Hermine Haselböck (mezzo-soprano), Wolfgang Holzmair (baritone) & Russell Ryan (piano)
CD
$17.75
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Franz Schreker is best known as an opera composer but his songs offer significant insights into the particular nature of his dramatic gift. The heart of Schreker's vocal expressiveness is in the elasticity of his phrasing, a quality that encourages interpretive flexibility on the part of the singers. The superb Austrian artists, baritone Wolfgang Holzmair and mezzo-soprano Hermine Haselböck, bring that and more to this outstanding recital of rarely heard songs
9th August 2008
***
“Schreker wrote most of these beautiful, often heartbreaking songs as a Vienna Conservatory student between 1898 and 1900. Haselboeck sings the Mutterlieder cycle with a sob in her resonant low notes and an unnerving touch of hysteria at the top. Holzmair is more dispassionate, characterising wittily in Hungernde Kind, Spuk and the comic Liebe als Recensentin, but he occasionally clouds Schreker's elegant melodies. Even so, Wiegenliedchen's lilt will linger for days. Russell Ryan is the co-equal pianist setting independent scenes in the harmony.”
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