Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Vom Himmel hoch, MWV A22 (1831)
Die erste Walpurgisnacht, Op 60, MWV D3 (1830-32, rev 1842-43)
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-1847)
Hiob, cantata for chorus and orchestra H-U 258 (1831)
Gartenlieder, six songs for SATB Chorus, Op 3 (1846)
Julia Doyle (soprano), Jess Dandy (contralto), Mark Le Brocq (tenor), Ashley Riches (baritone)
Crouch End Festival Chorus
London Mozart Players/David Temple
rec. 2022, Church of St Jude-on-the-Hill, Hampstead Garden Suburb, London
Full texts and translations included in booklet
Reviewed in stereo
Chandos CHSA5318 SACD [72]
According to one five-star review of a live performance of three-quarters of this programme at the Alexandra Palace Theatre a couple of years ago, the Crouch End Festival Chorus’s dynamic founder-conductor David Temple implored his audience beforehand to ignore any lingering pre-conceptions of ‘boring Mendelssohn’, not an unreasonable request given that Felix’s extensive catalogue of church music certainly provoked that reaction from my own parents’ generation, and despite several fine modern recordings of this repertoire, the response has proved stubbornly enduring ever since. I confess to participating in several amateur performances of his sacred works in my youth which could charitably be described as ‘dutiful’ at best.
This fine disc at once blows away the cobwebs and shatters those stereotypes. On the one hand Temple’s innovative programming contrasts Felix’s Bachian Christmas cantata Von Himmel Hoch with the weird yet wonderful secular ballad Die erste Walpurgisnacht; on the other he directs a pair of little known works by his beloved sister Fanny, the brief biblical cantata Hiob (Job) and Gartenlieder, a touching yet ambitious cycle of six songs for acapella chorus which she composed during the last year of her life. This unaccompanied sequence offers an attractive counterpoint to a trio of orchestrally supported choral works, all of which are thrillingly performed and stunningly captured by the Chandos engineers.
Vom Himmel hoch is probably the best known of the eight chorale cantatas Felix Mendelssohn composed between 1827 and 1832 in the wake of his increasing enthusiasm for the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Its common ground with the six cantatas which constitute the latter’s Christmas Oratorio will be strikingly obvious to most listeners from its opening bars. For many years I have lived more than happily with one of the iterations of Nicol Matt’s fine set of Mendelssohn’s choral works on Brilliant Classics – review – but hearing his account of Vom Himmel hoch after David Temple’s one cannot help but notice how recessed the Chamber Choir of Europe sound in the mix compared to the Londoners on the new Chandos disc. Temple leads a compelling, vivacious and thrilling account; the exemplary clarity of the Crouch End Festival Chorus’s diction is splendidly realised, whilst Mendelssohn’s orchestral colour emerges with greater warmth and bloom from the LMP. There’s less to choose between the soloists who excel on both discs (for the record the soprano Petra Labitzke is perhaps slightly less characterful than the wonderful Julia Doyle). The effect of the big chorus on the new issue is spellbinding however – Vom Himmel hoch has surely never sounded more vital on disc.
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s biblical cantata Hiob is more or less exactly contemporary with Von Himmel hoch, the Bachian influence similarly obvious. It is certainly appealing although it can hardly be said to bristle with originality. The opening chorus Was ist ein Mensch, daß du ihn groß achtest bounces along amiably however, with the Crouch End choir displaying a palpable sense of increasing confidence as it proceeds. There is certainly far more contrast and drama here than in a rival recording made by the Dortmund University Chamber Choir on Thorofon (CTH 2346), qualities maintained in the calmer central arioso and the vibrant closing chorus Leben und Wohltat hast du an mir getan. Whilst the German choir’s singing lacks nothing in discipline and accuracy Temple’s more imposing forces (and the Chandos recording) leave a more striking impression from what ultimately seems a rather derivative work.
By contrast Fanny’s much later Gartenlieder, Op 3, are considerably more intriguing. These six numbers featured amongst a tranche of unaccompanied partsongs she composed in 1846, The majority of these feature on a 1980s CPO disc which showcases Cologne’s unheralded Leonarda Ensemble Köln under Elke Mascha Blankenburge (CPO 999 012-2 – 1986). They are well recorded, but this chamber choir makes a much smaller and intermittently coarser sound. David Temple and his singers prove far more successful in bringing these vibrant little gems to vivid life. Hörst du nicht die Bäume rauschen is a paean to the woodland, whilst the lively Schöne Fremde employs imaginative variations of dynamics and tempi which are delivered with tact and elegance. Most affecting of all is the nostalgic evening song Abendlich schon rauscht der Wald, whose chamber dimensions this big choir project almost effortlessly. Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s lovely Gartenlieder therefore amount to a real discovery; one hopes that other choirs and their directors will be moved to take up the cycle. For me it’s the highlight of the disc.
Kurt Masur’s 1973 sparkling, elemental reading of Mendelssohn’s odd cantata after Goethe’s ballad Die erste Walpurgisnacht, with a crack team of soloists and the composer’s own Gewandhaus orchestra and chorus (whose contribution is truly spellbinding) has long been a favourite of this reviewer. Recorded in the Versöhnungskirche (at a time when Leipzig tended to be regarded by impressionable Mancunians like myself as a sadly inaccessible Iron Curtain bolthole) the performance still sounds astonishing half a century later, with Masur mining an irresistible blend of pagan choral fervour and atmospheric orchestral detail from his forces. I suspect it will always be my go-to account. (Having first emerged on disk on the Berlin Classics label, these days it can be found on Brilliant Classics – 95119). On the issue under consideration here, David Temple leads his attentive London forces in a more measured but no less ardent account. The LMP project both freshness and verve in the diptych that constitutes the overture, but to my ears the chorus do seem a tad tentative in comparison to the Leipzigers, an observation which may seem a little churlish given the detail afforded by Chandos’s precision sonics. The Crouch End Festival Chorus have evidently been fastidiously drilled and create striking impact in any case – the brilliant production certainly highlights the colourful dynamic contrasts which enliven Mendelssohn’s score. As for the solo performers Jess Dandy’s dark-hued contralto is well-suited to the terse aria Könnt ihr so verwegen handeln? whilst the male soloists (tenor Mark Le Bocq and baritone Ashley Riches, by now a Chandos stalwart) both attack their roles with gusto, yet it’s the chorus that get closest to the unbuttoned vernal sprit of their Gewandhaus counterparts, Comparisons aside, any opportunity to hear Mendelssohn’s glorious outlier in superb modern sonics is surely not to be passed up.
Whilst in my view Temple’s Walpurgisnacht doesn’t quite displace Masur’s at the top of the tree, that’s probably not really the point. His account caps a splendidly conceived programme whose main purpose is to place Fanny Hensel’s delightfully thoughtful vocal music in the context of two of her brother’s more familiar contributions to the genre. Whilst one might make a direct comparison between Felix’s Vom Himmel hochand Fanny’s Hiob (both indebted to JSB and produced in 1831) the couplings aptly demonstrate the siblings’ extraordinary range. Fanny’s Gartenlieder cycle represents a most agreeable discovery, one which may well appeal to other choirs. Nicholas Marston’s erudite booklet note is a model of its kind. It all adds up to a strong recommendation from me; following on as it does from the recent release of Sheila Hayman’s outstanding film about Fanny, it represents yet another important step in the rehabilitation of ‘The Other Mendelssohn’ which happily continues apace.
Richard Hanlon
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