Loewe, C: Hinkende Jamben, Op. 62 No. 5

On this CD reissue, five songs are added to the original collection that were omitted from the LP owing to the limited playing time. They appear for the first time. "Musicality, creativity, sensitivity and emotional involvement" – these were the qualities attributed to the Baritone Wolfgang Anheisser even at the outset of his tragically brief career, and they made him one of the most interesting Loewe interpreters.

Henk Neven studied with Maarten Koningsberger and Margreet Honig at the Conservatory of Amsterdam where he graduated cum laude in 2003. In 2002 he received a diploma cum laude from the New Opera Academy. He followed masterclasses with Graham Johnson, Graham Clark, Rudolf Jansen, Hartmut Höll, Jard van Nes and Robert Holl.

He was awarded a Borletti-Buitoni Fellowship in 2009, and is a BBC New Generation Artist 2009-2011.

Henk Neven has performed at the BBC Proms and at the Wigmore Hall. He also has a busy career in the opera houses of Europe, including Leporello in Don Giovanni in De Doelen Rotterdam, Patrocle in Iphigénie en Tauride by Gluck at La Monnaie in Brussels, Ottokar in Der Freischütz in Theater an der Wien, Mercutio in Roméo et Juliette at De Nederlandse Opera and Gralritter in Parsifal in Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam.

As a recitalist he will appear with Hans Eijsackers in de ‘Vocale Serie’ of Het Concertgebouw, La Monnaie Brussels and de Beurs van Berlage Amsterdam.

This is his debut recording, and he has selected Lieder by Carl Loewe to programme with Schumann’s Liederkreis op22, repertoire he loves performing. Neven is a major new vocal talent.

In his lifetime the German composer Carl Loewe was often referred to as the ‘Schubert of North Germany’. He is frequently credited with the development of the romantic ballad into a powerful art form, and his prolific output of ballads and songs amounts to some four hundred works. Loewe’s treatment of long narrative poems in a clever and powerful mixture of dramatic and lyrical styles, has been a template for many subsequent composers.

Many of the ballads on this disc are masterpieces of their genre and they are performed here in a magisterial Hyperion debut by Austrian baritone Florian Boesch. In these refined performances it is clear why Boesch has been labelled as ‘one of the finest interpreters of Lieder of his generation’. His ability to create characters and enact stories brings the dramatic texts vividly to life, while he maintains musical coherence with astonishing lyricism.

Loewe’s daring and imaginative accompaniments are played here by the incomparable Roger Vignoles, in another addition to his acclaimed discography of Hyperion recordings. His eloquent pianism and penetrating musicianship match Boesch’s artistry to perfection.

Hans Hotter was one of the major artists signed to EMI by the legendary record producer Walter Legge in Vienna as soon as the Second World War ended and one of his first recordings for the company was the Brahms Requiem under Herbert von Karajan, an extract from which is included in this set. This 6-CD set is devoted mainly to German Lieder and includes an impressive collection of songs recorded when Hotter was in his prime and generally accompanied by Gerald Moore. A number of tracks in this set are appearing in stereo for the first time on CD; their only previous stereo issue was on a local Angel LP in the USA.The two excerpts from Die Meistersinger are incomplete because the recordings were not released at the time they were made (1948) and some of the original 78 rpm masters had not survived by the time the items were issued on LP for the first time in 1982.