This singer was a real treat for me to post about. I did not know him before listening to him on youtube. Traxel was a heldentenor who could also sing lieder. This is not typical of heldentenors. He also sang without artifice. Many singers over-articulate consonants as a way of seeming to express emotions. Traxel was not one of these. He expressive to the point of heartbreak, and his legato is superb.
I have posted a lot of music. The first piece is the Italian tenor aria from Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. It is sung in the morning while the Princess is dressing for the day. There is no other Italian in the opera. Then I have posted 6 lieder from Schubert’s Schwanengesang. If you listen to nothing else in this post, please listen to these lieder. Finally, there is the Prize Song from Die Meistersinger.
Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier, Op. 59, Act I
Di rigori armato il seno
contro amor mi ribellai
ma fui vinto in un baleno
in mirar due vaghi rai.
Ma fui vinto in un baleno
Ahi! in mirar due vaghi rai.
Ahi! che resiste puoco a stral di fuoco
Cor di gelo di fuoco a stral
Strauss, The Knight of the Rose, Op. 59, Act I
With severity my breast was armed
and I rebelled against love
when with one stroke I was slain
on seeing two lovely eyes.
With one stroke I was slain
on seeing two lovely eyes.
Ah, how feebly
an icy heart resists such fiery arrows.
Schwanengesang
Franz Schubert’s final, painful days in November 1828 included bouts of delirium, ceaseless singing and snatches of lucidity, when he actually worked on music.
Schubert had been seriously ill for about three years, but it’s impossible to tell in the quantity and consistency of his compositions. In just his final 14 weeks, he wrote his last three piano sonatas (among his most transcendent), the heart-melting C-Major String Quintet, Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (The Shepherd on the Rock) and the 14 songs that came to be grouped — by his publisher — under the title Schwanengesang, a “Swansong” of sorts from a man who had written more than 600 songs in a truncated, 31-year life.
These final songs traverse myriad emotions. The lighthearted “Liebesbotschaft” (message of love), with its rippling accompaniment, addresses a murmuring brook with the hope of true love. The bone-chilling “Der Doppelgänger,” with its stark, slowly tolling chords, finds the protagonist crazed with a nocturnal vision of himself agonizing at the empty doorstep of his lost love.
D 957/VIII Der Atlas
Ich unglücksel’ger Atlas! Eine Welt,
Die ganzê Welt der Schmerzen muss ich tragen.
Ich trage Unertägliches, und brechen
Will mirfdas Herz im Liebe.
Du stolzes Herz! Du hast ja gewollt,
Du wolltest glüklich sein, unendlich glücklich
Oder unendlich elend, stolzes Herz,
Und jetzo bist du elend.
D957/VIII Atlas
I, unhappy Atlas, must bear a world,
The whole world of sorrows.
I bear the unbearable, and my heart
Would break within my body.
Proud heart, you wished it so!
You wished to be happy, endlessly happy,
Or endlessly wretched, proud heart!
And now you are wretched.
D957/IX Ihr Bild
Ich stand in dunkeln Trämen,
Und starrt ihr Bildnis an
Und das geliebte Anlitz
Heimlich zu leben begann.
Um ihre Lippen zo sich
Ein Lächeln wunderbar,
Und wie von Wehmuststränen
Erglänte ihr Augenpaar.
Auch meine Tränen flossen
Mir von den Wangen herab –
Und ach, ich kann es nicht glauben,
Das ich dich verloren hab.
D957/IX Her Portrait
I stood in dark dreams,
Gazing at her picture,
And that beloved face
Began mysteriously to come alive.
Around her lips played
A wondrous smile,
And her eyes glistened,
As though with melancholy tears.
My tears, too, flowed
Down my cheeks.
And oh – I cannot believe,
That I have lost you!
D957/X Das Fischermädchen
Du schones Fischermädchen,
Treibe den Kahn ans Land;
Komm zu mir und setze dich nieder,
Wir kosen Hand in Hand.
Leg‘ an mein Herz dein Köpfchen,
Und fürchte dich nicht zu sehr;
Vertrau’st du dich sorglos
Täglich dem wilden Meer.
Mein Herz gleicht ganz dem Meere,
Hat Sturm und Ebb‘ und Flut,
Und manche schöne Perle
In seiner Tiefer ruht.
D957/X The Fischer Maiden
Lovely fischer maiden,
Bring your boat to the shore;
Come and sit beside me,
And hand in hand we shall talk of love.
Lay your little head on my heart
And do not be too afraid.
For each day you trust yourself
Without a care to the turbulent sea.
My heart is just like the sea.
It has storms, its ebbs its flows;
And many a lovely pearl
Rests in its depths.
D957/XI Die Stadt
Am fernen Horizonte
Erscheint, wie ein Nebelbild,
Die Stadt mit ihren Türmen
In Abenddämmrung gehüllt.
Ein feuchter Winzug kräselt
Die graue Wasserbahn;
Mir traurigem Takte rudert
Der Schiffer in meinem Kahn.
Die Sonne hebt sich noch einal
Leuchtend vom Boden empor,
Und zeigt mir jene Stelle,
Wo ich das Liebste verlor.
D957/XI The Town
In the distant horizon
Appears, like a misty vision,
The town with its turrets,
Shrouded in dusk.
A damp wind ruffles
The grey stretch of water.
With mournful strokes
The boatman rows my boat.
Radiant, the sun rises once more
From the earth,
And shows me that place
Where I lost my beloved.
D957/XII Anm Meer
Das Meer erglänte weit hinaus,
Im letzen Abendscheine;
Wir sassen am einsamen Fischerhaus,
Wir sassen stumm und alleine.
Der Nebel stieg, das Wasser schwoll,
Die Möwe flog hin und wieder,
Aus deinen Augen, liebevoll,
Fielen die Tränen nieder.
Ich sah sie fallen auf deine Hand,
Und bin aufs Knie gesunken;
Ich hab‘ von deiner weissen Hand
Die Tränen fortgetrunken.
Seit jener Stunde verzehrt sich mein Lieb,
Die Seele stirbt vor Sehen; –
Mich hat das unglücksel’ge Weib
Vergiftet mit ihren Tränen.
D957/XII. By the Sea
The sea glittered far and wide
In the sun’s dying rays;
We sat by the fisherman’s lonely house;
We sat silent and alone.
The mist rose rose, the waters swelled,
A seagull flew to and fro.
From your loving eyes
The tears fell.
I saw them fall on your hand.
I sank upon my knee;
From your white hand
I drank away the tears.
Since that hour my body is consumed
And my soul dies of longing.
That wretched woman
Has poisoned me with her tears.
D957/XIII Der Doppelgänger
Still ist die Nacht, es ruhen die Gassen,
In diesem Haus wohnte mein Schatz;
Sie hat schon länngst die Staadt verlassen,
Doch stet noch das Haus auf demselben Platz.
Da steht auch ein Mensch und starrt in Höhe,
Und ringt die Hände, vor Schmerzensgewalt;
Mir graust es, wenn ich sein Antlitz sehe, –
Mond zeigt mir meine eigne Gestalt.
Du Doppelgänger! Du bleicher Geselle!
Was äffst du nach mein Liebesleid,
Das mich gequält auf dieser Stelle,
So manche Nacht, in alter Zeit?
D957/XII The Wraith
The night is still, the streets are at rest;
In this house lived my sweetheart.
She has long since left the town,
But the house still stands on the selfsame spot.
A man stands there too, staring up,
And wringing his hands in anguish;
I shudder when I see his face –
The moon shows me my own form!
You wraith, pallid companion
Why do you ape the pain of my love
Which tormented me on this very spot,
So many a night, in days long past?
Wagner, Die Meistersinger, Das Preislied
Morgenlich leuchtend im rosigen Schein,
Von Blüt’ und Duft
Geschwellt die Luft,
Voll aller Wonnen,
Nie ersonnen,
Ein Garten lud mich ein,
Dort unter einem Wunderbaum,
Von Früchten reich behangen,
Zu schau’n in sel’gem Liebestraum,
Was höchstem Lustverlangen.
Erfüllung kühn verhieß,
Das schönste Weib:
Eva im Paradies!
Abendlich dämmernd umschloss mich die Nacht;
Auf steilem Pfad
War ich genaht
Zu einer Quelle
Reiner Welle,
Die lockend mir gelacht:
Dort unter einem Lorbeerbaum,
Von Sternen hell durchschienen,
Ich schaut’ im wachen Dichtertraum,
Von heilig holden Mienen,
Mich netzend mit dem edlen Nass,
Das hehrste Weib,
Die Muse des Parnass!
Huldreichster Tag,
Dem ich aus Dichters Traum erwacht!
Das ich erträumt, das Paradies,
In himmlisch neu verklärter Pracht
Hell vor mir lag,
Dahin lachend nun der Quell den Pfad mir wies;
Die, dort geboren,
Mein Herz erkoren,
Der Erde lieblichstes Bild,
Als Muse mir geweiht,
So heilig hehr als mild,
Ward kühn von mir gefreit,
Am lichten Tag der Sonnen,
Durch Sanges Sieg gewonnen
Parnass und Paradies!
Wagner, Die Meistersinger, The Prize Song
Shining in the rosy light of morning,
the air heavy with blossom and scent,
swells the air
full of pleasures,
not yet devised,
a garden invited me to be its guest.
There under a miraculous tree
Rich with hanging fruit
To look in a blissful Lovedream
What the highest pleasure desires.
Fulfillment boldy promised,
The most beautiful woman:
Eva in paradise!
As evening rose, the night enveloped me;
On a steep path
I was near
To a spring
Pure waves
Which alluringly laughed at me:
There under a laurel tree
bursting with light from the stars,
I watch myself in a waking Poet’s Dream,
Of holy, lovely expressions,
Wet from the noble spring
The dearest woman
The muse of Parnassus!
Most gracious day
when I woke up from the Poet’s Dream!
The paradise of which I had dreamed,
In heavenly, newly transformed splendor
That lay shining in front of me,
To which the spring laughingly pointed the path;
She born there,
My heart chosen,
The earth’s loveliest image,
As a muse dedicated to me,
Just as trancendently heavenly as mile,
Was boldy wooed by me,
In the sun’s bright daylight,
Through victory in song, I had won
Parnassus and paradise!
Josef Traxel
September 29, 1916 – October 8, 1975
Josef Traxel was a highly exceptional tenor. He was a tall and imposing figure of a man and looked rather like a bass singer. Traxel had had no regular vocal training, and yet as a singer did not perform merely from “intuition”. In fact he knew so much about the human voice that he was a qualified singing teacher at the Stuttgart Academy of Music (Hochschule für Musik) in his last years. He was also exceptional in that he had command of widely differing roles in the tenor repertoire – Traxel was able to sing lyric parts as well as heroic ones, Verdi, Wagner and W.A. Mozart, Monteverdi and modernists, J.S. Bach and operetta, and one could never have said that the one extreme got in the way of the other. Traxel was able to make a great name for himself as an excellent W.A. Mozart tenor. During the 1950’s, when Traxel was at a peak of his career at least in vocal respects (a mature power of brilliant characterization was to be added later), he sang practically all the great tenor parts in W.A. Mozart. He was a striking and manly Belmonte who was able to render the two arias from acts I and III of The Seraglio (the latter, Ich baue ganz auf deine Stärke, being an extremely difficult aria which is often omitted) both with powerful energy and with Mozartean beauty of cantilena. He was an Ottavio who sang the arias from Don Giovanni not as tearful lyric outpourings, but as intense adjurations.
It was the combination of an accurately controlled vocal technique and a passionate, but always well disciplined power of expression which characterized his singing distinguished his interpretations, whether he was the Evangelist in J.S. Bach’s Passions or impersonated L.v. Beethoven’s Florestan without pathos, Georges Bizet’s Don José without any exaggerated display of strength. It is amazing indeed that Traxel was able to master both the extremely high running part of the postillon’s song from Adam’s Le Postillon de Lonjumeau up to the D above the famous high C (which only few singers can do) and the part of Alfredo in Verdi’s La Traviata. His enormously high register which had clarity and individual color alike, could cope also with other exceptional parts which normally confront any tenor singer with considerable problems – the part of Hüon in Weber’s Oberon, for instance, as well as arias by Boieldieu and Ponchielli which demand Italian bravura more than anything else. It is strange that this tenor, whose appearance struck one as essentially German, could be a very Italianate Canio in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, and could sing Calaf’s aria Nessun dorma from Puccini’s Turandot with particularly seductive refinement.
Traxel himself once said that it was only a maximum degree of concentration which made it possible to have command of so entirely different parts both technically and stylistically. He preferred to sing lyric roles anyway, or approached heroic ones from the lyric side. This was quite in accordance with his style of living – Traxel, who in his day was one of the most widely known tenors on the international scene, always remained the pleasant and modest man he was, never made a parade of his fame, and never thought or acted with a view to publicity, although his life was interesting enough. Interesting, that is, not in the way of the sensational, but with respect to the artistic side of his life, his versatílitv and varying activities, his world-wide successes and his career. It is characteristic, for instance, that in the Netherland where was held in high esteem especially as a J.S. Bach singer, that he was invited to Paris, to Bayreuth (from 1953) and to many other international musical centers between South America and Edinburgh, Berlin, Vienna and Munich. He toured North America as well. That he remained so natural in his behavior, so absolutely free of the grand airs of an international star, possibly was also due to the fact that his wife, a former singer – she had born him twins – helped him as an artistic counsellor and manager in his professional career.
It was by no means a sure thing from the beginning that Traxel should become a singer. He was born in Mainz in 1916. He received a musical education – but only as a composer, conductor and music teacher. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Darmstadt. Scarcely had he finished his studies, making his his operatic debut as Don Ottavio in Mainz in 1942, when World War II broke out. Traxel was called up at once. In 1942, he was wounded and sent to the military hospital in Mainz. He had hardly recovered when he was asked to stand in as Ottavio at the Mainz opera house for a colleague who had been called up. Being well familiar with the part Traxel accepted, although he had never had any proper vocal training, let alone practical experience as a singer. What the critics had to say about this most unique debut was as follows: “Here is a young artist who definitely has a vocation for a life in music, for singing. Will Traxel attain this goal? Already there is much to be said for it, especially the self-control he puts on himself, a discipline which becomes evident not merely from his accurate approach to the vocal part.”
After this first success it took Traxel some years to resume his career as a singer. To begin with, he had to go back to the war, was wounded again, taken prisoner, and brought to the USA. In the prisoner-of-war camp he set up and directed an orchestra. On returning home he came to Nuremberg – 1946, and the prospects gloomy. He worked as an interpreter until he was discovered by Rolf Agop who engaged him on the spot as a lyric tenor for the Nuremberg opera. He staved there for some years, singing all kinds of roles, until he began to receive more and more invitations for guest appearances and finally attracted the attention of the Württemberg State Theater in Stuttgart, which offered him a contract in 1952. He remained a member of the Stuttgart ensemble up till the end.
He came back to Mainz once again to sing in the first performance of Paul Hindemith’s cantata Mainzer Umzug written for the bimillenary of the city. There had been other premieres in Traxel’s career earlier on – Richard Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae, for instance, which was given its first performance in 1952 in Salzburg. Until his death on October 8, 1975, he never tired of devoting himself to new and unusual tasks, occupying himself with the revival of early operas and advocating the production of rarely performed works. Seldom was there a tenor who had command of so wide a repertoire as Josef Traxel had.