Arthur Honegger: La Danse des Morts, Frank Martin: Requiem. Christof Bantzer (narrator, in Honegger only), Stefan Adam (bass), Katherina Müller (soprano), Kaja Plessing (alto), Michael Connaire (tenor, in Martin only), Kantorei St. Nikolai Hamburg, Hamburger Camerata, Matthias Hoffmann-Borggrefe. Troubadisc TRO-CD 01441 (2012) barcode 4014432014418
Recorded live 20 November 2010 at Hauptkirche St. Nikolai, Hamburg (Germany)
Very fine things in this unexpected Danse des Morts from Germany, but once again it stumbles upon its weak narrator (and a worthy version of Frank Martin’s masterful Requiem)
3 & 8 August 2024
Okay, so I hereby confess to cheating on my own rules. I make it a principle to review only CDs that I have in my possession, never uploads of recordings on YouTube. Other than the fact that you don’t get booklet and liner notes, in my experience YouTube sonics, though perfectly acceptable for the purpose of a casual listening, are compressed and deteriorated compared to the original audio, and pitch isn’t always right either. Also, the purpose of my reviews is to help the reader and music-lover make an informed decision where to spend his limited and hard-earned amount of dollars when the offer (and temptation) is unlimited; nobody needs my advice to listen to a YouTube upload for free.
But I didn’t want to spend the amount of dollars demanded on the marketplace for an improbable version of Honegger’s La Danse des Morts from Germany documenting a live performance given in November 2010 – which I didn’t even know if it was sung (and spoken) in the original French version or in the German translation of Hans Reinhart. And that’s when I saw that it had been uploaded on YouTube (link will open a new tab), and the sonics seemed more than acceptable. As I’ve heard and reviewed, to the best of my knowledge, all but one of the other CDs of La Danse des Morts, I thought I’d give it a try.
Not that there are many recordings of Honegger’s mighty composition, on a text by French writer, playright, mystical Catholic and former Ambassador Paul Claudel. Since the premiere recording made in German-occupied Paris by Charles Munch (a year after the premiere given in Basel by the work’s commissioner, patron and conductor Paul Sacher, on March 2, 1940), by my count the 2012 Troubadisc release is only the sixth commercial recording (and it took 40 years for the second one appear) after those of Henri Vachey on Calliope (1981, reissued to CD only in 1992), the very elusive LP on an unidentified label, 
label number L5027, presumably narrated and sung in German, recorded on June 29, 1983, by Collegium Musicum der Berliner Universitäten under Winfried Radeke and paired with a capella choral works of Hanns Eisler, followed, in the CD era, by Michel Corboz (Erato 1989) and Edmon Colomer (Calliope again, released in 2004), to which one may now add the 1952 live recording by Munch in Boston, released in 2007 by West Hill Radio Archives in a 7-CD set documenting the conductor’s early years with the BSO.
My theory to explain that relative neglect of one of Honegger’s mightiest compositions is Jean-Louis Barrault. Munch’s narrator in 1941 – something like France’s Laurence Olivier –didn’t shy before Claudel’s mystically Catholic text, he fully embraced it, he impersonated an hallucinated prophet, a biblical Savonarola. Barrault was so formidable, so incandescent, so over-the-top hallucinated, that it made many after him balk. How could you perform La Danse des Morts without just imitating Barrault – but how could you without doing so?
And indeed, whatever their sonic and artistic merits, the recordings of Corboz and Colomer ultimately fail on their weak narrator, Corboz’ Oers Kisfaludy with a high-pitched, juvenile voice lacking authority and power to the point of making his efforts sound comical, a severe case of the toad trying to inflate itself to the size of an oxen, and an impossibly matter-of-fact Lambert Wilson with Colomer, who could be describing his meal or his next vacation. Of Wilson I’ve written that he “wouldn’t stir a ripple in his washbasin, so don’t even dream of dividing the waters of the red sea…”. Arnold Moss, Munch’s American narrator live in 1952, while not entirely equal to Barrault, did come close, and his French accent was more than acceptable. But in the end the best modern version and the one to have, not as a replacement but as a complement of those of Munch, was (and is) the improbable Henri Vachey and his Douai Youth Symphony Orchestra, with narrator Jean Davy showing more restraint than Barrault (which is not necessarily a bad thing) but displaying an imposing voice filled with authority (Davy, 1911-2001, was for ten years a member of Comédie-Française), and rising to the occasion.
So it is with low expectations that I listened to this unexpected version from Germany, by artistic forces entirely unknown to me. And, to answer the question I had asked myself when I first chanced on the Troubadisc version: yes, they give the original French text. Verdict? The Hamburg forces under Matthias Hoffmann-Borggrefe offer some very fine things, but once again fail on an impossible narrator.
The sonics afford Camerata Hamburg great orchestral presence and impact – to wit, even without a score you can’t miss the ominous bass trombone in the orchestral introduction. If somewhat rough-hewn ad lacking in silk, the chorus has energy and snap, especially in their moments of “Sprechgesang”, although the wide stereo separation of men and women lets you hear that they are not always in perfect sync together. You can hear that French isn’t their mother tongue, but their French accent is acceptable. Likewise, bass Stefan Adam’s French is German-accented, but he puts on noble effort at a French accent. He certainly doesn’t erase the memory of Munch’s Charles Panzéra or Vachey’s Michel Piquemal, but he is expressive and sings with a moving plangency that dangerously verges on the lachrymose (you don’t need to milk it) – but doesn’t overstep the line either. Soprano Katherina Müller is suitably angelic-voiced (though not as angelic as Corboz’ Naoko Okada), maybe slightly too operatic (she’d be great in Poulenc’s Dialogue des Carmélites, or any Puccini) and her French accent is okay, and her partner Kaja Plessing has the real advantage over all her counterparts in the competing recordings of being a true alto (rather than a mezzo), which establishes a beautiful contrast of voices; but she’s also the most German-accented of all three soloists – a consideration that arguably will bother only the French speaking listeners.
But – sorry for not being very gracious about this as it is on his own website that you can listen to the recording – Christof Bantzer again is a weak narrator. It is not so much his German accent that bothers me – I’m somewhat ambivalent about it, but not entirely hostile to it: it serves as a subtle reminder that the composition was given in German-occupied Paris. More detrimental is that Bantzer’s delivery is mild-mannered, somewhat professoral, Grand-pop’ like, you could almost fancy him sitting by the fireplace with his pipe, reading a bedtime story to the grand children, he evokes something like a German Captain Kangaroo. A Hebrew prophet, Moses or Abraham, or even a Bossuet (the famous 17th-Century French bishop and theologian, considered the best orator of his time, see Wikipedia) at the pulpit ? At best a Catholic priest reciting homilies at Sunday’s church. And when he tries to rise to heights of imposing prophesizing power on top of the full chorus and orchestra– like Corboz’ Kisfaludy, he lamentably fails (try 5:40 in track 1 for instance, where he doesn’t even try to narrate as written in the score, or track 2). No match for Barrault, Arnold Moss or Jean Davy.
But the most maddening are his breath intakes. They seem to come in haphazardly, at places in the text that don’t make grammatic and syntactic sense. To give a notion:
(The hand of God) set me down in the midst… of a large plain… that was full… of bones.
And he led me… around them
and they were… extremely dry.
And he said unto me: Prophesy… upon these bones
Hear the word… of the Lord.
Thus saith the Lord God…. unto these bones.
Behold, I will introduce a spirit in you, and you… will live!
Yes, okay, once or twice to underline the dramatic impact of a word, I get it – but constantly? It becomes a horrendous tic, and it lamentably ruins a performance that otherwise has many fine things to offer.
And one additional “fine (and very substantial) thing” is Frank Martin’s Requiem, from 1973. Pairing music by Frank Martin with Honegger’s is a perfect choice: born two years apart (Martin in 1890 and Honegger in 1892), they are the two prominent Swiss composers in the 20th Century, and even beyond that anecdotal circumstance, they both share the fact that they are stylistic independents, developing their own brand of modernism away from the dictates and strictures of the avant-garde of their time. Honegger’s music is certainly more approachable, more “first-half of the 20th century” (before I checked, I would have sworn that he was born easily 10 years before Martin; he passed away in 1955) while Martin’s is definitely steeped in the century’s second half (he died in November 1974, shortly after the composition of the Requiem, which turned out then to be a very fitting valedictory work. His ultimate composition though was the Cantata for alto and baritone Et la vie l’emporta, which can be construed as meaning both And life took him/her away or And life ultimately prevailed). But, to ears familiar with contemporary music, Martin’s music is also very approachable. Martin was an independent in the same manner as, say, Henri Dutilleux: not serialist avant-garde, not neo-romantic backward-looking either, but following a modernism of his own. Parallels may also be drawn with Britten and Tippett. But at the beginning of the Dies Irae, with its snarling brass, it is Honegger’s Pacific 231 that comes to mind.
Martin’s Requiem is a powerful work, alternating between the brooding and introspective (Introitus, Agnus Dei, unfolding moods that echo Fauré’s and Duruflé’s Requiems) and the immensely powerful (Kyrie, Dies Irae, Sanctus), even violent, as in the Tuba mirum section in the Dies Irae movement. It is also a very lyrical work – not Puccini-lyrical mind you, but the four valiant soloists have beautiful, if anguished and tortured, melismata to unfold. Chorus and organ in their highest register for the bursting out of light on the final Lux Aeterna is a marvelous invention. It may not be for all audiences, but Martin’s Requiem is a masterpiece.
The Requiem has been less recorded than the composer’s Mass for Double Choir, although, of late, recordings seem to be trickling: other than the Troubadisc version from 2012, I’ve spotted one from 2001 on the label Musiques Suisses, MGB 6183 barcode 7617028759358, and one published in 2022 but documenting a live performance given by Leif Segerstam with the Vienna Radio in 1979, on Capriccio C5464 barcode 845221054544. If I’m missing some, let me know. 
I also happened to have in my collection what was for a long time the only available recording, the CD-reissue of the composition’s premiere performance, conducted by the composer in the Cathedral of Lausanne on May 4, 1973 (Jecklin-Disco JD 631-2, reissued to CD in 1989). In comparison, Troubadisc’s version doesn’t pale to the composer’s own.
On the one hand, whatever the merits of Troubadisc’s tenor Michael Connaire, there is more touching nobility in the Introitus with Martin’s Eric Tappy, more beauty of tone in the fortes of the ensuing Kyrie. Other than that, I find little to prefer in either cast of soloists. Martin’s bass, Peter Lagger, is formidably powerful, but Troubadic’s Stefan Adam is no slouch either. As for the ladies, I can’t give any preference – the two contraltos sound indeed very similar in timbre. Martin’s soprano Elisabeth Speiser is lighter and more “angelic”, Katherina Müller has a plumber and more operatic soprano voice, and I like both. In the Agnus Dei movement, a duet for contralto and organ, the oboe register of the Hamburg organ is more pinched and twangy, and Martin’s Lausanne organ is more ingratiating here.
Troubadisc’s conductor Matthias Hoffmann-Borggrefe does a great job with chorus and orchestra. Oftentimes the approach is strikingly similar to Martin’s, especially in the Dies Irae (the longest movement, alternating solos – not for the soprano however – and choral). In the Kyrie I find Hoffmann-Borggrefe’s greater urgency preferable, and his chorus there develops to even greater power than Martin’s – but then, he shows less urgency than Martin in the Sanctus. His chorus’ whispered “dies irae dies illa solvet saeclum in favilla” at the beginning of the Dies Irae section is also a very nice touch (but the ensuing outburst of sonic power on “quantus tremor est futurus” is more powerful under Martin). Sonics afford more transparency (thanks less background ambience noise) to Troubadisc’s Hamburg chorus, especially noticeable in the Pie Jesus at the end of the Dies Irae, track 3 at 13:30.
But ultimately, those are mere details. There may be such details that are preferable in one or the other recording, but suffice to say that Hoffmann-Borggrefe’s intrepretation is excellent and worthy of the composer’s. And of course, the Troubadisc disc has, over Jecklin and its paltry 45 minutes of music (plus 1 and ½ of applause), the advantage of a substantial filler – even if with an inadequate narrator.
[A postscript from january 16, 2025] I’ve just acquired the CD, and therefore I can now say that the liner notes are very detailed and informative on both works. The booklet also includes texts (in French for Honegger and Latin for Martin), but only German translations. As I wrote in the original review, this matter of texts and translations is also “a drawback of the other recordings save Corboz (Colomer-Calliope has French texts and no translations, and Vachey has neither). Jecklin’s edition of Martin’s Requiem comes with texts and translations – they remain very useful because, as familiar as we may be with the Latin text of the Requiem, it is always a good thing to refresh your memory about what the words mean exactly”.
In the original review I concluded: “But, in the end, now that I’ve heard and reviewed the Troubadisc CD, if opportunity and cheap price warrants I will definitely add it to my collection, firstly for the alternate recording of Martin’s magnificent composition, and then for the good things that the performers have to offer in the Honegger – despite its inadequate narrator. I’ve already ordered the competing recording of Martin’s Requiem on Musiques Suisses, although it has no filler, so a new review may be coming soon.”
Stay tuned.