Liszt: Comment, disaient-ils (Hugo), S276

Barbara Hendricks' voice — particularly suited to Mozart, Debussy, Fauré, and the lighter roles of Puccini and Richard Strauss — has a warm, crystalline quality that has kept her in demand on stage and in recording studios. Her performances have embraced everything from contemporary music to popular standards, including songs of Duke Ellington and several world premieres. She has been careful with her choices of repertoire, avoiding roles that would overextend her essentially lyric instrument. Aside from music, she is deeply committed to humanitarian work, with a particular concern for refugees and those in war or poverty zones. She sang a concert in Sarajevo in 1993 while the city was being shelled, in which she had to wear a bulletproof vest and helmet.

Hendricks has appeared on nearly 80 recordings spread over a variety of major labels. Her first of many recordings for EMI was in the small part of the Celestial Voice in Don Carlo in 1978. For nearly twenty years her solo recordings have been made exclusively for EMI Classics.

The intention of the Liszt Lied Edition is to give these songs their due place in the repertoire of Liszt and to make previously unpublished works available, as well as to present recording premiers. Liszt’s Lieder contain the essence of his entire oeuvre. Adrian Eröd made his debut at the Vienna State Opera in 2001 and in 2003 at the Teatro Fenice in Venice. He has performed with Harnoncourt, Rilling and Rattle.

One of Kiri Te Kanawa's rare recorded excursions into song repertoire, this consummate recital is once more restored to the Decca catalogue. Including such popular favourites like the Rachmaninov and Granados, it includes Obradors' wonderful Cinco canciones clasicas espanolas and a quartet of beautiful songs by Liszt.

Elisabeth Linhart and Karl Eichinger perform lieder and piano solos by Liszt and Wagner, including Liszt’s Sechs Ausgewählte Lieder for soprano and piano, Wagner’s Fünf Gedichte von Mathilde Wesendonck and Liszt’s “Liebestraum”.

This collection of songs by Liszt demonstrates how cosmopolitan he was. He wrote songs in German, French, Italian, English, Hungarian and Russian. Some are real discoveries, such as his only song in Russian and a duet. Ne brani menja, moj drug and O Meer im Abandstrahl are premiere recordings.

Perhaps stemming from his years touring Europe as a virtuoso pianist or from his later émigré life in Paris, Franz Liszt's choice of song texts reflect his 'polyglot' attraction to the 19th Century literature and culture of many different countries, shown in these settings of French, German, Italian, English, Russian and Hungarian words.