Word: gundula
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Certainly the approach worked in Walküre. From Tenor Jon Vickers (Siegmund) and Newcomer Gundula Janowitz (Sieglinde), listeners heard the creamy lyricism of Wagner's love music as only unforced vocalism can produce it. American Baritone Thomas Stewart's Wotan had the slight reediness of a singer not fully matured but promising. Nilsson, the Brunnhilde, who can outshout half a dozen Wagnerian orchestras at once, concentrated instead on the compellingly human qualities of the role...
...that should sweep away all earlier versions of the work, including his own. A second new recording, by Herbert von Karajan (on Deutsche Grammophon), approaches the music more humanly and pleadingly -and the effect is surprisingly persuasive. His orchestra is the Berlin Philharmonic and two soloists are especially fine: Gundula Janowitz and Christa Ludwig. For majesty, take Klemperer; for beauty, Von Karajan...
BRAHMS: GERMAN REQUIEM (Deutsche Grammophon; 2 LPs). "Blessed are they that mourn," softly sings the chorus, and soon the sad saraband begins ("For all flesh is as grass"). At length the black solemnity is relieved by the soaring soprano voice of Gundula Janowitz singing "I will see you again." A powerful, rhythmically relentless performance by Herbert von Karajan, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Singverein...
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