R E V I E W:

A memorable undertaking, excellently transferred, a lifetime’s reward.

It was a decade ago that Danacord originally released their Schiøtz edition. Then it comprised ten individual volumes of eleven discs; and now the series has been rationalised with each disc in slimline cardboard and housed in a splendid blue box. The individual booklet notes have been similarly rationalised in the shape of a book, over three hundred pages long. The whole thing is a lavish and noble salute to a great singer.

There is a vast of material in these well-filled volumes. The fact that they span only the years 1933-46 is a testament both to how much Schiøtz recorded in so relatively short space of time – the war years bisected his career – and also the tragic illness that so horribly curtailed his career (he was born in 1906 and died in 1975). The repertoire ranges widely and includes Buxtehude and Dowland as well as native folk songs. Opera is under-represented in his discography which makes the surviving examples the more valuable; oratorio is a bigger feature though still not huge; Danish folk songs are certainly the focus of much of the discs; we can add Nielsen, Schumann and Schubert finally to the tangible ornaments of this collection in performances that have withstood the close scrutiny of posterity and emerged as impressive as ever they seemed when the recordings were first released.

His Handel is deeply impressive, as assured as Heddle Nash in Messiah. His Buxtehude is accompanied by a lithe ensemble of some of his country’s finest chamber players; Else Marie Bruun and Julius Koppel, violins, Alberto Medici, cello, and harpsichordist – elsewhere in the set, conductor - Mogens Wöldike. His divisions in Bach are splendid and his stylistic acumen in Dowland is notable, even though he was accompanied by a guitar not a lute. The Mozart operatic extracts are in this first volume. The pick of the sextet of recordings is probably Il mio tesoro in which the sheer refinement, control of legato and breath are at their peak. The only disappointment is the hasty and unconvincing Un’aura amoroso. Both Schiøtz and Nash share the same lyric refinement and apposite lightness in Mozart.

The second volume is mostly given over to Die schöne Müllerin, recorded in 1945 with Gerald Moore. A little background to this; he had originally begun to record the cycle with Moore in 1939 but they only managed to set down Das Wandern and Morgengruss. Eight other songs from the cycle followed with pianist (and composer) Herman Koppel during three sessions made in 1939 and 1940 but the complete cycle was left unrecorded. So the 1945 sessions with Moore were clearly high on the list of recording priorities once the war was over. This time it took just three days to record the lot. Schiøtz is a wonderful lieder singer; he’s a cultivated artist, refined once more – an unavoidable word with him – and never a forced interventionist in interpretative matters. His singing is fresh, youthful, and ardent. He reserves interior intensity for Des Baches Wiegenlied, proves sweeping in Des Müllers Blumen. The voice is slightly heavier by 1945 and the performances, on balance, very slightly broader as well, though often there’s very little in it. It was Moore who said that Schiøtz was maybe the only modest tenor he’d ever met. His Grieg selection in volume two with Folmer Jensen is sung with artless beauty and perception.

There are two performances of Dichterliebe. The first was recorded with Jensen in 1942 and made its first ever appearance in this Danacord edition. The second was the well-known London recording of 1946 with, once again, Gerald Moore. As with the Schubert recording there is really very little to choose between the two recordings. This is, once more, not a reading that necessarily covers the full colouristic and expressive range but Schiøtz is certainly expressive within confines. It’s a very different way of gong about things from the set by, say, Panzera, though the Frenchman, who recorded it earlier with Cortot, is known to have admired Schiøtz’s recording almost without reservation. What he catches is the right shade of melancholy, the shading and shaping of lines and if he never penetrates quite to the emotional heart of things he nevertheless provides an exemplary example of nuanced and imaginative singing.

Most of the Nielsen recordings (volume ten) chart the composer’s “radical simplicity” period. They’re an absolute delight unless the idea of lyric simplicity in Nielsen is for some reason unattractive. Schiøtz has just the right tone for them - the perfect blend of simplicity, straight-forwardness, evenness of tonal production and lack of artifice. It’s the avoidance of the last in particular that proves so valuable as any artificiality would kill the songs stone dead. Glenten styrter is a particularly effective performance though one should also note the great dignity he brings to Den danske sang. The soothing barcarolle of Underlige Aftenlufte surely finds its ideal, unmatchable, singer here and so too the orchestrally accompanied ballad Prinsesse Tove. But every one of these performances is a gem – and certainly don’t overlook his first Nielsen recording, the 1939 scene from Maskarade with Johan Hye-Knudsen conducting.

Reverting back to volume five we find a selection of romances by Weyse, songs by Hartmann, Bellman and Sjöberg and a couple of small things by Gade and Gruber. More delights. The accompaniments are unusual and enjoyable – lute and guitar for Bellman, guitar for Hartmann, organ for some recordings with the Copenhagen Boys’ Choir and reliable Herman Koppel and Folmer Jensen for the piano. There are some treats here, characterful songs, light, charmingly pointed, never overdone, stylistically assured. Let me point out my absolute favourites in this volume – the lovely Weyse song Willemoes, Kommer hid, I Piger smaa and the same composer’s Barcarolle Natten er saa stille for which only the phrase “meltingly done” will suffice.

Volume 8 No.1 contains romances by composers including Peter Heise and some – when originally released – newly discovered Norwegian broadcast material. Schiøtz sounds completely at home here in the plangent warmth of Halfdan Kjerulf’s Mit Hjerte og min Lyre as much as in the Schubertian melos of Heise’s Det var paa Isted-Hede. The songs, and this wonderful artist’s singing of them, range from the youthful high spirits of Heise’s Der var en Svend to the grave, noble masculine eloquence of Thomas Laub’s Aldrig, Herre.

Disc six is given over to Golden Age Danish songs. Yes, some are strophic and conventional and there are no masterpieces but there is a heroic Gade song, Knud Lavard, which gets the full works from an inspired Schiøtz. Some of Henrik Rung’s songs fully deserve their place here, charming and attractive little things. There’s also the 1940 Nordisk Film soundtrack of Weyse’s music arranged by Emil Reesen; for this the tenor is joined by his distinguished colleague Edith Oldrup. They make a splendid pair. Volume seven is another compilation ranging over composers previously referred to and newcomers such as Oluf Ring and Askel Agerby. To these ballads Schiøtz brings generosity of phrasing and tonal refinement. As one would expect of a singer whose Bach and Handel is so effective he brings adroit musicality to the baroque tinged cadences of the old Danish-Swedish folk tune Jeg gik mig ud en Sommerdag.

Then finally there is volume nine with its “Farinelli” and “The Masked Tenor” sides. Here we find Schiøtz in lighthearted mode, singing freshly and irresistibly. He digs into the delicious Nauticalia of the old sailors’ tune Rosvald og Rosa with tremendous brio, essays Cole Porter pretty well, and dishes up the stirring Riisager composition Danmarks Frihedssang with tremendous authority – as well he might in May 1945 as it’s Denmark’s Freedom Song in translation. There’s fun too. We hear a snippet from the “Jazz oratorio” Geografi complete with cod classical operatic recitative and the cooing of The Rhythm Girls. After which there’s dance band music in the shape of Kai Normann Andersen. The Masked Tenor makes his appearance in three songs by Gade, Thomsen and Ankerstjerne accompanied by Bobby Pagan (surely not his real name?!) on the Wurlitzer Organ one crazy day in Copenhagen in May 1938. The idea was the record company’s by the way not Schiøtz’s and there’s a great picture of Pagan, Schiøtz and the offending organ in the accompanying book.

The book, I should note, contained everything originally in the individually issued CD booklets. That includes an individual note for each disc, full discographical information and a dual language Danish-English text. There are full song texts as well. The superb notes by Arne Helman include a wealth of material with reminiscences from Schiøtz himself. There are numerous photographs. The only sadness is that since its first appearance - and before this newly consolidated box appeared – Schiøtz’s widow Gerd died. Fortunately she lived to see the original magnificent edition to completion.

This box consists of about thirteen hours of Schiøtz, his complete recordings. It was a memorable undertaking, each disc excellently transferred, and offers a lifetime’s reward.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International