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By turns ecstatic and deeply depressed, as is the way with bipolar disorders, Hugo Wolf gave the world great and precious masterpieces in the genre of the lied with his great cycles, in particular Italienisches Liederbuch, for two voices, which represents the soul of the art. 46 lieder speak of love, focusing on the tangled feelings of man and woman across lovers' dialogues in ironic, gallant and impassioned tones. Written around words by Paul Heyse based on anonymous Tuscan poems, this collection is full of ballads, and in particular rispetti (compliments), folksy poems made up of two quatrains. The German translation seriously disfigures the light touch of the Italian original, especially as Hugo Wolf makes no attempt to "do Italian" in his compositions. “I assure you: a warm heart beats in the little chests of my youngest southern children, who, despite everything, cannot hide their German origins. Yes, their hearts beat in German, even though the sun shines in Italian", he told a friend. This Italian collection is made up of, as Stéphanie Goldet writes, "little love stories, moments of impatience or frustration, wishes and warnings, complaints and recriminations, demands and unconditional surrenders". Recorded in concert at the Hesse Philharmonic on 18 February 2018, this new recording ranks alongside other legendary records such as those by Schwarzkopf and Fischer-Dieskau; it will surely become a new reference point version. While it was reasonable to worry about Jonas Kaufmann's voice, we can hear that it has recovered all its strength and its thousand and one miraculous nuances. His partner, Diana Damrau, is radiant, with a song that brings together the many different emotions of a worried and sometimes mischievous young girl. But this dialogue would be nothing without the subtle and refined piano-playing of Helmut Deutsch, who has given these miniatures such an irresistible accompaniment. © François Hudry/Qobuz

Remembering Gounod as just a masterful composer of great French operas, it’s easy to forget that he also wrote, among many various pieces of work, close to one hundred and fifty melodies throughout is long and rich career. Surprisingly, almost one third of these pages were written in English (during his years in London, between 1870 and 1874), about fifteen of them are in Italian, as well as a few in Spanish and German. Most of them of course are in French, among which Tassis Christoyannis and Jeff Cohen selected twenty-four gems, a comprehensive array ranging from his very first published melody – his Où voulez-vous aller from 1839, the year of his Prix de Rome! – to his À une jeune Grecque of the utmost maturity, in 1884. The composer explored all of the styles he held dear, with all the eclecticism he’s famous for: French romanticism, German Lied, orientalism, old-fashioned archaic writing… Gounod was particularly sensitive to the words’ meaning as much as their sound, the back and forth of verses and the variety of periods, and excelled in finding a melodic movement to perfectly fit the inflexions of pronunciation, the expressive flow of speech and setting the perfect phrasing for an eloquent result. With him, unlike his illustrious elder Berlioz, music served the words, carried them and elevated them if possible. Let’s discover this beautiful pearl rosary, made of works we would love to hear in recital more often. © SM/Qobuz

“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