Poètes du Sturm und Drang (Deutsche Schubert Lied Edition - volume 31)

Albumbeschreibung

This entry in Naxos' Deutsche-Schubert-Lied edition is a novel idea; gathering the various settings Schubert made of minor Sturm und Drang writers. In this case, "minor" means poets like Johann Gottfried Herder, Ossian (a non-person, an alleged ancient that was the alter ego of Scots poet James Macpherson), Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, and the like rather than the leading light of the movement, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, whose Schubert lieder have been collected numerous times in other packages. This disc contains what Schubert's friends thought to be his earliest song, the massive lied Hagars Klage, D. 5 ("Hagar's Lament"); going to the first volume of the published Schubert lieder edition one encounters it very early, and as it goes on for page after page one wonders if there isn't some sort of printer's mistake. Lasting over 15 minutes, it's like a little opera and was written when Schubert was 14; usefully, the Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg work -- itself clocking in at 10 minutes -- on which Schubert modeled this early effort, is likewise included. Not every Sturm und Drang poet Schubert set brought out the full extent of his originality; there are songs here that fit comfortably within their era and represent a sort of Schubert on automatic pilot mode; still better than most, if not all, of his contemporaries, however! Nevertheless, the great songs here -- In der Mitternacht, D. 464 ("At Midnight") and Grablied auf einen Soldaten, D. 454 ("Epitaph for a Soldier") -- do stand out from the rest and provide an occasional peak to what overall is a very pleasant and listenable valley of Schubert's creativity. There is something strangely addictive about this album; the singing -- by soprano Caroline Melzer and bass Konstantin Wolff, sometimes in tandem -- is consistently good, and one can listen again and again without growing tired of Schubert: Sturm und Drang Poets or feeling that its resources are exhausted after a listen or two. That is part of Schubert's genius; even works that he didn't necessarily put every creative sinew into remain in some way captivating, and Naxos has done well in transmitting his capabilities in this respect.
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Informationen zur Originalaufnahme : 72:50 - DDD - Enregistré du 22 au 25 août 2008 au Studio de la Radio de Zurich - Notes en anglais et allemand