Daniel Behle Pays Tribute to Two Richards (Wagner and Strauss) in New CD

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2024 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

R. STRAUSS: Cäcilie. Ruhe, meine Seele! Ständchen (orch. Mottl). Heimliche Aufforderung (orch. Heger). Intermezzo: Symphonic Interlude No. 2. Befreit. Morgen. WAGNER: Lohengrin: In fernem Land. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Prelude. Prize Song. Tannhäuser: Inbrunst im Herzen. Daniel Behle (ten); Thomas Rösner (cond); Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic O. PROSPERO PROSP0072 (55:57).

This is a truly remarkable CD. Daniel Behle is a 49-year-old tenor with a wide range of repertoire, including the Evangelist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, a cut-down version of Telemann’s Brockes-Passion, tenor roles in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Cosi fan Tutte and The Magic Flute, song cycles by Schumann and Brahms, the role of Loge in a concert performance of Wagner’s Das Rheingold and a collection of Lieder with piano by Richard Strauss. Behle is basically a lyric tenor, but he’s chosen his selections conscientiously to avoid arias and songs that would need more sheer weight and volume than he can handle. The composers heard here have been linked together by their common first name – the album is even called Richard – and by their stylistic similarities. In his early days, German critics often referred to Strauss as “Richard the Second,” and in Fanfare 9:3 (January-February 1986) Anthony D. Coggi repeated an anecdote about how Strauss upbraided a musician in the orchestra rehearsing the world premiere of his first opera, Guntram, for getting a passage wrong. The musician allegedly replied, “Nothing personal, Herr Strauss. We don't get that passage right in Tristan either.” Behle’s program here consists of three operatic excerpts by Wagner – the Rome Narrative from Tannhäuser, the Grail Narrative from Lohengrin and the Prize Song from Meistersinger – as well as six songs by Strauss, four of which were orchestrated by the composer. His singing here proves that this music can work just as well for a lyric tenor as it does from the many Heldentenor wanna-bes cluttering up the current operatic scene. Even the Rome Narrative, while it doesn’t approach the magisterial intensity of Lauritz Melchior’s 1930 studio recording (still the touchstone for this piece), is sensitive and beautifully articulated, and Behle actually acts with his voice instead of letting its sheer beauty carry him. Behle is not the first lyric to take on Wagner’s tenor repertory; in the 1941 film Vertigine Beniamino Gigli sang a beautiful Italian-language version of “Winterstürme” from Die Walküre, and in the 1950’s Jussi Björling recorded an equally great version of “In fernem Land” on a recital LP.

My one quarrel with this disc is there’s too little Daniel Behle on it. The total CD timing is 55:57 (at least that’s the readout on my player) and too much of the disc (almost 17 minutes) is taken up with instrumental selections: the Meistersinger Prelude and the second-act intermezzo from Intermezzo (a quirky and rarely performed Strauss opera based on a real-life incident in which Strauss’s wife Pauline falsely accused him of having an affair). Live concerts from singers with orchestras have to include such instrumental pieces so the singers can rest their voices, but CD’s don’t. Though the Intermezzo intermezzo is lovely and rarely heard – and the oft-recorded Meistersinger prelude is one of the best on disc, with every strand of Wagner’s counterpoint clearly audible – I could easily have done without them to include more of Behle’s beautiful singing. He could have done Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder; yes, I know Wagner marked them “Für Frauenstimme,” but Lauritz Melchior recorded the last two, “Schmerzen” and “Traüme,” and more recently Jonas Kaufmann has performed them all. Behle also could have included Loge’s narration from Rheingold (especially since he’s performed it live) and the Strauss Four Last Songs, even though the Last Songs were also written specifically for a woman. Also I’d have preferred it if the Rome Narrative had ended the disc and Strauss’s “Morgen” could have been next-to-last. Nonetheless, this is a quite lovely CD, packaged in a book-like cover containing full texts in both German and English, with quite sensitive and well-shaped accompaniments by Thomas Rösner and the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra (more proof, if we needed any, that classical music is truly international). Enthusiastically recommended.