Throughout his career German composer Clytus Gottwald (b. 1925) has been involved with choral music, especially through his choral arrangements of compositions from various genres and by various composers. Two recent recordings make available a number of familiar nineteenth- and early twentieth-century lieder in Gottwald's new choral settings, and they merit attention for the ways in which Gottwald shifts perspective from a solo voice and piano to an a cappella ensemble. In some cases, the music is well known (including popular compositions by Schubert, Robert Schumann and Gustav Mahler), but these discs also present arrangements of less familiar works, like songs by Robert Franz, Hans Sommer, Friedrich Nietzsche and Alma Mahler. While Gottwald's choral arrangements of lieder preserve the original song texts, his arrangements of instrumental works (like Liszt's version of Wagner's Venezia or the Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony) include newly interpolated texts. In these cases, the arrangements become essentially new compositions, calling to mind elements of parody associated with Renaissance music in which the reworkings of an adaptor contribute to the compositional structures of a new piece.
At the same time it is important to consider that Gottwald's arrangements are not isolated, idiosyncratic reworkings of nineteenth-century music, but fit into the larger context of adaptations that were done in the era. Keyboard arrangements of opera are part of Franz Liszt's legacy, along with similar efforts by others, including Mahler's contemporary Felix Mottl. Gustav Mahler himself fits well into that tradition, starting with his reworking of sketches and completed music by Carl Maria von Weber into the score for Die drei Pintos. It is this perspective that is important for putting Gottwald's work in context.
Gottwald's arrangements are not just choral versions of song melodies, but rather new interpretations that vocally synthesize melodic lines with their accompaniments. Unlike arrangements associated with such groups as the Swingle Singers, Gottwald's adaptations recast their source music in order to achieve a convincing choral idiom. Thus, the ‘bimm-bamm’ of Mahler's Es sungen drei Engel is initially absent in Gottwald's arrangement of the piece, but the accompanimental pattern sounds later, when its presence is less obtrusive. Alternatively, in the adaptation of Mahler's Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen, Gottwald effectively renders the instrumental introduction for voices: in its choral form, the introductory figures are similar to but distinct from Mahler's keyboard and orchestral accompaniments. Likewise, the choral version of Um Mitternacht is poignant for the way in which the accompaniment and vocal line intersect. The accumulation of tension and volume, driving through the climax, seems effortless, with the SWR Vokalensemble responding well to the scoring.
Gottwald's masterful rendering of Mahler's ‘Die zwei blauen Augen’ (from the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen) is similarly persuasive. At times, the chorus's rich cadential chords intensify the resonant passages in Mahler's original settings. In other places, the vocal timbres are as evocative as some of the choral sections of Das klagende Lied, particularly the final section, ‘Hochzeitsstück’. With ‘Die zwei blauen Augen’ the result is impressive for the intensive textures that give the choral version its own identity. It is striking to hear Mahler's solo vocal music rendered chorally, especially when words emerge from wordless accompaniment. It is this dual-choral sound that sets these arrangements apart from some other choral arrangements of Mahler's music, in which the accompaniment remains with the piano.
In addition, the three pieces by Alma Mahler are effective for rendering her music commendably in an idiom she might not have considered. ‘Die stille Stadt’ is a strong song and equally powerful in Gottwald's arrangement. The other two songs also work well, as do others collected under the title Hymnus an das Leben, because of the emphasis on the texts that Gottwald achieves through the repetition of phrases and, in various places, the scoring itself. Range, density (or its absence) and voicing are important features in these idiomatic arrangements for chorus. Within the parameters of each original song, Gottwald brings out the texts and simultaneously makes his interpretation of the original works part of the arrangements. In these pieces, Gottwald captures the essence of each, with familiar lieder by Schumann and Brahms offered effectively for chorus. Something as familiar as Brahms's ‘Wiegenlied’ (here entitled ‘Guten Abend, Gut Nacht’) works well in this idiomatic treatment for chorus. Yet the unfamiliar songs – the ones by Robert Franz, Hans Sommer and Peter Cornelius – are intriguing in Gottwald's arrangements, and invite comparisons with the originals. Beyond the German composers represented here, the two pieces by Debussy (‘Il pleure dans mon coeur’) and Ravel (‘Toi, le coeur de la rose’) offer contrasts to the sometimes conventional German Romantic style, and complement the other selections well.
Among Gottwald's most adventurous arrangements is his choral version of Mahler's Adagietto, sung to Eichendorff's poem ‘Im Abendrot’. Interestingly, Gottwald did not use Rückert's ‘Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen’, which was Mahler's vocal model for the movement.Footnote 1 In this sense, the adaptation involves a double transformation – not only from string-and-harp scoring to chorus, but also from the implied text of the Rückert song about isolation to Eichendorff's poem about the close of the day and, by inference, departure from life. This takes Mahler's music further away from the lieder that form the basis for Gottwald's other settings and creates, instead, a new piece through this extension of the contrafactum technique.
The strength of these recordings is due in part to the fine performances by two different choruses: the KammerChor Saarbrücken, conducted by George Grün (Hymnus an das Leben); and the SWR Vokalensemble, conducted by Marcus Creed (Alma und Gustav Mahler). The choral sound in each recording is uniformly polished and balanced, with the voicings of the arrangements emerging with convincing clarity and blend.
