppose I should go through the critical motions though, God knows, I don’t really have the heart for it. The Chinese songs are peppered with vinegary tonal qualities, sudden shrieks and quasi-operatic flaring. Karmon’s tone is squeezed and seemingly incapable of nuance, dynamic variance or indeed any attractively soft or intimate singing. Ullmann is not always an ingratiating setter of songs, it’s true, and often pushes his soprano ungratefully high but turn to Irena Troupová on that Arco Diva disc for performances of infinitely more subtlety and refinement and though she too is challenged by Ullmann’s writing she never resorts to the cabaret of the absurd for musical solutions.  

In the Six Sonnets de Louïse Labé, which Troupová sings in sonnet order but which Karmon reorganizes – it doesn’t much matter which approach is taken but I prefer Troupová’s logic – the resinous squawking is at something like its nadir in Je vis, je meurs (Sonnet VIII). Troupová, with Jan Dušek, is embarrassingly superior though here again the vocal line is very tricky. With her uncertain pitch and grating tone Karmon is only a little better in the three Hölderlin lieder where her inability to shape the line is as disappointing as the sounds she makes.

I think we should stop here and draw a line.

Maybe Karmon – with her efficient though stylistically uncertain pianist María Garzón – is more convincing in a concert but this disc does her no favours, to say nothing of Ullmann.

The recording quality is merely adequate but there are full notes, texts and translations.

Jonathan Woolf    

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Contents
Little Cakewalk (1943)
Drei Lieder (Friedrich Hölderlin) (1943-44)
Lieder (6) nach Gedlichten von Albert Steffen, Op.17 (1937)
Three Yiddish Songs, Op. 53 (1944)
Geistliche Lieder, Op. 20; excerpts – 1, 2, 7, 8 (1938)
Wendla im Garten (1918)
Chinesische Lieder (1943)
Six Sonnets de Louïse Labé, Op. 34 (1941)