gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONESEPTEMBER 201977ICONSPHOTOGRAPHY:
LEBRECHT MUSIC ARTS/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES
Haefliger’s make-up. He sang Mozart exceptionally well, but
without quite the elegance and finish of Léopold Simoneau.
He gave wonderful Lieder recitals (and made many fine
recordings), but always under the looming shadow of Dietrich
Fischer-Dieskau. His only equal as a Bach Evangelist was
Peter Pears (the two even sang together in some performances
of the St Matthew Passion, alternating the roles of Evangelist
and aria soloist); but there was an ethereal quality to Pears’s
voice (hauntingly captured in the works of Britten) that
seemed particularly suited to the spirituality in Bach’s music.
And although Haefliger was probably theleadingGerman-
speaking lyric tenor in the 1950s, the
’60s brought forth a charismatic rival:
Fritz Wunderlich, with his golden
tone and God-given liquid ease.
How best, then, to characterize
Haefliger’s qualities as a singer?
The late American baritone Barry
McDaniel, who sang with him many
times in the ’60s and ’70s, described
his impressions of him in an online
interview: ‘He was not a relaxedsinger. When I stood beside him I
could feel how every muscle of his body
was being used. A music critic here
in Berlin ... [wrote] that one must be
impressed and moved by the enormous
concentration of his “unbedingter
Einsatz”. I can’t find a good translation
for this phrase. It pulls together such
terms as determination, struggle
and concentration.’ That intense
concentration of body and spirit was
necessary for projecting a smallish voice
into a big hall, and for ensuring that
every word was audible, the rhythmic
pulse was always felt, and every phrase –
however long, angular or florid – had a
definite contour and a clear destination.
It also lent a special poignancy to his
tone in high-lying music.
The physical tension involved had its
downside too, which could affect his
vocal quality, making it turn throaty
and constricted under stress. Sometime
in the late 1950s his soft-grained tenor
consolidated into a sturdier instrument,
enabling him to tackle some strenuous
assignments such as Mahler’s Das
Lied von der Erde, Kodály’s Psalmus
hungaricus, and (on records only)
Florestan. This expansion of dramatic
range intensified the emotional power
of his performances, but sometimes
(not always) at the expense of lyrical
freshness and pliancy. But the truth
of the matter is that Haefliger’s voice
and musicianship were indivisible. His
versatility compelled him to develop
a distinctive but limited instrument into
more than the sum of its parts. And it
was always an expressive sound, with
a characteristic fervour that seemed
imprinted into the grain of the voice.
He was probably at his greatest as the Evangelist in
the Bach Passions, which he delivered with unforgettable
intensity, reliving the events – arrest, trial, crucifixion and
burial – as if he had witnessed them himself. His recordings
with Karl Richter, which also include several cantatas,
capture him at his peak: manly, fervent and undaunted by
the technical challenges. Haefliger’s other claim to greatness
lay in Lieder. The Schubert song-cycles recorded by Claves
in the 1980s show his well-preserved voice to advantage;
but to hear him in his prime you must go to his Deutsche
Grammophonrecordings from the late 1950s to the early
’60s, last available on an 11-disc
album released in Japan a quarter-
century ago. The good news is that
DG has recently issued a 12-CD
centenary anthology which includes
all of the Lieder recordings, some
unpublished material as well
as numerous operatic excerpts.
This makes a beautiful tribute to
a singer-musician of high aspiration
and noble achievement.
Bach
St Matthew Passion
Ernst Hae liger ten
Kieth Engen bass
Antonie Fahberg sop
et al; Munich Bach Ch
& Orch / Karl Richter
Pro il (5/59)