Schubert: Harfenspieler I 'Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt', D478

“Goerne… and Schneider offer grave and solemn performances of Goethe's Mignon and Harper songs, before ending on a higher note, celebrating the eternal joy of love in 'Willkommen and Abschied'.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2009 ****

“Battered by Bryn Terfel dramatics, the ears cried out for a pure dose of lieder from a master of the craft. Matthias Goerne… seems to own a different shade of baritonal colour for every syllable Schubert wrote. The voice is sweet and serene, even at fff, and the shifts that Goerne applies to the changing of seasons and the fickleness of love are done with enviable delicacy. More reticent than Fischer-Dieskau or Thomas Quasthoff to bend a line for expressive emphasis, when Goerne takes a liberty the effect is breath stopping… T his is not an album to gorge at one go. Take it two songs a night before bedtime, and it might see you through to the end of recession.” Norman Lebrecht, Evening Standard CD of the Week

“Goerne used to record for Decca, but it apparently had no interest in his 12-volume Schubert compendium, so the less ruthlessly commercial Harmonia Mundi comes to the rescue, for which the France-based company deserves the highest praise. From a vocal point of view, few male singers, even Fischer-Dieskau, command such a rich palette of colours as Goerne does here…he goes where Dieskau never ventured: he includes two of Mignon's songs, Heiss' mich nicht reden and Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, as well as the Harper trilogy… In the middle Harper song, Mayrhofer's Nachtstück and Nähe des Geliebten (Nearness of the Beloved), Goerne approaches the sublime and captures perfectly the wry wit of Goethe's sly dig at water-nymphery, Der Fischer, in which the surprise encounter of an angler with a "moist woman" is wryly underlined by Schubert. Luxury support from Deutsch and Schneider sets the seal on an outstanding issue.” Sunday Times Classical CD of the Week

“This promises to be a landmark series, up there with Hans Hotter and Fischer-Dieskau.” The Observer

“Here elegy, fatalism and death-longing predominate and in such repertoire Goerne's mellow, darkly rounded timbre, expressive diction and care – rare in Lieder singers today – for a true, 'bound' line are well nigh ideal. Even at the most anguished fortissimo, his tone never grows harsh or hectoring. Perfectionism like Goerne's has inevitably provoked charges of over-calculation.
Some might protest at the ultra-slow tempo for Du bist die Ruh. Yet Goerne's beauty of tone and phrasing (founded on seemingly superhuman reserves of breath), and a rapt intensity that rises to spiritual radiance in the final verse are mesmerising. At a more conventional tempo, he sings An die Musik as a simple, sincere confession of faith, with affectionate touches of rubato (and how eloquently Helmut Deutsch's left hand duets with the voice). Elsewhere Goerne's unsentimental tenderness can illuminate little-known songs that seem ordinary on the printed page – Abschied von der Harfe, say, or the quasi-operatic lament Der Sänger amFelsen. He even appropriates, successfully, two of Mignon's songs, giving one of the most desolate and – in the central section – disturbed performances of Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt you will hear.
True to form, Goerne makes an uncommonly melancholy serenader in An die Laute and DesMädchens Liebeslauschen, which never smiles. Yet he can lighten up, as in the story-telling of DerFischer and Wie Ulfru fischt. Like Deutsch on the first disc, Eric Schneider fully matches Goerne in acumen and command of colour, not least in a performance of Nachtstück of mingled grandeur, mystery and compassionate gentleness.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Goerne's virtuoso vocal sculpting draws you into the inner landscape of each song, his warm, expressive baritone shaping detail often understated by lesser artists. This promises to be a landmark series, up there with Hans Hotter and Fischer-Dieskau.” The Guardian, 12th October 2008

“An attractive compilation from EMI's 2001-02 series of Schubert Lieder and piano music. Here, it's predominantly Lieder, with just three piano fragments; but with both artists at their relaxed and creatively focused best.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2008 ****

“...from Bostridge you have intelligent word painting, effortless sense of line, langorous phrasing, and a vocal quality that is as sonorous in the upper register as it is mellow in the lower. Andsnes more than accompanies, he pushes the beauty and depth of the piano writing to the fore, whilst never unbecomingly stealing the show.” Charlotte Gardner, bbc.co.uk, 11th July 2008

“Ian Bostridge is one of the most effective Schubert voices in Europe today” The Times

‘They brought their audience’s attention to more details in the Schubert Songs than any artists have before’ The Independent

“…this is one of the darkest, slowest Schwanengesangs on disc: there is a unique menace in the final 'Gute Nacht' of 'Kriegers Ahnung'; and 'In der Ferne' gives full, long weight to those six slow pulses within the last word of each line. Schreier's recital also offers consummate performances of Schubert's Goethe settings...” BBC Music Magazine, May 2006 *****

“The 1991 recital by Peter Schreier and András Schiff is highly desirable, though the sound is not quite on the same level. Schreier was never the most honeyed of tenors; but in the lighter songs of Schwanengesang he compensates for a touch of reediness and a tendency to harden on high notes with the supple grace of his phrasing and his ultra-keen response to the text. Liebesbotschaft is eager and volatile, enhanced by Schiff's wonderfully limpid touch and his care to make the piano's singing left hand match the voice in eloquence (Schubert's original, high, key an advantage, here and elsewhere).
On the downside, Aufenthalt is surely too slow and life-weary, weighed down by recurrent submissive rallentandos. But Das Fischermädchen has a lilting tenderness, Schiff again singing in dulcet partnership with the voice, while in the remaining Heine songs singer and pianist unflinchingly probe the extremes of anguish and bitterness. Die Stadt (the swirling, impressionistic arpeggios eerily insubstantial from Schiff) and Der Doppelgänger are as desolate and disturbing as any performances on disc, the suggestion of a whine, even a sneer, in Schreier's timbre extraordinarily apt here.
After this we get a sharply characterised Goethe group that encompasses the bleakness of the three Harper's Songs (done with characteristic intense immediacy) and ends with an impulsive, dancing Der Musensohn that rightly brings the house down.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Schreier was never the most honeyed of tenors; but in the lighter songs of Schwanengesang he compensates for a touch of reediness and a tendency to harden on high notes with the supple grace of his phrasing and his ultra-keen response to the text. Liebesbotschaft is eager and volatile, enhanced by Schiff's wonderfully limpid touch and his care to make the piano's singing left hand match the voice in eloquence... Das Fischermädchen has a lilting tenderness, Schiff again singing in dulcet partnership with the voice... Die Stadt (the swirling, impressionistic arpeggios eerily insubstantial from Schiff) and Der Doppelgänger are as desolate and disturbing as any performances on disc...” Gramophone Magazine, July 2006

“Fischer-Dieskau is on top of his form...the spectrum of emotion takes on a new glow as each song begins...A treasurable disc” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ***