Gramophone – September 2019

76 GRAMOPHONE SEPTEMBER 2019 gramophone.co.uk

ICONS

‘T

he first change is if you are 30. Then the easy going

is over. If you overcome that, the next is in the fifties.

If you get past that you can keep going. Naturally,

you lose tones; you lose the strength of the muscles. But

I realise much better now what you have to do.’ It was a windy

October evening in 1989,

and the veteran Swiss tenor

Ernst Haefliger (1919-2007)

was describing the physical

transitions a singer has to

surmount in order to sustain

a long career. The man

himself was 70 years old and had been singing professionally

for nearly half a century. Our interview took place in a

small apartment down the street from the New England

Conservatory (NEC) in Boston,wherehewasconducting

a series of masterclasses that

singing teachers all over town

were advising their students

to visit. A few weeks later he

flew to Tokyo to sing in the

St Matthew Passion, returning

to the States after the holidays

for a Schubert concert in

New York and another round

of masterclasses at NEC.

On February 9, 1990,

the septuagenarian tenor

sang Schubert’s Winterreise

at NEC’s Jordan Hall,

accompanied by his

son, Andreas Haefliger.

I remember that his voice

sounded compact and

precisely focused, even silvery

at times, though audibly

frayed at both ends of its

range. His sense of phrasing

and attention to textual

meaning had lost none of

their acuity. What astonished

everyone, however, was the

intensity of his performance,

a tenacious energy and

concentration that seemed

to carry him through the

entire mammoth song-cycle.

It added up to a triumphant

vindication of spirit,

musicianship and professional

Ernst Haefliger

He was a musician’s musician, an indispensable can-do tenor whose singing career spanned

six decades. Joshua Cohen pays tribute to a man whose achievements were many and varied

craft. In subsequent years his health and stamina declined, but

he continued to perform into the new millennium, crowning

his 60-year career with worldwide appearances as the speaker

in Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder.

It had been a career of distinction, though not one you

would necessarily describe

as ‘iconic’. Haefliger was

admired in his day as

a ‘musician’s musician’

rather than as a superstar.

In the course of our

evening he revisited several

highlights of his career: singing Stravinsky’s Oedipus rex

under the composer’s baton; recording Das Lied von der Erde

with Bruno Walter; a Berlin opera production of Così fan

tuttestagedbyCarlEbert;adaring recital programme that

paired Janá∂ek’s The Diary

of One Who Disappeared with

Schoenberg’s Das Buch der

hängenden Gärten; a concert

of medieval chansons with

a period-instrument band led

by Hindemith; and legendary

performances of the

St Matthew Passion with Pablo

Casals (whose complimentary

note on the title page of

Haefliger’s score remained

a cherished possession). He

would have been the last to

claim he could sing anything,

but he managed to encompass

a little bit of everything. He

was the indispensable can-do

tenor of the post-war years.

I sometimes wonder,

though, whether his

versatility might not in

some degree have diffused

his image in the eyes of

posterity. Even in his best

repertoire – Bach, Mozart

and German Romantic

song – he never acquired the

mystique his most celebrated

contemporaries possessed.

It was not so much a question

of artistry per se as that of

a glamour or personal flair

that simply were not part of

He sang Bach’s Evangelist with

unforgettable intensity, reliving the

events as if he’d witnessed them himself

 

•1942 – Career began

He made his professional debut in Zurich as the Evangelist in

Bach’s St John Passion, and created the part of Tristan in Frank

Martin’s oratorio Le vin herbé. Later he went on to create the

tenor roles in Martin’s In terra pax and Golgotha and the role of

Tiresias in Or…’s Antigonae (Salzburg, 1949).

•1952 – Joined Städtische Oper Berlin

His career as an opera tenor moved into high gear in 1952 when

he joined the Berlin opera, then under the directorship of Ferenc

Fricsay. Specialising in Mozart and other light-to-medium lyric

roles, he went on to sing at Glyndebourne (1956), Salzburg (1961-

62) and Chicago (1966), retiring from the opera stage in 1974.

•1963 – New York St Matthew Passion under Pablo Casals

From Haefliger’s student days at the Geneva Conservatoire,

Bach remained the alpha and omega of his musical life. At

Carnegie Hall in June 1963 he appeared in the St Matthew Passion

under Casals, singing both the Evangelist and tenor solos in an

English translation. An NPR tape (never released commercially)

shows him at his vocal peak, articulating the English text with

astonishing clarity and fluency.

•1971 – Joined faculty of Munich conservatoire

In the second half of his career Haefliger devoted a large portion

of his time to teaching. In 1983 he published a book on the history

of singing and vocal pedagogy titled Die Singstimme.

•1981-2002 – Long twilight

A critically acclaimed recording of Schubert’s Winterreise (Claves,

2/81) restarted Haefliger’s fading career. Over the next two decades

he sang Lieder and concert music all over the world, culminating

with performances of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder (including a 2002

BBC Proms appearance, aged 83, which can be viewed on YouTube).