Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924)
Doktor Faust (1924)
Dietrich Henschel (baritone), Doktor Faust
Daniel Brenna (tenor), Mephistopheles
Wilhelm Schwinghammer (bass), Wagner and Master of Ceremonies
Joseph Dahdah (tenor), Soldier, Duke of Parma
Olga Bezsmertna (soprano), Duchess of Parma
Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino/Cornelius Meister
rec. live, 14 February 2023, Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Florence
Naxos 8.660531-33 [3 CDs: 157]

Busoni’s treatment of the Faust legend must be one of the most unfortunately treated of all the operatic canon, despite the fact that it is generally acknowledged to be one of his great works and indeed one of the most important operatic scores written in the early twentieth century. Left incomplete at the composer’s death, it was finished from his sketches by his pupil Philipp Jarnach and despite initial success in the opera house and a number of broadcast performances in the years after the Second World War it did not achieve a complete commercial recording until 1970 when DG issued a set of three LPs containing a transcription of a carefully rehearsed and prepared German studio performance for the European Broadcasting Union. But – and here comes the rub – it was not really complete. Busoni in his setting had made the fatal mistake of allowing a whole series of scenes, and individual sections of scenes, to stand alone in the manner of the ‘numbers’ of nineteenth century operas; and this immediately opened the gates for conductors and performers to omit sections of the score in the interests of concision or an attempt to achieve greater dramatic pace. The DG recording infuriatingly applied the scissors liberally to Busoni’s own text while leaving the completions by Jarnach intact, but in point of fact that was a decided improvement on some earlier accounts which have subsequently appeared on CD: a Boult performance from the BBC (described as a “concert abridgement”) had omitted nearly one half of the whole score, and another of Horenstein’s first American performance (which I reviewed for this site a couple of years ago) made similar swingeing cuts including the whole of the staged intermezzo before Scene One (Busoni’s layout of the score is itself highly unorthodox, with two lengthy prologues preceding the three scenes of the action itself).

It took some time for a second commercial recording to appear, but when it did it was a decided improvement: Kent Nagano’s 3 CDs included not only the complete text for the first time on disc, but also added alternative conclusions by Anthony Beaumont which employed further sketches by Busoni (some of which had not been available to Jarnach back in the 1920s) to furnish a decidedly different slant on the final scenes. It also gracefully included an acknowledgement to earlier recordings and live performances by including Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (who had sung the title role in all three of the sets mentioned above) declaiming Busoni’s own spoken introductory and closing verses at the appropriate points in the score. That set remains available as a download, but the essential and invaluable booklet is not included in the digital package, which makes it quite a challenge for the unprepared listener. Mind you, there is no booklet available either with the DG set – which again is only now available as a download. There is a booklet with German text provided with one later alternative, a live performance from the Bavarian State Opera available on Oehms, but this does not provide a translation either; and the recording itself is ruled out of consideration by the racket coming from the stage production, which the reviewer for BBC Music Magazine described as “terribly intrusive”, as well as the fact that the musical text simply omits any of the completions by either Jarnach or Busoni, which leaves the remainder as a torso.

Which leaves simply this latest issue from Naxos, which has already appeared as a video release from Dynamic and was reviewed in that form in these pages by Stephen Barber last March.  Again, there is no translation of the text in the booklet, although a link to one is available online; and the words, containing Busoni’s own philosophical reflections, are vitally important for the listener to properly appreciate the music. Once again, as in the Nagano set on Erato, the title role is taken by Dietrich Henschel; and it has to be observed immediately that he was in fresher voice in the studio recording some thirty years ago, even when allowing for the dramatic impact of stage performance informed by experience. The role, like all the principal parts in this opera, is a real killer for the voice, designed for a heroic Wagnerian bass-baritone but bristling with lunges into the upper register which continually and inevitably puts a strain on the singer – which may well serve to explain, if not excuse, the cuts made in the score by Fischer-Dieskau. Actually Henschel, especially in his earlier reading for Nagano, shows less signs of effort in his high Fs and F sharps that did his esteemed predecessor; and his delivery of his final monologue here (employing Jarnach’s conclusion) is very effective and indeed affecting. I suspect it might be even more impressive on DVD although this would of course depend on the production; and the visual element would also bring the decided advantage of subtitles, so that we can properly appreciate the subtleties of the writing. And here there comes another consideration. Although Dynamic advertised their DVD as a “world première on video”, there was an earlier DVD release from Arthaus Music conducted by Philippe Jordan which featured no less than Thomas Hampson in the title role. He is quite simply a nonpareil in this role, which he clearly loves and understands perfectly; and his voice in 2006 soars in the higher registers with an ease that quite surpasses any of his rivals. The fact that he is not a native German speaker matters little in the face of a performance such as this, and it is scandalous that the DVD now only seems to be available if you can track down a second-hand copy.

That DVD rival also serves to a highlight another problem with this new release. Busoni’s score, quite apart from its vocal hurdles (of which more anon), also is highly demanding in its requirements on the orchestra. The writing is generally tonal although chromatically unstable, as befits its subject matter, but the extreme complexity of the contrapuntal texture demands a clarity and definition in response that simply defeats Cornelius Meister and his Florentine forces here; there are places where the playing sounds simply under-rehearsed. Balances often go awry, too; the huge organ ‘improvisation’ which launches the intermezzo asks for a contrast between a massive cathedral-like sound in some places and a chamber distance at others – it is not until well into the action that the orchestra is to be heard at all – and here the distinction in sound is negligible (in the production the venue was apparently changed from a church to a hospital), with the result that the composer’s clearly expressed musical intentions remain unrealised. Philippe Jordan on the Arthaus DVD is decidedly more engaged, but it is only Nagano in his complete set who really comes to terms with this scene, one of Busoni’s most outrageously innovative inventions. Another of the composer’s delightful touches, the delicate duet between harp and celesta as Faust conjures up the spirits of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, is ruined by a badly misjudged balance between the instruments; Leitner got it better fifty years earlier.

Which brings me back to the vexed question of the casting, and in particular the truly fiendish demands that are made on the singer of Mephistopheles. The poor tenor is asked to begin by singing a whole series of statospheric notes calling on Faust from backstage, starting on a top A and culminating in a long-held high C. After this tour de force he is then asked to produce an almost heroic sound – in the style of Strauss’s Herod rather than Wagner’s Mime – including as well a whole series of phrases marked variously “sweetly”, “coldly” and so on. Well, I cannot imagine any tenor who could manage all that in a live performance – even the usually impeccable Richard Lewis for Boult is horribly strained – and Daniel Brenna here does no better, even having to foreshorten his high C in his opening phrase. William Cochran on the Leitner set does manage to bring it off, but it is not always an easy sound to listen to; Kim Begley for Nagano, with the advantage of being able to rest between sessions, to take his time (and presumably retake passages) in the studio, comes nearest to realising Busoni’s extreme demands on the voice. Similarly the principal soprano role of the Duchess, with its persistent requests for floated pianissimos in the highest register, is extraordinarily difficult for the singer to realise. The young Heather Harper for Boult is about the best on disc, and the shrill and ill-tuned Hildegard Hillebrecht for Leitner comes close to being intolerable. Here Olga Bezsmertna certainly manages to deliver the notes with even tone even when she cannot fine her voice down to the degree that Busoni specifies; but she or her stage producer make things no easier for herself by ignoring the composer’s direction that she should deliver her final phrases from behind the scene – here she is very clearly at the front of the stage, and the magically distanced effect which should be produced is sacrificed.

The part of Faust’s student and later successor Wagner is usually allocated to a buffo bass, but here Wilhelm Schwinghammer is very much more baritonal – a real rival to his master – which does make some sort of dramatic sense, and would be even more appropriate if he were allowed his appearance when he takes up his professorial duties in the final scene. But here, as indeed in the Jordan DVD, the relevant passage (almost the last section of the score that Busoni completed) is cut. This is not only a cavalier approach to the music, but also dramatically inept, since Faust arrives for his final scene full of bitterness against his successor (whom he describes as a “pedant”) and this makes nonsense of his attitude if we have not seen the behaviour of the students beforehand. The part of the Soldier, Gretchen’s brother, in the intermezzo is a real gift to a heroic baritone and Joseph Dahdah delivers it superbly; I cannot think of any singer who fails in this passage, although of course both Boult and Horenstein omit the scene completely. The various demons in the second scene of the prologue are more dramatically effective here than in the Jordan performance, but they are best realised in the Leitner studio recording where they are provided with the assistance of a halo of added resonance; Nagano here is comparatively restrained, and thereby misses a point. The chorus are fine, well-tuned and well-balanced against the orchestral sound, and stage and audience are commendably quiet. The spoken prologue is included here (Jordan omitted it) and, as Stephen Barber commented when reviewing the DVD, it kills the tension for over five minutes, especially when it is delivered in such an uninvolved manner with offstage voices providing an unwelcome and unexplained undercurrent.

It will I think be clear from the foregoing that anybody who really cares about Busoni in general and Doktor Faust in particular must have the Kent Nagano recording, and if they can find a second-hand set of the CD issue complete with its booklet, texts and translations, they will find the score as well served as any rivals and frequently surpassing them. The two rival DVD sets – and the availability of subtitles – would also recommend either this recording or its Zurich predecessor if a copy of the latter can be tracked down, and I would certainly prefer Thomas Hampson to any of his competitors even with the omission of the Wagner episode from the final scene. To do Cornelius Meister justice, he does avoid the wholesale cutting that disfigured so many of the earlier recordings, but apart from the same Wagner scene he does make a couple of snips in the carnival procession music of the first scene – an odd choice, since the music is already quite familiar in its orchestral guise as part of the Sarabande and Cortège that the composer extracted from the full score before his death.

What we really still need is a textually complete recording of Doktor Faust with the Anthony Beaumont conclusion in its proper place. It is true that the Jarnach completion, making clever use of the Sarabande music with its soaring lines, makes a most effective climax to the score as Faust lays himself down to die in the snow and a naked youth rises from his corpse to stalk away down the street (perhaps we could find a more evocative image in a modern production), the Beaumont edition does after all approach more closely to what Busoni apparently intended at this moment. Presumably the English National Opera production (with Thomas Allen and Graham Clark), which first presented the Beaumont conclusion on stage, still exists in recorded form, and even though it would present the text in English it would be interesting to hear it (and there is indeed a pirated mp3 copy advertised for sale on the internet, although I cannot vouch for its quality). Otherwise we will settle for the truly complete Nagano in audio terms, and Jordan on video; although in either case this new Naxos/Dynamic recording will make a viable (and certainly more readily available) alternative.

Paul Corfield Godfrey

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Other cast members:
Florian Stern (tenor), Lieutenant
Marcell Bakonyi (bass), Law student and Levis
Martin Piskorski (tenor), Marian Pop (baritone), Lukas Konieczny (bass), students from Krakow
Dominic Barberi (bass), Theologian and Gravis
Zachary Wilson (baritone), Scientist and Asmodus
Franz Gürtelschmied (tenor), Student and Beelzebub
Ewandro Stenzowski (tenor), Megaros