Schubert: Die Forelle, D550 (The Trout)

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.

Gérard Souzay (1918–2004) was born into a musical family – his father was a cellist, and his two brothers and his sister all singers. Souzay chose to study philosophy at university, and it was only after a meeting with Pierre Bernac in Paris in 1942 that he was persuaded to enter the Paris Conservatoire to study singing. He entered the concert circuit shortly after the end of the Second World War, and soon displayed the qualities that would make him one of the great voices of the 20th century – a love of words and a superb technique that combined a fine tone with a natural gift for expression.

His obituaries in 2004 all commented on the qualities of his voice, and were full of epithets such as ‘warm’, ‘lyrical’, ‘supple’, ‘sensual’ and ‘vibrant’. He was keen not to be pigeonholed as a singer of French repertoire, and this 2 CD set vividly illustrates his mastery of Schubert’s lieder. The coupling of the composer’s freshest and most immediately appealing song-cycle, Die schöne Müllerin, with a generous selection of other, universally known lieder, is sure to have wide appeal beyond historical enthusiasts: the recordings are in excellent stereo.

New booklet notes by Lieder authority Richard Stokes.

‘Souzay’s interpretation makes a less virile figure of the miller’s apprentice than either of the others and perhaps, because of this, makes more credible the girl’s jilting of him for the black-bearded hunter (I’m sure his beard was black!), but there is plenty of passion in his singing and a smooth treatment of the two-note quaver groups. The climactic ends of the verses “Dein ist mein Herz”, etc. ring out as well in “Ungeduld” as in “Mein!”, and at all times one is aware of a carefully thought-out presentation, an expressive treatment of the words and a sensitive response to the changing moods. The many strophic songs have plenty of nuance, and Souzay holds the interest through the five verses of “Des Baches Wiegenlied”.’ Gramophone, June 1965

Ute Ziemer was a pupil of the late Elizabeth Schwarzkopf. “Only five days before her death we worked together at her home in Schruns in Austria on lieder by Schubert, and I hope that these recordings would have received her smiling ‘thumbs-up’ …her greatest mark of approval.”