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Lieder & Balladen

Stéphane Degout

Art Songs, Mélodies & Lieder - Released March 6, 2020 | harmonia mundi

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The mystery of the ballad comes from the way it is told.’ (Goethe). Epic to the point of hallucination, this genre calls for skill in narrative, word-painting, evocation. And it is as a peerless storyteller that Stéphane Degout tackles this repertory which the German Romantics raised to unequalled heights. Who would have believed, before listening to this disc, that a French baritone could pay such eloquent tribute to the language of Goethe? © harmonia mundi
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Echo: Schubert, Loewe, Schumann & Wolf

Georg Nigl

Classical - Released May 5, 2023 | Alpha Classics

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 4F de Télérama
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Wagner : Parsifal

Herbert von Karajan

Classical - Released January 1, 1981 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Distinctions Gramophone Record of the Year
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Burnished Gold

Robyn Allegra Parton

Classical - Released June 23, 2023 | Orchid Classics

Hi-Res Booklet
The title of this release by soprano Robyn Allegra Parton refers not only to a general mood of circa-1900 Vienna but specifically to the frequent use of burnished gold-leaf in the paintings of Gustav Klimt, whose Vienna Secession movement in art had many affinities to what was happening in the musical world. Parton uses the gold as lipstick in the graphics; one may or may not go for this, but the package here is coherent and satisfying in several ways. Richard Strauss is present on the program, and Parton, writing her own notes, correctly points out that his influence loomed large on all the composers heard here. But in a way, the interest of Parton's program lies in the differences among the styles of the composers on the program. Parton puts the listener in the place of an audience member at a vocal recital of the time, hearing the Impressionist hints of Joseph Marx, the new simplicity of the young Erich Korngold, the decisive steps toward atonality in the Seven Early Songs of Berg (at the time Schoenberg's student), and the works of two female composers, the quite playful experimental Johanna Müller-Hermann and Alma Mahler-Schindler, both of whom were heard fairly frequently at the time but were later forgotten. Parton's voice is an absolutely distinctive soprano, with a bit of rough texture flashing unexpectedly into a brilliant top. Quite a few recordings lately have explored the rich repertory of Austrian vocal music of this period, but this one is especially well thought-out and executed; it appeared on classical best-seller charts in the summer of 2023. © James Manheim /TiVo
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Mendelssohn: Elias

Philippe Herreweghe

Classical - Released August 30, 1993 | harmonia mundi

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Accentus: The a capella Recordings

Accentus

Classical - Released December 9, 2016 | naïve classique

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Transcriptions (Vol. I & II)

Accentus, Laurence Equilbey

Classical - Released January 28, 2003 | naïve

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Hello Darkness

Jan Philip Schulze

Classical - Released January 14, 2022 | Challenge Classics

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Dedicating a recording to the dark side of the "Lied" might seem inappropriate in these times of Covid, climate change and refugee crises, but as a mezzo-soprano Olivia has always been drawn to the darker roles in opera, the sad arias in oratorio and the deep laments in song. After our recent recording ("Dirty Minds"), which focused on "la petite mort", it seemed a natural progression to turn our attention to "la grande mort"! Darkness in the outside world and the inner self has always been – alongside Love – one of the chief themes of vocal music, and compositions and songs about death are legion during every period of musical history. The music on this recording is extremely diverse and Olivia Vermeulen as Jan Philip Schulze relished the idea of programming songs from different centuries in different styles and genres. They begin with a collection of songs about melancholia, inner abysses, longing for death and murderous lust. But the programme is also rich in songs about comfort and hope, light instead of despair – with lashings of black humour! Composers down the ages have used innovative approaches to render the theme of death. Chromaticism is used tellingly by Monteverdi and Schubert. Duparc’s sensuous Extase (1878), is nothing short of a miniature "Liebestod". Korngold and Wolfgang Rihm play with translucent semitone sighs, Schumann’s Nachtlied is characterized by hovering harmonies; Strauss and Korngold use late-romantic opulence; while tonality with Charles Ives and Alban Berg begins to lose its hold - Berg indeed abandons tonality entirely. John Cage goes a step further and directs the pianist to drum the notes on the lid of a completely closed piano. Randy Newman’s In Germany before the war is wreathed in mystery, etyc. A captivating recording. © Challenge Records
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Schubert: Glaube, Hoffnung, Liebe. Lieder

Samuel Hasselhorn

Art Songs, Mélodies & Lieder - Released May 6, 2022 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet
His debut recording devoted to Schumann offered a brilliant opportunity to discover the name of Samuel Hasselhorn, a young baritone deeply invested in the art of lieder. With his collaborator Joseph Middleton, he now turns to Schubert, in an insightful programme evoking some of the themes dear to the Viennese master of song: nature, night-time, parting, absence, and death. Both essential and less familiar songs are featured side by side in this poignant depiction of profound self-reflection that can rank among the most moving examples of what the Romantic temperament has ever produced. © harmonia mundi
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Wolf, H.: Gedichte Von Eduard Morike (Excerpts)

Mitsuko Shirai

Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Released January 1, 1998 | CapriccioNR

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Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra, Till Eulenspiegel

Herbert von Karajan

Classical - Released January 1, 1995 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Hi-Res Booklet
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Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra

Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin

Symphonies - Released August 11, 2023 | PentaTone

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Richard Wagner: Famous Opera Scenes

Nikolai Lugansky

Classical - Released March 8, 2024 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet
It shouldn't take listeners long to get over the novelty of hearing Wagner on the piano. After all, piano transcriptions were the primary way opera, in general, and Wagner specifically, were spread around Europe in the 19th century, and the composer's primary champion in this medium was none other than the greatest pianist of the age, Franz Liszt. Liszt's own transcription of the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde is the pièce de résistance on this release by pianist Nikolai Lugansky; it is not terribly often played, and it has lost none of its imposing scope over the decades. Lugansky leads up to this with transcriptions by Louis Brassin, upon which Lugansky has elaborated, and with a quartet of transcriptions from Götterdämmerung that come from his own hand. These are quite artfully done, incorporating the familiar leitmotifs of the Ring cycle while filling them in with technically fearsome connective tissue. Lugansky has done nothing less than put the listener in the place of an audience that might have heard Liszt play Wagner in the composer's own day, and ideal sound from the small Scuola della Carità reproduces the aristocratic Paris salons where Liszt would often have held forth. A bold, fresh release from Lugansky that made classical best-seller lists in early 2024.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben - Bach: Cantatas BWV 6-99-147

Collegium Vocale Gent

Classical - Released September 1, 2023 | Phi

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 4F de Télérama
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Strauss, R.: Also sprach Zarathustra / Holst: The Planets

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Classical - Released January 1, 1971 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

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Telemann: A Christmas Oratorio

Kleine Konzert, Das

Classical - Released November 11, 2023 | CPO

Hi-Res Booklet
Georg Philipp Telemann never wrote a Christmas oratorio, but that hasn't stopped performers from assembling them out of holiday-season cantatas. The one here by veteran choral conductor Hermann Max and his instrumental group Das Kleine Konzert isn't the first one. It is not even the first one on the CPO label. There is no basis for objecting to this kind of creative repertory expansion, for Bach's Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, was put together in basically the same way. Telemann isn't Bach, though most listeners will find satisfying listening here for the holiday season or any other time, and this album, in fact, made classical best-seller lists in early 2024. Max and company program five Telemann cantatas, unfailingly tuneful and well-made in the composer's characteristic way. One striking thing is that there are two quite late works from the 1750s and 1760s; the others are from earlier in Telemann's career, yet the style remains consistent. In some genres, Telemann caught on to the emerging light styles coming from Italy, but in church cantatas, he seems to have played it straighter. Max is not known as an adherent of the one-voice-per-part philosophy, yet here, his choruses are taken by the four soloists from his fine Rheinische Kantorei choir; there is no chorus. This is less than ideal. From what we know of Telemann's late occasional works, they were big, festive affairs. However, the decision was likely the result of COVID-era restrictions (the album was recorded in December of 2020), and in the airy acoustic of Cologne's Trinitatiskirche, one doesn't miss the choir much. Moreover, the choruses are mostly not simply chorales but are more complex polyphonic pieces; one quotes the old In dulci jubilo hymn, a pure Telemann move. The interpretations generally have Max's characteristic warmth, and the soloists (in the solos) are idiomatic and direct. Telemann lovers will enjoy this release.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Das ist alles von der Kunstfreiheit gedeckt

Danger Dan

Pop - Released April 30, 2021 | Antilopen Geldwaesche - WM Germany

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Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra - Debussy: Jeux

François-Xavier Roth

Symphonies - Released March 24, 2023 | LSO Live

Hi-Res Booklet
Although the Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra since 2017, the Frenchman François-Xavier Roth also juggles conducting his own orchestra, Les Siècles. He founded this ensemble in 2003 to play a wide-ranging repertoire on the appropriate period instruments. This new album was recorded in London’s Barbican Hall during two concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra both in January and November 2018, and it features two rarely performed composers: Richard Strauss and Claude Debussy.Reading between the lines of Debussy's collection of ironic writings in Monsieur Croche, his admiration for his powerful elder is tangible. After a concert Strauss had conducted in Paris, Debussy wrote, “I can assure you there is plenty of sun in the music of R. Strauss… His mind is still that of a musician, but his eyes and actions are those of a 'superman'. As the man who must have inspired his energy, Nietzsche, used to say... I repeat that there is no way to resist the conquering domination of this man!” On the other hand, Strauss was completely baffled by Pelléas et Mélisande, stating, “These are very fine harmonies, in very good taste; but it is nothing, nothing at all.”The strange combination offered here conveys the Nietzschean philosophy of Thus Spoke Zarathustra through a titillating call-and-response (Debussy’s Jeux, his last great orchestral work). François-Xavier Roth conducts these two scores with a delicate vigour, embracing the stunning orchestral palette they share while simultaneously highlighting two different aspects of modernity that constitute 20th-century music. Absolutely fascinating. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Richard Strauss : Also sprach Zarathustra... (Live)

Riccardo Chailly

Classical - Released September 6, 2019 | Decca Music Group Ltd.

Hi-Res Distinctions Diapason d'or / Arte
Leading the Lucerne Festival for two summers running, conductor Richardo Chailly has honoured composers that the musicians had never yet recorded: Igor Stravinsky in 2018, and Richard Strauss in 2019. The sumptuousness of the orchestration of the latter here affords a glittering clarity, just as much in the concertante parts as in the tutti. The writing conjures a Straussian atmosphere: a marvellously apt terrain for the Lucerne orchestra. In Zarathustra, the strings, in particular the double-basses, rumble away as under one bow, with gobsmacking precision in Von der großen Sehnsucht ("Of the Great Yearning") and Genesende ("the Convalescent"). Richard Strauss deploys a romantic counterpoint in his writing – in particular in Von den Hinterweltlern ("Of the Backworldsmen") – and the strings of Lucerne brilliantly bring his limitless lyricism to life. The following works, (Tod und Verklärung, Till Eulenspiegel and finally The Dance of the Seven Veils) bring to mind other epithets that we might apply to this perfect recording: epic majesty, burlesque humour, serpentine voluptuousness: all ingredients of Strauss's symphonic poems. The sound quality does justice to the beauty of the orchestra, and the mix doesn't leave anyone out: every counterpoint is defined, every pizzicato twangs appropriately and we hear even the softest touch of the timbal. Demanding in their extremity (in both nuance and difficulty), these scores make a perfect fit for the Lucerne orchestra, a meeting of the greatest soloists of the international stage, brought together by the festival. The only drawback comes from precisely this concentration of quality. While we are gripped by Salome's Dance of the Seven Veils, we are perhaps more impressed than moved by a piece that has been stripped of some of its finest orchestral ornamentation. © Elsa Siffert/Qobuz