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Lebensmuth

Signum Quartett

Quartets - Released May 19, 2023 | PentaTone

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This is (apparently) the last in a series of releases from the Signum Quartett combining string quartets by the composer with arrangements of Schubert songs by the group's violist, Xandi van Dijk. That idea is unusual nowadays but wouldn't have been in Schubert's day. The idea is to put a personal flavor to Schubert's music, and quiet, clear recording ambiance of the Sendesaal Bremen contributes nicely to the effect. Here, the group's aim is right on the surface, for the album contains Schubert's first string quartet and his last one. Each seems to be on the verge of new breakthroughs. The String Quartet in G major, D. 18, written when Schubert was no more than 14, is an odd work, with each of its four movements in different keys. The movements may have been written at different times, but even the act of calling it a string quartet was an ambitious one. That work is nicely integrated with the songs by the group, which sets a quiet chamber atmosphere consistent with everything we know about the way Schubert's music was performed during his own lifetime. The String Quartet in G major, D. 887, is something else again, a large work stretching the boundaries of the genre as it was known. It was Schubert's last work in the genre. Yet even this fits with the general idea of the album; at the end of his life, with death a definite presence, he was striving toward new dimensions for the string quartet, just as he had at the beginning. The work stands out sharply from the others on the album and is played in a much more full-blooded way, but this is really the idea on a release that plunges the listener into Schubert's own life. © James Manheim /TiVo

Elysium - A Schubert Recital

Carolyn Sampson

Classical - Released March 3, 2023 | BIS

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Elysium (the Elysian Fields) was a Greek notion of the positive afterlife that dates back as far as Homer. The early Romantics were fascinated by its resonances, and if the organizing principle of this recital by the increasingly Schubert-oriented soprano Carolyn Sampson seems a bit vague, well, so was the concept in Schubert's time. It extended into realms of sleep, ghost stories, the moon and stars, and really many kinds of spirituality -- religious and otherwise. CD buyers get an enlightening booklet note by the song historian Susan Youens that amplifies the tightly woven sequence of songs Sampson offers here. There are a few Schubert hits, but also some lieder that only Schubert buffs will have heard, such as the title track, setting a lengthy ode by Schiller. The program is one that Sampson and accompanist managed to perform in recital at the height of the pandemic, and it is clear that she has lived in the songs for a while and knows their little turns. In general, it is a delightfully moody set that features deep interaction between Sampson and Joseph Middleton, with the latter grabbing the listener's attention right from the opening bars. Sampson's voice in mid-career has developed a slight and not unpleasant metallic tinge that she deploys well in the reflective moods of these songs and that blooms startlingly in the final melodrama Abschied von der Erde, D. 829. Consider the knife's-edge opening long note in Nacht und Träume, D. 827, also a splendid example of Middleton's art. With excellent Potton Hall sound, this is an absorbing Schubert recital that will bring new insights.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Insomnia

Katharina Konradi

Classical - Released April 28, 2023 | Berlin Classics

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Schubert: Lieder

Bernarda Fink, Gerold Huber

Classical - Released September 2, 2008 | harmonia mundi

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Schubert: Songs for Male Chorus

Robert Shaw

Classical - Released January 1, 1994 | Telarc

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Nachtviolen - Schubert: Lieder

Christian Gerhaher

Classical - Released June 16, 2014 | Sony Classical

Booklet Distinctions 5 de Diapason - Gramophone Editor's Choice