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Schubert/Schumann Songs
Elly Ameling
Classical - Released January 1, 1980 | deutsche harmonia mundi
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The Qobuz Ideal Discography
It's not that the songs are fantastic, although Schubert and Schumann's songs are fantastic. It's not that Elly Ameling was young and full of spunk, although the young Elly Ameling was quite full of spunk. It's not that Jörg Demus is not a congenial accompanist, although he is as comfortable as a sofa and a tumbler of port. No, the reason that this disc is so terrific is that it disproves every rotten thing anyone's ever said about performances of Romantic music on period instruments because this is simply one of the most enchanting discs of echt Romantische Lieder ever recorded. Ameling's voice is so fresh and sweet, her tone so light and her technique so supple that she seems less a singer of the songs than the songs themselves given voice. And Demus' playing is so delicate but so strong, so lightly drawn, and so richly colored that one does not miss the sound of a concert grand, but rather revels in the sonorities of a hammerflugel. Only clarinetist Hans Deinzer in Schubert's Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (D. 965) takes some getting used to, and that's mostly because his tone is so wonderfully ripe and his playing is so marvelously dexterous. If all recordings of Romantic music played on period instruments sounded like this, all recordings of Romantic music would be played on period instruments. This is an exquisitely beautiful recording.© TiVo
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Schubert / Schumann: Songs
Elly Ameling
Classical - Released January 1, 1980 | deutsche harmonia mundi
It's not that the songs are fantastic, although Schubert and Schumann's songs are fantastic. It's not that Elly Ameling was young and full of spunk, although the young Elly Ameling was quite full of spunk. It's not that Jörg Demus is not a congenial accompanist, although he is as comfortable as a sofa and a tumbler of port. No, the reason that this disc is so terrific is that it disproves every rotten thing anyone's ever said about performances of Romantic music on period instruments because this is simply one of the most enchanting discs of echt Romantische Lieder ever recorded. Ameling's voice is so fresh and sweet, her tone so light and her technique so supple that she seems less a singer of the songs than the songs themselves given voice. And Demus' playing is so delicate but so strong, so lightly drawn, and so richly colored that one does not miss the sound of a concert grand, but rather revels in the sonorities of a hammerflugel. Only clarinetist Hans Deinzer in Schubert's Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (D. 965) takes some getting used to, and that's mostly because his tone is so wonderfully ripe and his playing is so marvelously dexterous. If all recordings of Romantic music played on period instruments sounded like this, all recordings of Romantic music would be played on period instruments. This is an exquisitely beautiful recording.© TiVo
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Schubert: Lieder with Orchestra
Munich Radio Orchestra
Classical - Released October 6, 2023 | BR-Klassik
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One might react to this album with initial annoyance and ask whether it is really necessary to hear orchestrated versions of Schubert's supremely pianistic songs. It may come as a surprise, then, to find that most of these Lieder with Orchestra were arranged by great composers. They include Benjamin Britten, Jacques Offenbach, and Max Reger, who took on the job because, he said, he hated to hear a piano-accompanied song on an orchestral program. Perhaps the most surprising name to find is that of Anton Webern, but his arrangements are not the minimal, pointillistic things one might expect; he wrote these arrangements as a way of studying Schubert's music, and they are quite straightforward. Indeed, it is somewhat difficult to distinguish the arrangers simply by listening to the music; Schubert's melodic lines tend to suggest distinctive solutions. Perhaps Reger's are a bit more lush than the others, although his version of Erlkönig, D. 328, is one of the few numbers here that just doesn't work (there is no way to replicate the percussive quality of the accompaniment). As for the performances as such, Benjamin Appl is clearly an important rising baritone, and he has a wonderful natural quality in Schubert. An oddball release like this might seem an unusual choice for a singer in early career, but he contributes his own notes, and he seems to have undertaken the project out of genuine enthusiasm for the material. At the very least, he has brought some intriguing pieces out of the archives and given them highly listenable performances. The Munich Radio Orchestra, under the young Oscar Jockel, is suitably restrained and keeps out of Appl's way. This release made classical best-seller lists in the autumn of 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Schubert: Song Recital
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
Classical - Released January 1, 1953 | Warner Classics
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This compilation of 12 Lieder and Six Moments Musicaux performed by soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and pianist Edwin Fischer is old-fashioned in every sense of the word. Recorded in 1950 and 1952, the sound is old-fashioned: clear but distant, heard across all the intervening decades as if through a dark glass. But, more significantly, the performances are old-fashioned. The slight but sweet quiver in Schwarzkopf's voice was typical of its time but unlike anything any contemporary soprano would attempt. In the An die Musik, she flirts with preciousness. In Im Frühling, she comes close to coyness. In Ganymed, she touches on parody. In Gretchen am Spinnrade, she almost but not quite distorts the music with her breathless delivery. And in every performance, Schwarzkopf seems fond of Schubert but not unreservedly fond, as if Schubert's songs needed special pleading to make them succeed, a truly old-fashioned approach compared to the unreservedly affectionate performances of contemporary singers. Similarly, Edwin Fischer's playing is equally old-fashioned, albeit in an entirely different way. Fischer obviously loves Schubert's music and his playing is warm-hearted and true. Unfortunately, Fischer's playing is technically old-fashioned. He drops notes, slurs lines, fudges arpeggios, and smudges rhythms in a manner that no contemporary pianist would dare let stand in a recording. Whether this approach works depends on the listener. Older listeners full of nostalgia for a time long since past will no doubt love it. Younger listeners with no tolerance for sentimentality may have trouble accepting it.© TiVo
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Schubert Sessions: Lieder with Guitar
Franz Schubert
Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Released October 14, 2016 | Groupe Analekta, Inc
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Silent Dreams
Harriet Krijgh
Classical - Released October 1, 2021 | Universal Music, a division of Universal International Music BV
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A Touch of Romance - Romantic Piano Masterpieces
Wibi Soerjadi
Classical - Released January 1, 1996 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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Gedankenverloren
Katharina Konradi
Classical - Released March 2, 2018 | Genuin
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SCHUBERT, F.: Goethe-Lieder (Auger, Olbertz)
Arleen Auger
Classical - Released October 25, 1994 | Berlin Classics
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Chopin: Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 35 "Funeral March" - Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 29, Op. 106 "Hammerklavier"
Beatrice Rana
Classical - Released March 8, 2024 | Warner Classics
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Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat major, Op. 106 ("Hammerklavier"), and Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor, Op. 35 ("Funeral March"), are both recorded with great frequency, although rarely, if ever, on the same album. The pairing may have been one factor that put this release by pianist Beatrice Rana on classical best-seller charts in the spring of 2024, and another may well have been this young pianist's undoubted charisma. Rana is inventive in finding a thread that connects the two works. Both pieces are technically difficult, the Beethoven especially so, and pianists have responded with heroic, monumental frameworks and fireworks. Rana does something different. Her slow movement in the Beethoven is very tender, deliberate but not ponderous, with a sense of tragedy to match the Chopin Funeral March. In general, she tends toward detail rather than thundering piano, and there are many fresh insights in her interpretation. Her outer movements in the Chopin have a skittery quality, as if the tragedy marked by the Funeral March has created a sense of dissociation. In the Beethoven, she teases out contrapuntal lines that are obscured by blazing readings, bringing her fugal finale closer to the variation finales of the Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109, and Piano Sonata No. 32 in C major, Op. 111, in mood. It is a fresh album from an artist who has thus far offered less imposing fare, and it is well recorded at the Parco della Musica Auditorium in Rome.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Schubert: Chamber Works
Christian Tetzlaff
Chamber Music - Released February 3, 2023 | Ondine
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Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik -
OPUS Klassik
There is an abundance of recordings of Schubert's two piano trios and of most of the other chamber pieces on this double album; one of them is even by the trio of players heard here, violinist Christian Tetzlaff, cellist Tanja Tetzlaff, and pianist Lars Vogt, but this one was made in the last year and a half of Vogt's life. He had not yet been diagnosed with the cancer that killed him in 2022, but he spoke of this as potentially one of his last recordings. Vogt seemed to be rushing to record as much as he could before his death, sometimes disregarding the advice of his doctors, and several of his last releases were very strong. This one is extraordinary. The brother-sister team of Christian and Tanja Tetzlaff are formidable chamber players, but here, they apply their skills to staying out of Vogt's way; he seems to direct the performances. They land somewhere between ecstatic and tragic. Sample the slow movement of the Piano Trio in E flat major, D. 929, which is something of a funeral march to begin with. Vogt's melody shines with transcendence. His lines in the Piano Trio in B flat major, D. 898, are soaring, shaped into a kind of momentum perhaps never before heard in this well-worn piece. There are several shorter pieces that are beautifully done, including a take on the comparatively rarer Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, D. 821, from Tanja Tetzlaff and Vogt. The main attraction is the pair of piano trios, and it is a bit sobering to ponder whether one must be staring death in the face to play like this.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Dvořák: String Quartet, Op. 106; Coleridge-Taylor: Fantasiestücke
Takács Quartet
Classical - Released July 28, 2023 | Hyperion
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The Takács Quartet has been remarkably consistent, and the addition of a couple of new members doesn't seem to have affected the group's track record at all. Consider this release, which made classical best-seller lists in the summer of 2023. It is splendid. One attraction is the set of Fantasiestücke by Samuel-Coleridge Taylor. He has been showing up more frequently on concert programs and recordings, but these are novel, with just two recordings on small independent labels in the catalog ahead of this one. Coleridge-Taylor was still a student at the Royal College of Music when he wrote these short pieces for string quartet, but they clearly showed what was coming. Not only was he able to produce a decent facsimile of Dvořák's style (sample the Dance finale), but in the second-movement Serenade, he picked up the unusual 5/4 time of the second movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, and put his own spin on it. The main attraction is Dvořák's String Quartet in G major, Op. 106, is even better, with many subtle details in the phrasing married to deep expression. Sample the Adagio ma non troppo slow movement, which has rarely seemed so profound; the opening melody rises to the level of Beethoven's late quartets here. There is a short early quartet movement to ring down the curtain and superb, idiomatic sound from the Wyastone Estate Concert Hall. This is certain to be counted as one of the top chamber music recordings of 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Schubert - Meta
Claire Huangci
Classical - Released October 20, 2023 | Berlin Classics
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Encounter
Igor Levit
Classical - Released September 11, 2020 | Sony Classical
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Diapason d'or / Arte
The latest album ‘Encounter’ by the German-Russian pianist is a particularly astonishing one, blending the diverse works of great composers such as Bach, Brahms and Morton Feldman. While the 2020 health crisis, due to the covid19 virus, has caused great anxiety among the general population it has also ignited the imagination of artists and musicians alike. Locked down in his apartment like so many us, the pianist Igor Levitt broadcasted a daily, live performance on his social media, even going as far as playing a 20 hour piece, Vexations by Erik Satie. ‘Encounter’, the product of Levitt’s self-isolation during lockdown, brings together an intelligent and pleasing array of composers. From Bach arranged by Busoni at the Palais de Mari, or the latest work from Morton Feldman for solo piano, to Brahms arranged by Reger, these are intimate connections between composers, as much as they are moments of solidarity at a time or great loneliness and isolation. Levitt’s poignant introspection and devotion to humanity shines throughout his album. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Schubert : Fantasie in F Minor & Other Piano Duets
Andreas Staier
Chamber Music - Released March 17, 2017 | harmonia mundi
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Schubert: Forellenquintett - Trout Quintet
Anne-Sophie Mutter
Quintets - Released November 3, 2017 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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It is not just a matter of showbiz that sees the names of Anne-Sophie Mutter and Daniil Trifonov written in big letters on the cover of this CD (well... even bigger than Schubert's name, but let's let that lie): in fact, they play on all the pieces in the album, and in particular the famous Trout Quintet (wiith Hwayoon Lee on the viola, Roman Patkoló on the double bass and Maximilian Hornung on the cello), but also the movement of trio D 897, "Notturno" - whose name was added by an editor, whereas it appears that this was a movement originally written for the trio in B flat then set aside - and the two Lieder adapted for violin and piano respectively, by Jascha Heifetz and Mischa Elman. First among equals, Mutter leads proceedings with both energy and a delicate touch, and it's a safe bet that although this is only the latest in a long line of recordings of this quicksilver masterpiece by Schubert, it will soon find a prominent place in the discographic hall of fame. © SM/Qobuz
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Discovering Mendelssohn
Christian Li
Classical - Released June 16, 2023 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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Teenage violinist Christian Li has thus far recorded mostly well-trodden repertory, and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64, certainly falls into that category. It is the centerpiece of Discovering Mendelssohn, but the program is filled out with a variety of materials that trace the cosmopolitan Mendelssohn's travels and also revive the 19th century type of concert, with orchestral and violin-and-piano pieces cheek by jowl, as well as a few audience-friendly arrangements of songs with and without words that include Yinuo Mu's harp and Xuefei Yang's guitar (in the charming concluding Venetian Gondola Song). This shows growth on Li's part, as does his confident rapport with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under Sir Andrew Davis, but really, the key to the album's success is that Li's performance of the Violin Concerto stands out from the crowd. He gets but does not overdo the sentiment in the big tunes, and he has an attractive precision in the high notes. Li places proper emphasis on the unusually placed cadenza in the concerto's first movement, loosening up and giving it improvisatory flair. He includes pieces by Mozart, Bach, and Schubert, all of which have more or less definite connections to Mendelssohn; this, too, supports the effort to create the atmosphere of a concert of Mendelssohn's time. An exciting young player takes a definite step forward with this enjoyable release. This album landed on classical best-seller charts in the summer of 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Dvořák: String Quartets Nos. 12 & 13
Pavel Haas Quartet
Chamber Music - Released September 24, 2010 | Supraphon a.s.
Second in popularity only to the Ninth Symphony "From the New World," Dvorák's Twelfth String Quartet -- which was dubbed the "American" Quartet by the public and media rather than the composer himself -- is a work nearly synonymous with the composer's tenure in the United States. These were not the only two works inspired by his cross-sea voyage, however. The Thirteenth String Quartet in G major, Op. 106, though not imbued with the same folkloric characteristics, also came about following the composer's return from the States. The popularity of the "American" Quartet has resulted in a work that is arguably overplayed, making it difficult for new ensembles to find anything new or unique to say about it. Such is the case with this Supraphon album of the Pavel Haas Quartet. Its playing in the F major quartet is solid, yes. It is technically polished and musically informed. But there is little to be found here that has not been said a dozen times before. Where the Pavel Haas Quartet really shines is in the less-frequently performed G major quartet. Here, the group really pulls out all the stops. Listen to the lush sonorities achieved in the Adagio, the hammering rhythmic ostinato and aggressive fugato in the third movement, or the fiery conclusion to the finale. The PHQ rides the line between overly aggressive playing and unbridled excitement without crossing it, resulting in a wholly thrilling performance that leaves listeners wishing they had left off the "American" Quartet in favor of another of the many neglected but equally deserving Dvorák quartets.© TiVo
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Beethoven : Piano Sonatas (Op. 106 & Op. 27/2)
Murray Perahia
Solo Piano - Released February 9, 2018 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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Choc de Classica
Oh no, no, no: this is absolutely not a re-release of one of the many recordings which Murray Perahia made of Beethoven over the decades. This here is something completely new, made in 2016 and 2017, of two radically contrasting sonatas: the Fourteenth of 1801, which Rellstab nicknamed "Clair de lune" in 1832, while Beethoven merely dubbed it Quasi una fantasia, and the Twenty Ninth of 1819, Große Sonate für das Hammerklavier, written after several barren years. Perhaps, consciously or not, Perahia has coupled two works, one "before" and the other "after" - after all, he himself has known his fair share of fallow years, following a hand injury which removed him from the stage from 1990 to 2005. Whether or not it's true, it's certainly tempting to imagine. Either way, like Beethoven, Perahia made a storming return, as shown in this recent performance, in which vigour alternates with moments of intense introspection, always impeccably phrased and articulated, and deeply musical. Clearly all those years in which he concentrated almost exclusively on the works of Bach as a training regime while he waited for recovery seem to have in fact been immensely fruitful. © SM/Qobuz
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ICONIC
David Garrett
Classical - Released November 4, 2022 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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OPUS Klassik
The titular "Iconic" nature of the program here is twofold. First, stardom-groomed violinist David Garrett pays tribute to violin icons of the past. Primary among them is Fritz Kreisler, who is represented several times on the program, including by the familiar Schön Rosmarin (which is not among the bonus tracks for those who purchase the deluxe physical edition but is an additional bonus track available to streaming listeners). One of the icons, Itzhak Perlman, even makes a personal appearance in a Shostakovich duet, and other guests include tenor Andrea Bocelli and the single-named flutist Cocomi. What Garrett calls the second thread of his program deals not with performers but with music; what he has put together here is an example of the classic program of encores. He has done his job well, arranging a lot of the music for himself and changing up the sentimental tunes that can sink a project like this if too relentless with more unusual fare (Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair) and upbeat numbers like Dinicu's Hora Staccato and a reminder of his earlier virtuoso ways with Paganini's Moto Perpetuo, Op. 11. The end result is an entertaining example of the venerable all-encore genre, marred only by oddly too-close studio sound from Deutsche Grammophon.© James Manheim /TiVo
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