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100 Years of Radio
Schumann Quartett
Classical - Released September 15, 2023 | Berlin Classics
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Schumann: Dichterliebe
Christian Gerhaher
Classical - Released August 1, 2004 | RCA Red Seal
Christian Gerhaher is the latest in a long line of expressive and intelligent baritones who have made a specialty of German lieder. With recordings of Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Brahms' Vier ernste Gesänge, and Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin, Winterreise, and Schwanengesang already to his credit, Gerhaher has already cut a considerable swath through the standard repertoire of German lieder. With this disc of Schumann's setting of Heine's Dichterliebe and of Lenau's poems grouped as a funeral tombeau, Gerhaher has chosen poems about love, madness, and death by the most literate and arguably the most romantic of the German lieder composers. Gerhaher has an appealing voice: strong and agile with a warm tone and a round sound. Gerhaher has a fine sense of the emotions expressed in the music from the heartfelt irony of the Heine lieder to the attenuated sentimentality of the Lenau lieder. And Gerhaher has a firm grasp of the symbiosis of words and music and the levels of meaning commingled in their fusion. If Gerhaher's performances have a flaw, it is his ambition to do it all right now, to infuse his performances with so much significance that they nearly sink under their own interpretive weight. RCA's sound is big and close but perhaps too intimate.© TiVo
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SCHUMANN, R.: Lieder - Opp. 25, 42, 51, 64, 98a (Auger, Olbertz)
Arleen Auger
Classical - Released January 1, 1979 | Eterna
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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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Infinite Voyage
Emerson String Quartet
Classical - Released September 8, 2023 | Alpha Classics
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Qobuz Album of the Week
“I breathe in the air of other planets.” It’s with these words of German poet Stefan George, put to music in the “String Quartet No. 2 Op. 10,” that Arnold Schönberg takes leave from Western tonal harmony. Composed from 1907 to 1908 during a very painful period of his life, marked by the composer’s separation from Mathilde Zemlinsky, the work signifies a turning point in the history of European composition. As the centrepiece of the moving Infinite Voyage, this farewell music certainly wasn’t chosen at random by the legendary Emerson String Quartet, as the New Yorkers present us with their last album before retiring after 47 years of loyal and dedicated service. For the occasion, the quartet called upon a longtime accomplice, the marvelous Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan, who had long been separated from this type of repertoire. Together, they pursue their exploration of Germanic repertoire with Paul Hindemith’s very beautiful early work “Melancholie Op. 13,” a completed cycle of melodies from Ernest Chausson’s postromantic “Chanson perpétuelle” (with Bertrand Chamayou on the piano), and with Alban Berg’s “String Quartet No.3.” On the theme of collaboration, Infinite Voyage delights the listener with its vibrant and harrowing sensuality, in which the bond between the singer and the quartet is clearly heard. They are the ideal performers of music of such mysterious complexity. For the Emerson Quartet, we couldn’t imagine a better farewell opus. © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz
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Robert Schumann: Complete Piano Trios, Quartet & Quintet
Trio Wanderer
Chamber Music - Released April 30, 2021 | harmonia mundi
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Diapason d'or -
Diapason d'or / Arte
Constantly shifting from the most impulsive exuberance to the most restrained meditation, from the most intense passion to the most innocent tenderness, this programme forms a representative panorama of Schumann’s chamber music. Going beyond the Piano Trios, which already give us a fully rounded account of Schumann, the Trio Wanderer have invited their favourite partners to join them for their interpretation of two supreme masterpieces, the Piano Quartet and Piano Quintet. © harmonia mundi
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Schumann & Brahms
Benjamin Grosvenor
Classical - Released March 17, 2023 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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4F de Télérama
After two glorious albums devoted to Chopin and Liszt, Benjamin Grosvenor continues his exploration of the Romantic period by tackling the third leading faction of the genre, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms (who was a close friend of both the Schumann’s). The Kreisleriana, like many of Schumann’s other cycles, are a virtuosic reflection on his artistic 'doubles'; Eusebius, the melancholic dreamer, and Florestan, the feverish and passionate rake. The Three Romances Op.28 expresses Schumann's eternal and unconditional love for Clara, who saw in these pieces "the most beautiful love dialogues". In the last movement of the Sonata No. 3 Op.14, Schumann makes an elegant reference to his own Kreisleriana. Clara Wieck's Variations on a Theme of Schumann later inspired Brahms to write his own variations on the same theme. There are similarities in character to his Intermezzi at the end of the album. With his singular and unmistakable touch, Benjamin Grosvenor delivers an interpretation of unadulterated purity, with a simple and luminous audio recording that gives these great passages their deserved nobility. © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz
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Der ferne Klang... Orchestral Works & Songs by Franz Schreker
Konzerthausorchester Berlin
Classical - Released March 17, 2023 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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In the early '20s, Franz Schreker was one of the best-known composers in the world. His music was suppressed by the Nazis because he was Jewish, and due to the High Modernism of the postwar period, a second totalitarianism, his reputation did not recover. This was a shame, for Schreker was anything but a conservative, and it is good to see that he is finally getting his due. What he needed at this point was a high-profile recording with top soloists, and that is exactly what he gets here from Christoph Eschenbach and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, with soprano Chen Reiss and baritone Matthias Goerne. Deutsche Grammophon's PR text refers to "Schreker's sumptuous, hyper-Romantic music," but this is not quite right. Schreker could sometimes be that, as in the Romantische Suite that closes the album, but Straussian late Romanticism was only one of his influences. In terms of using tone color as a structural element, Schreker was in every way a contemporary of Schoenberg (his close friend) and Webern. Eschenbach's generous selection of orchestral songs here provides a good way to appreciate this quality; sample Die Dunkelheit sinkt schwer wie Blei from the Fünf Gesänge, with its mysterious strumming-like sounds. The text of that song is from a German translation of the Thousand and One Nights anthology, and Reiss sounds great in the Zwei lyrische Gesänge to texts (in German) by, of all people, Walt Whitman. Schreker could be neoclassic (in the economical Kleine Suite); he could be Impressionist-tinged; he mastered a full Expressionist idiom in the opera that gives the album its title, represented here by a substantial instrumental excerpt. This double-album release conveys the breadth of Schreker's musical language, but he is never blankly eclectic. A wonderful album that will help to rewrite the 20th century canon.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Wranitzky: Orchestral Works, Vol. 6
Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, Pardubice
Classical - Released July 28, 2023 | Naxos
Booklet
The Bohemian composer Paul Wranitzky was admired by Haydn, Mozart (his Masonic lodge brother), and Beethoven (who requested him as conductor of his Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21). He disappeared from the repertory in the 19th century, although the critic Fétis said that for him this was "a source of astonishment." The Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice and conductor Marek Štilec have been excavating his music, and it testifies to the continuing appetite for music of the Classical era that several of their Wranitzky releases, including this one in the summer of 2023, have hit classical best-seller charts. Wranitzky was a popular opera composer in his day, and the instrumental excerpts performed here give the flavor of his brilliant style in the genre, often oriented toward exoticism. The pieces from Achmet und Zenide are full of the so-called Janissary element cultivated by Mozart in, among other works, the Piano Sonata in A major, K. 331, while the second-act overture to Die Spanier in Peru features a conquistador battle scene. Wranitzky's skill as a melodist is on display at several junctures in the music from Jolantha, Königin von Jerusalem. The understated work of the orchestra lets the music speak for itself, which is desirable, and though seemingly specialized, this release is listenable for anyone.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Duo (Œuvres de Brahms, Chostakovitch, Debussy, Schumann)
Sol Gabetta
Classical - Released October 2, 2012 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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Diapason d'or de l'année
Argentine-Swiss cellist Sol Gabetta and the nationally unclassifiable Hélène Grimaud (who is listed first in the graphics here, presumably so that Deutsche Grammophon may capitalize on her former enfant terrible reputation) are both known for a tendency toward interpretations that push the extremes. Grimaud, in fact, has named Glenn Gould, still among the greatest extremists of all, as an exemplar. But, perhaps because the necessity of working in a duo puts a damper on strong manifestations of individualism, the two play it pretty straight on this, the first duo recording for both. Their interpretations in this diverse recital of Romantic and modern pieces, in fact, tend distinctly toward the quiet side. Although Grimaud has resolutely declined to classify herself as French (she is of North African Jewish background, spent some years in Florida, and then lived in Switzerland), this is a chamber recital in the classic French vein, with plenty of impeccably elegant passagework from both players and an absence of emphatic gesture even in the Drei Fantasiestücke, Op. 73, of Schumann, which are arch-Romantic pieces. The Brahms Sonata for piano and cello No. 1, Op. 38, gets a very light touch that does delightful things with the contrapuntal finale. The pair are clearly at home in the Debussy cello sonata, and really the only piece that falls flat is the concluding Cello Sonata, Op. 40, of Shostakovich, where the restrained performance misses the icy fear of the slow movement and the sarcastic snap that was so characteristic of the composer's early years. The sound, from the Philharmonie Essen hall, is a bit too spacious for the music but is up to the task of capturing clearly the fine detail work on exhibit here.© TiVo
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Schumann: Fantasie, Arabeske, Kinderszenen
Fabrizio Chiovetta
Classical - Released January 13, 2023 | Aparté
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There isn't a daring new approach to Schumann proposed by this set of familiar works, but that may be the appeal that put the album on classical best-seller charts in early 2023. The Fantasie in C major, Op. 17, was worked by Schumann as it developed into a tribute to Beethoven, and the references to Beethoven's late style, which Schumann, among just a few others, understood at the time, are multiple. However, it was also a chronicle of the composer's at-the-time forbidden love affair with his girlfriend, Clara Wieck, itself illustrated with a little quote from Beethoven's song cycle An die ferne Geliebte, Op. 98. Schumann marked the first movement "durchaus fantastisch und leidenschaftlich vorzutragen" ("to be played fantastically and passionately throughout"), but it is also a densely polyphonic and intricately structured work, of which Liszt said, "I mean... to work at it and penetrate it through and through." Pianist Fabrizio Chiovetta, without obvious effort, holds these elements in balance. He is equally effective in the more Olympian Arabeske, Op. 18, and in the Kinderszenen, Op. 15, where each little scene of childhood is beautifully realized without extreme tempo variations that distort the nature of the work. The program, as a whole, places the listener amidst the ferment of Schumann's creativity in the mid-1830s, and Aparte's sound from the Salle Gustav Mahler in Dobbiaco, Italy, is another strong draw. A fine outing from Chiovetta.© James Manheim /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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Echo: Schubert, Loewe, Schumann & Wolf
Georg Nigl
Classical - Released May 5, 2023 | Alpha Classics
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4F de Télérama
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Maria Mater Meretrix
Anna Prohaska
Classical - Released April 14, 2023 | Alpha Classics
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By no means should you be expecting the "typical" productions we so often associate with the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. Together with the soprano Anna Prohaska, she has developed a highly original programme which brings violin and vocals together. In this respect, while we were delighted to find a recording of the beautiful and all too rare Maria-Triptychon, which Frank Martin wrote in 1968 for Irmgard Seefried and her violinist husband Wolfgang Schneiderhan, we wonder whether it was really necessary to dismantle this polyptych whose three movements tell the story of the mother of Christ with perfect fluidity.It must be said that the entirety of this unusual album feels rather all over the place, very much like György Kurtág who unsurprisingly features in this curious inventory of a thousand years of music, from Hildegard von Bingen to the present day.We need to look elsewhere for the main theme and, more precisely, at the questioning of the two musicians around the subject of female emancipation and “the sensitive exploration of their common experiences as women evolving in the current music industry.” This quest for content, set to music around the figure of Mary, evokes a mixture of shimmering colours created by the Camerata de Berne orchestra, and depicts a journey through the ages and arias which incorporates so many of the contradictions of human nature. We highly recommend that you immerse yourself fully, and listen to these twenty tracks from beginning to end. This way you will be better able to appreciate this strangely fascinating patchwork, which feels like a work of art in its own right. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Schumann: Kreisleriana & Geistervariationen - Widmann: Elf Humoresken
Aaron Pilsan
Classical - Released May 26, 2023 | Alpha Classics
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"Don’t stay locked in a single domain" is the credo of this young Austrian-Romanian pianist, Aaron Pilsan, who has been cultivating the usual repertoire alongside a passionate devotion to today’s composers. He used to be a pupil of András Schiff and Lars Vogt during his studies at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Before the age of thirty he had already recorded for a number of prestigious labels, such as Deutsche Grammophon, Naïve, and Alpha Classics, including the recording of this new album, where he boldly confronts Robert Schumann and Jörg Widmann.Coming after his superb version of Bach's Clavier bien tempéré (Livre I) for the same publisher, this new recording confirms the exceptional stature of a born musician, reaching a melodic pinnacle, and the depth of an endlessly imaginative keyboard. All of Schumann's unsaid words, chiaroscuro daydreams and heartfelt impulses can be experienced here. It’s a journey between exaltation and despair; on the one hand in the very distinct Kreisleriana collection and, on the other, in the rare Geistervariationen, both which seem to explore a whole new world under the fingers of this particularly inspired young man.Set as a conversation between two masterpieces, the Onze Humoresques, composed by Jörg Widmann in 2007, respond to the tormented world of Schumann with a whimsical spirit. Aaron Pilsan provides a striking interpretation, underlining the extremely strong link between the two German composers who privileged feeling and emotion over their differences in writing and era. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Franz Schubert : Nacht und Träume
Accentus - Laurence Equilbey
Lieder (German) - Released November 3, 2017 | Erato
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4F de Télérama -
Gramophone Editor's Choice -
5 étoiles de Classica
“Nacht und Träume” takes its name from one of Schubert’s best-loved lieder, which is joined on the album by a further 10 of the composer’s songs. All performed in orchestral versions by such masters as Berlioz, Liszt, Brahms, Strauss, Webern, Britten and Schubert himself, they are complemented by three choral numbers and an orchestral interlude. The singers are rising stars – German mezzo-soprano Wiebke Lehmkuhl and French tenor Stanislas de Barbeyrac – and Laurence Equilbey conducts two ensembles she founded: the Insula orchestra and the choir Accentus. © Warner Classics
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Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer, WWV 63 (Live)
Bayreuther Festspielorchester
Opera - Released March 14, 2006 | Orfeo
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Gramophone Editor's Choice
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Jensen: Eroticon - Reubke: Scherzo - Schumann: Kreisleriana
Severin von Eckardstein
Classical - Released March 10, 2023 | ARTALINNA
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Robert Schumann: Piano Works
Llyr Williams
Classical - Released January 12, 2024 | Signum Records
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Pianist Llŷr Williams has built a following with recordings of Beethoven and Schubert, and with this double album, he plows forward into Schumann; the works on the album are mostly early, so one assumes that this is the first in a cycle. The appearance of the album on classical best-seller charts in early 2024 should encourage the folks at Signum Classics to proceed. Williams is a sober player whose style may remind listeners of a certain age of Rudolf Serkin. He has remarkable control in the larger pieces that frame the program here, the Fantasy, Op. 17, and the Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26. He certainly doesn't lack control in the smaller pieces, either. The issue is that these pieces, especially lately, have been treated, backed by Schumann's own writings and programmatic descriptions, as examples of free fantasy. It is not that Williams' playing is inexpressive, but he tends to let the fantastic in Schumann's music speak for itself. Sample the brief "Ungeduldig" ("Impatient") fourth movement of the Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6, which few would call impatient. Williams' playing in the Papillons, Op. 2, is exquisitely delicate, and throughout, there is a fine sense of line. He has an approach that is unorthodox in Schumann, and that is all to the good. However, listeners should do some sampling to see how well they take to it. Producer Judith Sherman records the album well at a pair of locations at St. Paul's School and the Wyastone Estate, capturing the clarity of Williams' performances.© James Manheim /TiVo
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