Schubert: An Sylvia, D891 (Who is Silvia?)

Compelling for her intensity and integrity as much as for her unmistakeable voice, Dame Janet Baker struck a distinctive path as a performer, primarily on the concert and recital stage. Among her most celebrated recordings are her interpretations of Elgar with Sir John Barbirolli, here complemented by songs and oratorio arias by composers such as Bach, Handel, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Mahler, Strauss, Fauré, Vaughan Williams and Britten.

The fifth exquisite Schubert Lieder recording for harmonia mundi from German baritone Matthias Goerne, a protégé of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. ‘Matthias Goerne is fast becoming the Fischer-Dieskau auf his generation, the standard-setting singer of the central lieder repertoire.’ (International Record Review). ‘In such repertoire Goerne’s mellow, darkly rounded timbre, expressive diction and care for a true, “bound” line are well nigh ideal.’ (Gramophone). ‘Even the lesser Schubert Lieder become gems from Goerne’s velvet baritone.’ (The Times).

The Lied is at the heart of Schubert’s output. Throughout his short life, and right up to the weeks immediately before his death, he took a keen interest in every aspect of this genre, which constituted the most intimate expression of the German psyche, of which Schubert was from very early on well placed to act as a vehicle for its sentiments and its torments (love, friendship, pain, loneliness), ranging widely across its joys and its sorrows in all their subtle shadings. Schubert composed quickly, occasionally writing as many as nine or ten Lieder in a single day, with a prodigious fluency that won the admiration of Schumann.

A born song-writer, he loved to perform his own Lieder, accompanying himself on the piano; he admitted that he could get carried away by singing for hours on end. In Schubert’s songs, the voice is always the focus of attention, while the piano accompaniment provides a psychological backdrop. Less discriminating in his choice of poems than Schumann or Wolf, Schubert was more interested in verbal colouring and the emotional content of a text than in its literary value, and although his some six hundred Lieder are in a wide range of forms – from simple strophic songs to dramatic scenas – they are still characterised by their exceptional simplicity, freshness and spontaneity of utterance.

He was already noted as a recitalist, and “a talent to cherish” as far back as 1989. Since appearing in La Scala in 1998 he has performed recitals all over the world, his repertoire including: Schubert, Schumann, Strauss, Brahms, Fauré, Wolf and Mahler. He has also recorded many English songs. Gramophone describe him as the finest baritone singer of Lieder this country has ever produced.

In Simon's own words “I've probably got around 15 years, and think I can see the end of the tunnel. I've done most of the roles that suit me and some, like Papageno, I'll never want to drop…” “In Wagner I shan't go beyond Wolfram in Tannhauser. I know there's Beckmesser, but I'm afraid it's not a role that excites or fascinates me. I'll never get tired of the stand-and-sing roles like Germont in Traviata and Posa in Don Carlos - parts where you really have to act with your voice and pin the audience to their seats with inflexion, nuance and colour. I probably shan't sing Billy Budd again… and am moving down from Pelleas to Golaud. The two new roles I'm most excited about are Wozzeck and Rigoletto, which are both great theatre and call on a huge palette of colours. Wozzeck in particular, is a mountain any baritone wants to climb…”

Wunderlich was one of the most unusual and captivating tenors of the last fifty years. In his tragically short career, he displayed an extraordinary musical versatility. This recording was made with his longtime friend and accompanist Hubert Giesen and includes Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Schubert 6 Songs.

The pieces selected for this recording mark out the milestones of a brief, rich and critically important career as a song composer, ranging in time from 1814 to 1826.Alongside the classic Schubert themes found here, such as deliverance and night, death, flight from the world and hope, we also encounter poets who were more than merely fixed stars in the composer's cosmos, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the writer he most often set, and Johann Baptist Mayrhofer.We can hear for ourselves a captivating, evocative musical language. It speaks of the constant struggle of an individual, his bitterness, his longing, and his desire for deliverance. Yet, however deeply Schubert bathed in this Romantic current, throughout his life art remained for him the only key that might perhaps lead to a 'better world'.And so, in 1817, he took up a text by his friend Franz von Schober to compose an ode to the all-placating 'blessed art' in An die Musik D547: music, which for Schubert, as he wrote to Schober in 1818, was nothing less than 'my beloved'. Bernarda Fink, has sung in numerous opera productions and has made over fifty recordings with a repertoire ranging from Monteverdi to Brahms and Bruckner, many for harmonia mundi and with René Jacobs. She has been flatteringly referred to as the natural successor to the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and to both [the living] Brigitte Fassbaender and Dame Janet Baker. Gerold Huber studied with Friedemann Berger and Helmut Deutsch in Munich, then attended Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's lied class in Berlin. In addition to his regular appearances with Christian Gerhaher, he also performs with Ruth Ziesak, Cornelia Kallisch, Diana Damrau and Franz-Josef Selig and has also performed with the Artemis Quartet.