Gerhard Hüsch (1901-1984)

Note by John Steane











Hüsch is remembered now most widely as a singer of Schubert and Wolf. Certainly he was one of the best song-recitalists of his time. When the idea of subscribed ‘Society’ editions caught on in the 1930s, Hüsch and his regular accompanist Hans Udo Müller were the artists chosen to record Winterreise, Die schoene Müllerin, and Schumann’s Dichterliebe; and as the Hugo Wolf Society brought out its pioneering volumes of the Lieder, Hüsch remained among its most regular and valued contributors. His was also the earliest complete recording of Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte, and his advocacy of the songs of Yrjö Kilpinen led to his being the singer who introduced them to a wider audience at a time when the composer’s name was little-known beyond his native Finland.

But then there is the matter of dates. Hüsch was born in 1901, so that his age corresponds pretty well with the years of the dreadfully unfolding century. Too young to fight in the First World War, he was borderline for the Second, but by then, as a leading artist and teacher in Germany, he was allowed to continue in his profession. After 1945 he concentrated almost exclusively on concert work, and when he went abroad (as in 1955 when he again sang in London) it was as a recitalist that he appeared. He seemed then older than he was: not that there was any lack of vitality, either in his voice or his presence, but the War was a great divide and anyone whose reputation dated back to the 1920s and 30s added more than years to his age.

The War also affected his operatic career. Though he took part in some odd, bilingual performances of Tannhäuser and Don Giovanni after 1945 in Japan, essentially it was the closure of the theatres in the last desperate year of the War in Germany that marked the end for him. He sang at the Berlin State Opera first as a guest artist in 1929 and was a busy member of the company from 1930 to ’34. Then, by his own account (The Times, Feb.2, 1981), there was "a battle with the Nazis who said I was not to appear at the Opera". He returned in 1937 but only for special performances, his last ascertained appearance there (P.Rodden, Record Collector Vol.36 No.4, 1991) being in 1942 as the Count in Le nozze di Figaro. In the Times article Hüsch says he sang there till September 1944; if so, his time on the operatic stage was still, to all intents and purposes, over by the age of 43. It had also been largely (though not entirely) confined to Germany and Austria.

It may not be surprising, then, to find that Hüsch the opera singer comes to mind less readily than the concert artist who made such durable contributions to the record-library and whose name continues to be honoured whenever the masterpieces of German song (and Kilpinen) come under survey. The obvious exception to this is in Mozart and especially Die Zauberflöte. Among the most famous of all operatic recordings is the very first which was made of that opera, in 1937, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham. Hüsch’s Papageno stands out among a distinguished cast: genial, stylish and supremely well-sung. This is the operatic role with which, thanks to that recording, he will always be most immediately associated. As this present collection shows, his repertoire was in fact much wider than this might suggest.

Just as the first disc begins with solos from operas (now rarely heard) by Lortzing, so, at Osnabrück in 1923, did the operatic career of Gerhard Hüsch. On that occasion the piece was his Singspiel, Der Waffenschmied. From there, Hüsch went to Bremen, Hamburg and, in 1927, Cologne, where his career blossomed. There were enviable opportunities - to sing Don Giovanni, for instance - and challenges from the modern school when the title-role in Krenek’s so-called jazz opera, Jonny spielt auf, came his way. By now he had gained experience in Italian and French opera too, so that it was a well-equipped lyric baritone who was ready, by 1930, to face audiences in Berlin, Vienna and London. At Bayreuth he profited from the indisposition of Herbert Janssen, stepping into performances of Tannhäuser in which he won influential praise in the English press from Ernest Newman. He had already made a favourable impression at Covent Garden, where his debut-role was Falke in the house-premiere of Die Fledermaus under Bruno Walter. That was also one of his Berlin operas, listed by Philip Rodden, who notes some appetising Italian entries such as La Cenerentola, Il trovatore, Madama Butterfly, La Bohème and Gianni Schicchi.

One feels that at about this time, in the early 1930s, Hüsch’s career was all set to leap ahead, and that for some reason it did not. He returned to Covent Garden in 1931 but then not again until six years later. Abroad he sang at Geneva, Helsinki and in the Netherlands, but this isn’t quite the international career that might have been expected. In 1935 it seems he fell out with the regime, but that might have encouraged (on both sides) an interest beyond Germany. He had much going for him too, including from 1932 onwards the enhanced status which normally came with an HMV recording contract. He was a personable man, not with the more flamboyant good looks of a Hermann Prey but six feet tall and with a natural stage-presence. He was also a useful kind of artist, a reliable musician and adaptable in undertaking anything so long as he felt it lay properly within the scope of his voice. That may have had something to do with it. He was a very continent singer (one knows it from the records). His voice had welldefined limits. He was not prodigal with top notes and would never jeopardise control and definition by opening the tone to expand in a way which might induce temporary excitement but would be paid for in the long run.

Personal memory of hearing him in 1955, together with the impression gained from his records and from press comments, suggests that it was a voice of no great volume, and the timbre (which makes voice-character) was very ‘central’, unmarked by tonal peculiarities. His strength lay in moderation and in scrupulously fine singing. He would do nothing for mere effect, and he was not the kind of singer to provoke newspaper headlines. Baritones rarely catch the headlines anyway, but he was not (say) a Lawrence Tibbett or (in an earlier age) a Titta Ruffo or (in a later) a Tito Gobbi.

Perhaps it is time to listen again to the records. The opening group of arias by Lortzing shows Hüsch at his characteristic best. Voice and style: his singing suits them to perfection. In Der Wildschüutz, the Count of Eherbach, celebrating his birthday, looks around his estate and finds life good. Hüsch mirrors the sunny disposition and catches the rhythmic spring of his song’s refrain. The enthusiasm for life in the country combines with an urbane taste for ‘das Köstlichste, das Beste’ and Hüsch’s tone assumes an aristocratic suavity. The young singer (aged 27 and in the Berlin studios for his first recording-session) is already a master of voice-management: the verses come to an end with the voice moving into the upper range and skilfully negotiated. Above all, the voice itself, beautiful by nature, is beautifully produced: the legato is of the finest Italian tradition (Hüsch’s teacher, Hans Emge, was an exponent of the classical Italian school), and that was the basis of his art.

The second track, the scene where Kühleborn, prince of the water-spirits, takes the girl Undine back to his kingdom, shows another aspect, closely related. This is Hüsch’s ability to infuse the voice with emotion while never breaking the melodic line: his diction is as clear as any singer’s on record, but his emotional communication comes essentially through the music. This will be true of many other arias - the Fiddler’s lament at the end of Königskinder (track 6), the most sombre of the Tannhäuser solos (9), Rigoletto’s outburst to the courtiers (22) and, perhaps most eloquently, the famous ‘Di Provenza’ (2/6) from La traviata.

That solo, which must have been recorded a few hundred times in all, has probably never been better served than it is here by Hüsch, even though he is singing in German. His phrases are broad and evenly ‘bowed’, as by a great viola-player, yet he keeps in mind Verdi’s clear intentions (the score-markings show this) that the easy-going melody should be an instrument of persuasion, argument, and not a soporific. The high notes are taken ‘small’; or rather, they are perfectly proportioned and contained, rather than opened-out as for (say) the Prologue to Pagliacci. Hüsch does not forget the character or the context: with his voice he becomes an elderly man appealing to his son to come home. The emotion is of tenderness and solicitude, but its urgency is controlled with restraint and dignity. The quiet ending - a touch which even the best baritones rarely achieve - is a final sign of grace in this performance from 1932.

Germont père was a role Hüsch sang many times on stage. Rigoletto and (2/10) Iago were not, though his recordings of their solos would never lead one to suppose as much. The major surprises here will still in all probability be the Andrea Chénier (2/14), which was among his stage-operas, and (2/12 -13) Tosca, in which he did not appear. Again he seems completely in the part, an unusually refined Scarpia, no doubt, but one whose suaviter in modo contrasts effectively with his fortiter in re. The duets with the Danish tenor, Helge Roswaenge, also represent both Hüsch’s stage-repertoire and an excursion from it. His Marcel in La Bohème (2/11) was well-known to audiences in Berlin and elsewhere, but he never, it seems, appeared in La forza del destino. Incidentally, his other recording of the Forza duet, with the much lighter-voiced Herbert Ernst Groh, was his only published recording in Italian.

His two soprano duettists also deserve a note. Emmy Bettendorf (1/17, 19) was widely thought of by record collectors as the poor man’s Tiana Lemnitz (2/15). Lemnitz became Germany’s leading lyric-dramatic soprano. Known in the profession as ‘Madam Pianissimo’, she had a voice which , while exquisite in quiet passages, could expand to encompass the fullness required for Strauss’s Marschallin and even Verdi’s Aida. She was Hüsch’s regular partner in the later years in Berlin, and in addition to the pledging-duet from Arabella sang with him in an abridged recording of the St. Matthew Passion as well as the Beecham Zauberflöte. Bettendforf’s career came to centre on broadcasts and records, of which the Mozart duets are lovely examples (listeners may also recognise her in the Undine ensemble). She is perhaps more a Pamina than a Zerlina by nature, but both are sung with meltingly beautiful tone and with careful attention to detail.

And it is with Mozart that Hüsch himself is still most widely remembered as an opera singer. The first CD here reflects this, with seven of its nineteen tracks going to operas by Mozart, Hüsch being heard in five different roles. It may surprise us now that his Figaro has not a more exuberant sense of humour, but then Hüsch’s role in Le nozze di Figaro was that of the Count, and there his authority is evident. His version of Leporello’s Catalogue song in Don Giovanni (1/16) may be too aristocratic for the plebeian character, but it is certainly one of the best-sung on records. His Giovanni is a plausible, well-bred charmer, and his Papageno is not merely a bird-catcher but a genuine songbird himself.

He was in fact a consummate artist. In some ways a very modern singer, he practised the disciplined style of an age which believed in total fidelity to the composer’s score, and which expelled from its usage the habits of earlier generations, such as the employment of much portamento and rubato. In other ways, he is a model for modern singers who too often follow different priorities. "Today [he told William Mann in his interview for The Times] singers pay so much attention to the text ... that the voice as a musical instrument is placed second: that isn’t singing." He sang.


© 2004 John Steane

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