Brahms: Abenddämmerung, Op. 49 No. 5

‘You sing as if you had written it yourself!’ Jean Cocteau once told Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. This anthology of lieder by Brahms and Schumann is a prime example of the great singer doing just that, mining every nuance of emotion from a song while, at the same time, sounding as spontaneous and free as if he were making it up on the spot. One of the hallmarks of Fischer-Dieskau’s legacy is the ease with which he creates the spell of each individual song, drawing the listener – apparently effortlessly – into the drama created by the words and the music.

Fischer-Dieskau recorded extensively for Deutsche Grammophon, and the bulk of his archive has been mined on CDs. These recordings, however, are rarities. The songs on CD1 appeared only as part of the Fischer-Dieskau Edition for his 75th birthday. The Brahms songs on CD2 make their first appearance on CD. And the 1957 recording of Schumann’s Dichterliebe with his long-time pianist Jörg Demus, only appeared as part of Deutsche Grammophon’s centenary edition. CD2 includes the Four Duets, Op. 28 in which Fischer-Dieskau is partnered by an artist not heard enough on records, the contralto Kerstin Meyer.

This release marks the launch of an Eloquence series of notable recitals of songs and opera arias by some of the great voices of Decca and Deutsche Grammophon.

These releases from the archives of the RIAS and the Sender Freies Berlin document the unequalled quantitative and qualitative spectrum which baritone Fischer-Dieskau acquired during the five decades of his career.

They offer a fascinating insight into the breadth of his repertoire as well as his artistic approach, with which he maintained a careful balance of development and continuity until the end. These recordings – spanning Beethoven’s sacred songs Op. 48 of 1806, through Schumann, Brahms, Mahler and Reger, to Heinrich Sutermeister’s expressive psalm setting of 1948 – demonstrate the essential Fischer-Dieskau.

Not only do they document the artistic partnership with pianists such as Hertha Klust, Daniel Barenboim, Cord Garben, Aribert Reimann and Tamás Vásáry, but also the delightful collaboration with the organist Ulrich Bremsteller.

Furthermore, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau can be heard together with his wife and musical partner, Julia Varady. This is a documentary edition both in the sense of a historic and an artistic legacy: it reveals the riches of lieder from the last two centuries which Fischer-Dieskau, in his role of musical chronicler, made accessible for the present age; and it is an impressive record of an incomparable interpretational art, according to which word and music were always treated and realised as a unit.

“Here is a singer-actor who has it all…” The Sunday Times

“In a league of his own…” The Sunday Telegraph

“The king of barnstorming performances…” The Independent

Sony Music Entertainment UK is pleased to present the first of three albums by British baritone Simon Keenlyside, who has recently signed a new exclusive recording contract with the Sony UK company.

The first recording under this exciting new agreement features Schumann’s Dichterliebe, Op.48, and a selection of Lieder by Brahms, sensitively accompanied by pianist Malcolm Martineau.

Simon Keenlyside was born in London and studied zoology at Cambridge before attending the Royal Northern College of Music for vocal studies. One of the world’s most sought-after and charismatic singers, he has appeared at many of the world’s major opera houses and concert halls, and is noted for his versatility and highly charged performances. Highlights of his career so far include his acclaimed performance of Billy Budd at the ENO, Prospero in the world premiere of Thomas Ades' The Tempest, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Count Almaviva in Milan and Vienna under Muti; Don Giovanni in Ferrara under Abbado and Pelleas in San Francisco, Geneva and Paris.

Simon Keenlyside won the 2006 Olivier Award for outstanding achievement in Opera for his performance of Billy Budd at ENO and Winston in the world premiere of 1984 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and in 2007 he won a Gramophone Award for Tales Of Opera, his album of operatic arias recorded for Sony Music in Germany.

Hans Mayer wrote “He knew exactly what he wanted to sing and how to go about it. The word ‘magnetism’ – so frequently misappropriated for all types of advertising – fully applied in his case.”

Beginning in the late 1940s “FiDi,” as he was already known in his Berlin years, elevated lied singing to an unparalleled level associated with his mellifluous baritone, superb vocal technique, and the credibility of his interpretations. Fortunately the persuasive powers of his early years are attested to not only by ear witnesses but by many radio recordings.

These two sets of lieder by Johannes Brahms and Ludwig van Beethoven are taken from two recording sessions held at Berlin’s RIAS broadcasting company in 1951/52.

Beethoven’s lieder did not belong to the standard repertoire at the time, and it was Fischer-Dieskau who first popularized them.