Adam Laloum has offered low-key Schubert in the past, and it has gone against the current grain of finding big Beethovenian drama in Schubert. Here, in the Piano Sonata in A major, D. 959, he shifts gears a bit. His first movement involves flexible tempos and a good deal of general instability. Then he settles down, resulting in a first-movement-heavy treatment of the sonata. It is unusual and probably fulfills the goal of standing out from the large crowd of recordings of this late Schubert work. Perhaps stronger are the six Moments Musicaux, where Laloum's perfect control results in crystalline miniatures that truly entrance the listener if external thoughts are set aside. Sample the Allegro, D. 780, No. 3, a perfect miniature. Harmonia Mundi finds idiomatic sound at the Théâtre Auditorium de Poitiers but mikes Laloum too closely, picking up a good deal of non-musical noise. Laloum is perhaps a pianist who excels in music of small dimensions, a valuable thing in a field where heroics are usually what is valued, and he produces an excellent example here.© James Manheim /TiVo

Nightfall is undoubtedly one of the most personal and intimate moments of our daily lives. We return home to our loved ones, slowly transitioning from the hubbub of the outside world to the silence of the evening. It’s to this unique time of day that Elīna Garanča wanted to dedicate her album When Night Falls…she invites us on a musical journey to the planet’s different countries and time zones.The mezzo-soprano of Latvian origin isn’t known solely for her unique timbre; her voice, warm and brimming with infinite strength, has proven itself for over 30 years in all of the greatest opera houses across the world . Elīna Garanča also speaks six languages fluently: along with Latvian, she speaks German, English, Spanish, Italian, and Russian, almost all of which are used on When Night Falls…for the first time, this album carves out a special place for her mother tongue, which Elīna Garanča justifies outright in an interview with Qobuz: “It’s been a long time coming for Latvian music to be heard, don’t you think?” Alongside lieder by composer Raimonds Pauls, living legend in Latvia and friend of the singer, we also find writings by Aspazija, “our national female poet,” set to music. Latvian repertoire is all the more present on this album for the vivid childhood memories the singer has kept of the familiar sounds that she heard in the evenings, and the songs that were sung to her to lull her to sleep. Yet given the subject at hand, how could we forget the great romantics? The album opens with Strauss’s “Wiegenlied (Lullaby),” followed by lieder by Brahms, Schubert, and Humperdinck. Elīna Garanča also dedicates a significant part of the album to Spanish and Italian repertoire, most notably by contemporary composers such as Manuel de Falla, Xavier Montsalvatge, and Luciano Berio. With virtuosity and a lovely diversity in timbre, with each shift in style, the singer achieves a true musical metamorphosis, backed by the formidable Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, conducted by Karel Mark Chichon – her real-life spouse. “Each of my albums is a reflection of my internal state,” explains the soprano. Here, the withdrawal into a more intimate sphere – particularly in the uncertain times in which we live today – is incarnated by music that holds us tight, offering us a glimmer of hope within the darkness. © Lena Germann/Qobuz

For a truly great interpretation it’s not enough just to play a historical instrument, the playing also has to be up to scratch. This recording released by the world-renowned label ECM showcases a pianist of the highest calibre playing the wonderful Viennese Brodmann piano. András Schiff captures the convergence of thought and sound remarkably well and seldom before have we been given so much insight into Schubert’s innermost thoughts. The softness and the unmistakable legato that the pianist produces on this Viennese instrument give the Sonatas D. 958 and D. 959 an indescribable feeling of nostalgia. But Schubert’s inward revolt was growing and András Schiff leads us steadily to the edge of the abyss. The crystalline sounds of the Scherzo in the Sonata D. 959 are as enchanting as the sound of ancient harpists who were so often depicted by German Romantics. This exploration into sound is also marvellous in the Impromptus D. 899 and the 3 Klavierstücke D. 946 or “Three Piano Pieces”, which have a very expressive counterpoint that differ from the unfathomable depth of the sonatas. This album is a revelation into a whole new world of sound that is unveiled as András Schiff’s fingers touch the keys. Inspiring. © François Hudry/Qobuz

This 2023 release inaugurates an ongoing series from baritone Samuel Hasselhorn and pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz, performing Schubert works two centuries on from their date of composition, and slated to culminate in 2028, the bicentennial of the composer's death. The project begins with one of the most famous Schubert song cycles of all, Die schöne Müllerin, D. 795, depicting the crackup and despair of a young wanderer who falls in love with a beautiful miller's daughter. Hasselhorn has plenty of recent competition in this cycle; listeners can sample the 2017 recording by Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber for another approach, but this one promises well for the ongoing project. Die schöne Müllerin is a work in which Schubert took vast strides toward the emancipation of the piano in the lied, and Bushakevitz leans into this aspect, with details that illuminate and often foreshadow themes developing in the text. Hasselhorn has a warm baritone with an appealing conversational tone that turns chilly and quiet toward the cycle's downer conclusion. Another draw is Harmonia Mundi's sound from the b-sharp studio in Berlin; the engineers put Bushakevitz just a bit forward in the mix, not so much as to sap energy from Hasselhorn's singing, but enough to highlight his perceptive performance. This release bodes well indeed for the duo's future work.© James Manheim /TiVo

Pianist Alexander Schmalcz has performed alongside many famous singers during his career and is also a talented arranger. At the request of Matthias Goerne, he orchestrated Schubert’s lieder in the spirit of similar works by Berlioz, Reger, Liszt and Webern. Matthias Goerne has performed these orchestrations in numerous concerts, both in Europe and in New York, as part of the Mostly Mozart Festival.Schmalcz’s arrangements are both rigorous and conscientious. They’re perfect for Matthias Goerne’s dark tone, which is particularly graceful on this recording made in October 2019 with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. Over the years, the German baritone’s voice has become even more well-rounded, finding deep golden bass tones.The orchestration gives these 20 lieder exceptional weight, further emphasised by the mellowness of the strings, the darkness of the trombones and the sometimes ominous use of the timpani. This orchestration plunges Schubert’s music into a romantic universe similar to lieder by Brahms and even Wolf, especially in Songs of the harpist (Gesänge des Harfners), The Erl-King (Erlkönig) and the famous lieder Death and the maiden (Der Tod und das Mädchen). The anachronism of these arrangements is magnified by the silky accompaniment of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and Matthias Goerne’s stunning vocals. © François Hudry/Qobuz

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

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

After receiving huge praise for his debut album on Deutsche Grammophon, baritone Andrè Schuen continues his Schubert journey. Schubert's enigmatic final collection of songs, Schwanengesang, is the subject of Andrè Schuen and his longstanding accompanist Daniel Heide's second release for Deutsche Grammophon. Schuen calls Schwanengesang "my greatest love among the Schubert lieder. Especially the Heine settings; they move me the most!". © Deutsche Grammophon

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