Matthias Goerne
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Baritone Matthias Goerne has been noted for his interpretations of German lieder and orchestral song. He has also had success in a variety of operatic roles, both mainstream and contemporary, and not all of them in German.
Goerne was born in Weimar, then in East Germany, on March 31, 1967. He sang youth roles with the Weimar City Opera. Goerne studied in Leipzig with Hans-Joachim Beyer, and then with the cream of the German lieder singers of the day, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and took several major competition prizes before singing in Bach's St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244, under legendary conductor Kurt Masur in 1990. He made his operatic debut in 1992 in Cologne, in Hans Werner Henze's opera Der Prinz von Homburg. Another break was a prominent substitute appearance, in Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn, for the ailing Fischer-Dieskau, in 1997. He has often sung vocal parts in works by Mahler.
A cast member at the Dresden Staatsoper for many years, Goerne has appeared increasingly often at other houses. He made his Covent Garden debut as Wozzeck in Berg's opera of the same name in 2002, and the role of Marcello in Puccini's La bohème, in Italian, is part of his repertory. Goerne was an artist-in-residence at the New York Philharmonic for the 2018-2019 season, and in 2019 he made return visits to the Salzburg Festival in Austria. Goerne has performed many recitals devoted to the German lied, and among his major recording projects is a 12-volume Schubert edition that appeared on the Harmonia Mundi label between 2008 and 2014.
Goerne's recording catalog is large and includes albums on Decca, Hyperion, and other labels, in addition to Harmonia Mundi. As his voice has deepened, he has essayed Wagnerian roles and issued the album The Wagner Project in 2017. On Harmonia Mundi, he was heard on a recording of Brahms' A German Requiem, Op. 45, in 2019, with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Also, in 2019, he released an album of Schumann lieder with Leif Ove Andsnes that was nominated for a Grammy award.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Art Songs, Mélodies & Lieder - Released February 25, 2013 | harmonia mundi
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Art Songs, Mélodies & Lieder - Released March 25, 2008 | harmonia mundi
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Lieder (German) - Released November 3, 2014 | harmonia mundi
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Matthias Goerne's 2014 release of Winterreise concludes his series of Franz Schubert's lieder on Harmonia Mundi. This is the third recording Goerne has made of the song cycle, following his 1997 album with Graham Johnson on Hyperion, and a live recording released in 2004 on Decca, where he was joined by Alfred Brendel in a recital at Wigmore Hall. Here, Goerne and his accompanist, Christoph Eschenbach, deliver a subtle version that is full of intense darkness. The gloom and despair of the wanderer is increasingly conveyed in Goerne's singing, so by the end of the journey, the feeling of exhaustion in Der Wegweiser (track 20) and Der Leiermann (track 24) brings the point of the cycle across. The recording is reasonably close to the performers and they have credible presence, which enhances the songs' deeply personal expression. This recording attests to the continuing popularity of Winterreise, and it is one of the best of several versions to be released in 2014.
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Lieder (German) - Released February 10, 2014 | harmonia mundi
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Lieder (German) - Released May 13, 2016 | harmonia mundi
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Classical - Released September 23, 2013 | harmonia mundi
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Art Songs, Mélodies & Lieder - Released April 17, 2012 | harmonia mundi
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Art Songs - Released April 21, 2009 | harmonia mundi
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Art Songs, Mélodies & Lieder - Released January 4, 2011 | harmonia mundi
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Lieder (German) - Released March 31, 2017 | harmonia mundi
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Classical - Released September 9, 2016 | harmonia mundi
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Art Songs - Released November 24, 2009 | harmonia mundi
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Classical - Released August 25, 2017 | harmonia mundi
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Here’s a repertoire that everybody knows about yet is completely neglected: the Bach cantatas. Granted a few have gained some importance, mostly thanks to the vocal qualities of singers who have seized it for a few decades – Fischer-Dieskau and Elly Ameling to name a few – while some complete works adorn aficionados’ collections. There is however enough content in these cantatas to “make up” about a dozen Passions or Oratorios on par with some of those we already know. Bach himself didn’t refrain from drawing from them to recycle arias, ensembles, choirs and sinfonias. Among some of the most famous, honoured in the 1950s by Fischer-Dieskau, are two cantatas for baritone: Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen (1726) and Ich habe genug (1727), both written with oboe and string accompaniment. It’s precisely with this roster in mind that the Freiburger Barockorchester serves Matthias Goerne, a disciple of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and… Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, him again! The German baritone, a regular on the world’s most prestigious scenes, doesn’t refrain from lending his immense voice to this almost-chamber music by giving it a character far removed from the lyrical style required by Berg, Wagner or Strauss. In addition, still with the oboe in mind, the recording includes the Concerto in A Major for Oboe d'amore BWV1055R, a modern reconstruction from a keyboard concerto in A major, which there is every reason to believe was itself recycled by Bach from an older concerto for oboe d'amore. The remarkable Katharina Arfken plays the oboe for the cantatas and the oboe d’amore for the concerto. © SM/Qobuz
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Art Songs - Released October 14, 2008 | harmonia mundi
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Baritone Matthias Goerne came out of Germany in 1993 with several outstanding recordings of Bach's sacred choral works for Helmuth Rilling, then hit the international big time with a pair of recordings in Hyperion's Schubert lieder series with Graham Johnson including an excellent Winterreise. From there he went from strength to strength, recording song recitals and operas for Decca for 10 years before moving to Harmonia Mundi in 2007. Naturally, given his pedigree, Goerne made his French label debut with a Schubert recital, a single disc called Sehnsucht (Longing), and followed it up the next year with a second Schubert recital, a two-disc set called An mein Herz (To my Heart). As always, Goerne is an admirable singer with a supple voice and a smooth technique. But he has also grown since his debut and now his voice has less of a hooded quality than before, with more bloom in the lower registers and more shine in the upper registers. And Goerne has grown as an interpreter, as well, with as much power as ever in songs like Auflösung, D. 807, and An mein Herz, D. 860, but more sensitivity than ever in songs like Der Wanderer, D. 649, and Du bist die Ruh, D. 776. Ably accompanied by either pianist Helmut Deutsch or Eric Schneider, Goerne has turned in another persuasive Schubert recital and fans of either the performer or the composer need not hesitate.
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Classical - Released March 20, 2020 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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Classical - Released January 1, 1998 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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Classical - Released November 24, 2017 | harmonia mundi
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Classical - Released January 1, 2004 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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Classical - Released January 1, 2005 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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Classical - Released January 1, 1997 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
