Mitch Friedfeld wrote:

>Goerne's and Brendel's Winterreise is the top pick in the Choral and
>Song section of the current BBC Music Magazine.  After praising the
>performance to the skies, the reviewer writes:
>
>"Among mezzos (and there are quite a few) who have ventured into
>Schubert's snowbound landscape, Brigitte Fassbaender (DG) gives
>probably the most astonishing, shocking performance ever recorded."
>
>Anyone out there heard this?  Any opinions on this recording?

Yes, and it's very good indeed, one of the musts in a bigger collection.
Her Kindertotenlieder is one of my favourites too.  She's more an alto
than a mezzo, so she carries it off while a higher female voice might
not sound right.  It is a man's cycle after all.  Women may make "internal
jouneys" often better than men do, and Winterreise is about an internal
journey as much as a physical one.  Hence Fassbender's interpretation,
which is intimate and intense and has a sort of emotional ferocity which
stems from Fassbender's personality, I think. It's a cycle that needs
emotional depth.  But it's also about alienation from society, hurtling
off into the unknown, breaking away from social norms.  The protagonist
can't even fit in with the dead in the graveyard.  Most women are more
communal and socialised.  Men can just walk out the door into the snow.
That's I think why the reviewer called Fassbender's version "shocking".
She can do it, I think, because the dignity of her voice, the clarity
of vision and the firmness persuade us that she is no average person.

There's also a recent version by Natalie Stutzman, which I haven't heard
because I don't like Stutzman's voice and her rather heavy style.  Offhand
I can't think of other female Winterreises.  Christa Ludwig is a mezzo
on the "low" side, as was Janet Baker, but both have a "pretty" quality
to their voices which might sound odd in Winterreise.  With Fassbender,
the emotional candour and clarity of her interpretation is more eternal
female, earth mother unconventional.  Of future singers, only Alice Coote
has what it takes, I think. (and Alice is one of Fassbender's protegees)

Anne
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