Der Sänger, den ich heute vorstellen möchte, war
einer der vielen jüdischen Künstler, die in den 30er Jahren Deutschland unfreiwillig
verließen und in den USA eine, in diesem Fall bescheidene, Karriere machten.
Das Besondere bei Ernst Wolff war, dass er nur als Liedsänger auftrat und sich bei
seinen Liederabenden selbst am Klavier begleitete. Zwar mag er damit, wie im Kutsch/Riemens
Sängerlexikon vermerkt ist, großen Erfolg gehabt haben, richtig populär wurde
er aber wohl nie. Dazu war das Repertoire des deutschen Kunstliedes doch zu
speziell und seine Stimme, ein hoher beweglicher Bariton, zu wenig spektakulär.
Jedenfalls sind kaum Fotos von ihm zu finden, und die ca. 40 Platten, die er in
den 30er-Jahren für Columbia gemacht hat, fanden keine weite Verbreitung und
sind selten. Andererseits ist es auch kein Sänger, der vom Mainstream der
Schellack-Sammler gesammelt wurde, so dass seine Platten vielleicht auch deshalb selten zu finden sind.
Ich stelle im folgenden ein paar
Informationen über ihn zusammen, die ich gefunden habe. Zunächst das
Sängerlexikon:
Wolff, Ernst, Bariton, * 1.3.1905 Baden-Baden, † 1991; er
war der Sohn eines jüdischen Kantors und arbeitete zunächst in Frankfurt a.M.
als Angestellter. Er nahm dann Gesangsunterricht und studierte am Hoch'schen
Konservatorium in Frankfurt a.M. Musiktheorie und Klavierspiel u.a. bei E.
Sekles und bei L. Rottenberg. 1925-30 war er als Opern- und Konzertrepetitor in
Frankfurt a.M. tätig, seit 1931 Korrepetitor an der dortigen Oper; gleichzeitig
hatte er eine erfolgreiche Karriere als Konzert- und Liedersänger. Seit 1933
konnte er als Jude in Deutschland nur noch beim Jüdischen Kulturbund in Frankfurt
a.M. in Konzerten und Liederabenden auftreten, eine Tätigkeit, die er bis 1938
fortsetzte. Man erlaubte ihm sogar Auslandsreisen; so gab er im Dezember 1934
einen Liederabend beim englischen Rundfunk BBC und trat 1936 in New York auf.
Nachdem er schließlich aus Deutschland geflüchtet war, veranlaßten Max
Reinhardt und Kurt Weill ihn, in die USA zu kommen. Hier entschloß er sich, dem
Beispiel des berühmten Interpreten Sir George Henschel zu folgen und Konzerte
zu geben, bei denen er Lieder vortrug und sich selbst am Flügel begleitete. Er
hatte damit in den USA große Erfolge wie auch mit zahlreichen Schallplatten,
die bei Columbia herausgebracht wurden. Darauf wurden für damalige Verhältnisse
in Amerika ganz unbekannte Kompositionen
publiziert, so eine Serie mit Liedern von Robert Franz, eine Sammlung mit
Vokalwerken von Clara Schumann, eine andere mit Werken der Familie Bach, mit
mittelalterlichen deutschen Liedern, mit Liedkompositionen von Franz Liszt. All
diese Aufnahmen bezeugen die hohe Musikalität und den erlesenen Geschmack des
Interpreten. Er wirkte in den USA als Pädagoge an mehreren Universitäten,
unternahm aber immer wieder seine Konzertreisen, die ihn seit 1948 auch wieder
in die europäischen Musikzentren führten. Er lebte später in Breganzona im
Schweizer Kanton Tessin. Er ist auch unter dem Namen Ernst Lewin-Wolff
aufgetreten.
[Lexikon: Wolff, Ernst. Großes Sängerlexikon, S. 26150
(vgl. Sängerlex. Bd. 5, S. 3757) (c) Verlag K.G. Saur]
In den 50er-Jahren machte er einige Aufnahmen für
Folkways-Records mit „deutschem Liedgut“ wie Volksliedern, Studentenliedern
oder Weihnachtsliedern, die als Downloads noch erhältlich sind:
Ernst Wolff, der ursprünglich
Korrepetitor war und in im Opernhaus zu Frankfurt am Main wirkte, dirigierte
die Uraufführung von Hindemiths "Lehrstück", einer
Komposition für zwei Männerstimmen, Sprecher, Chor, Orchester, Fernorchester,
Tänzer und Clowns, das als Komposition heute vergessen ist. Ebenfalls vergessen
ist das Stück „Der gestiefelte Kater“ von Emil Alfred
Hermann, Untertitel: Ein
Volksmärchen mit Musik und Reigen in vier Akten, dessen Erstaufführung von Wolff geleitet wurde. Es verlangt eine
Damenstimme, 11 Männerstimmen, 5 Kinder und Nebendarsteller. Der Komponist, über
den ich nicht viel herausbekommen konnte, hat weitere Märchen der Gebrüder Grimm vertont,
und komponierte anscheinend hauptsächlich für Kinder. Vielleicht ein
Musiklehrer? Das Aufführungsmaterial kann heute noch ausgeliehen werden.
Der gestiefelte Kater
Ein Volksmärchen mit Musik und Reigen in vier Akten
1D, 11H, 5 Kinder, Nebendarsteller
Orchesterbesetzung: 2 Fl, 2 Ob, 2
Kl, 2 Fg, 2 Hr, 2 Trp, Pk, Vl I, II, Va, Vc, Kb, Hrf, Schl
Eine Diskographie von Ernst Wolff erschien mit einem Artikel im „Record
Collector“, vermutlich um 1980 herum. Ich habe zwar eine Fotokopie davon, kann
aber nicht genau sagen, aus welchem Jahr der Beitrag stammt. Der Artikel über Wolff lautet wie folgt:
THE RECORD
COLLECTOR
ERNST WOLFF
by Ronald Russell
It was in the late
1940s that 1 first became aware of Ernst Wolff. As a beginner in record
collecting, I used to read and re-read the books on recorded music by B. H.
Haggin, David Hall and Irving Kolodin, and it occurred to me that Wolff was the
one artist who consistently came in for bad criticism.
B. H. Haggin wrote:
'As for Die schöne
Müllerin you may have a friend with a pleasant voice who can sit down at the
piano and sing through the songs for you; if not, Ernst Wolff will do it for
you, but he will do no more than that; there is in his singing none of the
imaginative insight and evocative power that there would be in the singing of a
great artist.'
Irving Kolodin:
“I cannot endorse
this as more than a sincere, misguided effort. Wolff's voice is at best a
parlor baritone, and the demands of this music are such that it is too seldom
heard at its best. He sings the songs with the intensity of a man who loves the
material, and an occasional one of the slower songs is affectingly delivered.
But that is a small accomplishment when Schubert has given a singer so
much to work with. He is, of course, his own accompanist and only tolerably
good. The recording is satisfactory, but no one wholly dependent on this
interpretation could say that he really knows the songs.”
and finally David
Hall:
'It would be a
pleasure to say that the complete recording of this great song cycle was truly
worth having, but such is not the case. Ernst Wolff has a pleasant, informal
manner of presentation, but he is no great artist — lacking badly in vocal warmth, flexibility and artistic subtilty.'
Reading all these
made me wonder just how bad he was. At that time, nothing of Ernst Wolff was
available, and it was not until 1961 that I happened to find a copy of the
Brahms Deutsche Volkslieder (Columbia X-128) in a junk shop. I was then
interested in the kind of repertoire that Wolff sang, and this was my first
chance to make my own judgment. When I put the first record on, it was a
pleasant surprise, for he was an excellent singer. In my estimation, he
compared quite favourably with Fischer-Dieskau, and other lieder singers. From
then on, I resolved to get all of the 78 rpm recordings he made — entirely for Columbia — between the years 1935-42. This is a project which I recently completed.
Born in
Baden-Baden on 1st March, 1905 he received his musical education in Berlin.
Frankfurt on Main, and in Milan. He began his career as a concert pianist
giving recitals and appearing as soloist with Symphony Orchestras. He was also
an accompanist, but it is not known to whom.
At the age of 23.
he was appointed musical director of the School of Opera at the
Frankfurt Conservatory. Whilst conducting a performance of Mozart's Marriage of
Figaro, he was discovered by Clemens Krauss, and engaged as a conductor at the
Frankfurt Opera.
While there, Wolff
conducted the world premiere of the Fairy Tale — "Puss in Boots" by E.
A. Herrmann on 9th December 1932. During this period Paul Hindemith
engaged him for the International Chamber Music Festivals at Baden-Baden where
he conducted the first performance of Hindemith's Lehrstück, a composition for two male voices, speaker,
chorus, orchestra, distant orchestra, dancer, clowns and crowd. He also
distinguished himself as guest conductor throughout Germany.
Also during this
time at the Frankfurt Opera, Wolff decided that he would have a much better
understanding of his position if he learned to sing. At an opera dress
rehearsal, one of the singers was suddenly taken ill. Ernst Wolff took over the
role, singing it so well, that his fellow musicians advised him to undertake a
singing career. He did this, studying seriously with Johannes Willy in Frankfurt
and later with Moralli in Milan.
During the 1933
upheavals in Germany. Wolff was forced to leave his post in Frankfurt because
he was Jewish. After 1933, he gave lieder recitals to his own accompaniments in
England, Italy, Germany. Austria, Holland and Switzerland. The critic of the
London Morning Post wrote: "To hear music of such completely different
styles sung with the ease and aptitude shown by Ernst Wolff is most unusual.
This musicianly and sensitive singer is certainly an artist much above the average,
who utilises his fine baritone voice with indubitable effect."
After 1935, Wolff
was in America, in New York, where he began to make recordings for Columbia. He
also broadcast many times over WQXR. It is noted that he taught and gave lieder
recitals in 283 American and Canadian Universities and Colleges. He had
originally come to the USA for the New York production of Franz Werfel's The
Eternal Road. Max Reinhardt and Kurt Weill, who had previously heard him in a
Lieder recital, engaged him as singer and musical assistant for that
production. Wollf also collaborated with Milhaud.
It is interesting
that he recorded repertoire which was mainly off the beaten-track in the 78
days. The first and only sizeable selection of songs by Robert Franz, and Franz
Liszt. An interesting album of Lieder by Erich Wolff (no relation) — only Florence Easton on a super-rare Victor (1731)
had recorded two songs and these are not included on Ernst Wolff's collection.
All in all, Wolff's
recordings could be considered an Anthology from early German songs — (Glogauer Liederbuch, 1460) to 20th Century, which
is represented by the one and only recording of Max Kowalski's Song Cycle,
Pierrot Lunaire. This is a beautiful little song cycle — using the same poems
by Alfred Giraud (translated into German by Otto Erich Hartleben), which
Schoenberg used in his settings, composed at about the same time. This work
certainly needs to be recorded again - a made to order assignment for
Fischer-Dieskau, or perhaps Hermann Prey.
Two of the
Columbia 78s were issued in England, and were reviewed in the Gramophone by H.
F. V. Little. The first was DX-749 from the Franz Collection in October 1936 (2
sides 68501-D/68502-D).
Mr. Little writes:
I cannot go into
raptures over Ernst Wolff’s voice; its really useful range is rather limited
and it lacks warmth and colour. The singer is, however, an intelligent artist
and an innovator. It must be admitted that recording artists have paid little
attention to the songs of Robert Franz, though he is by no means a negligible
figure in the world of song and there have been critics who regarded his
settings of Heine's poems as being superior to those of Schumann. Ernst Wolff
should therefore earn the gratitude of lovers of German Lieder for providing
them with six of Franz's short songs on one record. The songs chosen may not,
perhaps, make an immediate appeal and a more sharply contrasted group would
possibly have been preferable; but anyway, the ice has been broken, and the
near future may find other artists taking an interest in Franz."
A letter of
rebuttal appeared in the November, 1936 issue:
"As a very
keen student of singing and vocal art, particularly in relation to Ihe
gramophone, I must express a little shade of disappointment which I felt at the
review of Ihe Franz Lieder record
(sung by Emit Wolff) reviewed in last month's issue. This particular record was
such a notable highlight after months and months of almost unrelievably poor
vocal output, that I felt that endeavour so honest and so praiseworthy might
have been met by much more generous terms.
I am aware how debatable the ground is, and how
personal our expression must be about such things as range and quality of
voice, but I certainly do not think that your critic's strictures would find general
acceptance, and in fact they are completely at variance with most other reviews
I have seen. The songs obviously demand refinement rather than breadth of
style, and the interpretation certainly seems to give all that the songs demand
in vocal colour, quality and sensitivity of feeling."
In June, 1938 came
the review of the three Mendelssohn
Songs (DB-2764). Mr. H. F. V. Little again wrote:
"Ernst Wolff
will be already known to lovers of the German Lied for his record of some songs
by Robert Franz. Once again, he avoids songs that are popular favourites and
often recorded, choosing instead three songs by Mendelssohn which will be new
to many collectors. At the risk of once more offending the correspondent who
rebuked me for my notice of the earlier record, I can only repeat that while
Wolff is an artistic singer he has not much of a voice; for beauty ff tone he
cannot he compared with Janssen. Hüsch or Schlusnus and I feel bound to regard
this as a liability.”
During the 1950s, Ernst Wolff made a few LP recordings
for Folkways. These consist primarily of songs drinking and otherwise, but no
significant examples at all of lieder. One of these LPs consists of 30 songs by
Telemann from Singe-, Spiegel-, und Generalbass Übungen (l733-34). One of the
Columbia 78s includes three Telemann songs, of which two are on the Folkways
record. Die Rechtestimmung does not appear to have been redone. Incidentally,
this record lists Wolff as a tenor. Nothing from the Columbias has ever been transferred
to microgroove and I do not think there is much likelihood of it.
***
Wie man liest,
ist die Stimme und Gesangsleistung von Ernst Wolff kontrovers beurteilt worden.
Ich selbst höre sie sehr gerne, weiß seine feine, diskrete und sehr kultivierte Kunst zu schätzen und
bin ihm sehr dankbar, dass er mich auf den Komponisten Robert Franz aufmerksam
gemacht hat, den ich sehr schätze, seit mir meine erste Ernst Wolff-Platte in die Hände gefallen ist. Sie ist, zum Anhören, in meinem vorigen Beitrag über Robert Franz zu finden. Das komplette Columbia-Album mit 24 Robert Franz Liedern (5 Platten) werde ich in den nächsten Tagen als Download hier veröffentlichen.
English:
Here you find some informations about the singer Ernst
Wolff, mainly from the Sängerlexikon and from an old article in “The Record
Collector“, from which I don’t know the correct date when it appeared. If
anyone can give more information about the singer or has more photos, I will be happy to receive
it. In my next posting I will publish his Robert Franz Recordings, and I am
preparing other Lied Recordings of Wolff for publication. As there is not much
information about Ernst Wolff, let me say that I think that he is not identical
with the pianist Ernst Victor Wolff (often given as Ernst V. Wolff), who was
the pianist in some recordings of Alexander Kipnis (for example Brahms Song
Society). As CHARM is right, Ernst Wolff also made some recordings as a pianist. Or was it Ernst Victor Wolff?
