Schubert: Frühlingsglaube, D686

“More inveterate collectors will want this latest issue - which also is reported to be the last issue from Bluebell, who have done a sterling job over the years to put on disc innumerable previously unavailable Jussi titles. The team behind this set and all the previous issues of Jussi Björling recordings have done sterling service to his memory and their best reward would be that even more people would invest in all the riches that this and the previous issues contain. A cultural achievement of the utmost importance”.” MusicWeb International

“In volume four of Goerne’s Schubert edition, the song selection is still skewed towards the introspective and forlorn. Those moods are perfect for Goerne’s dark baritone...and, always, the elegantly responsive piano of Ingo Metzmacher, better known as a conductor. The pair seem very simpatico.” The Times, 28th November 2009 ****

“Although there are moments when the angst within Schubert's responses to Mayrhofer and the vanished gods could be more biting, Goerne has the measure of the noble declamation of these unique songs. When it comes to the Goethe settings, Goerne excels at recreating the uncanny metaphysical stillness of 'Meeresstille', and of the D224 'Wandrers Nachtlied'. And his final Mayrhofer 'Abschied', taken as slowly as is humanly possible, becomes a valediction of wide spaces and eloquent silences.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2010 ****

“This is a simply unmissable recital, and for two prime reasons - the grave beauty of its programme and the corresponding beauty of the singer's voice. These songs of yearning, essentially spiritual, are very personal, and the imagination never shuts down. The pianist, Ingo Metzmacher, is fully responsive to this, and the recorded sound, of both voice and piano, is warm and vivid.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2010

“The two selections from Heliopolis telescope intimate, personal dramas and larger public spectacle to bewitching effect, Goerne’s lightly burnished baritone liquescently surging and seething against the pointed accompaniment of Ingo Metzmacher...Throughout, Goerne and Metzmacher suffuse these songs with a dark, yearning poetry to discreetly powerful and wholly persuasive effect.” Michael Quinn, bbc.co.uk, 18th December 2009

“…Watt's youthful, radiant delivery, with no flaws in technique that I can hear, fits many of the Lieder like a glove.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2009 ****

“A voice in its first, radiant freshness is always to be cherished in Schubert. Watts is a thoughtful interpreter, too, alive to mood and atmosphere… Crucially, she also brings a measure of innocence and simplicity - not quite the same thing as artlessness - to many of these songs, allied to a technical mastery that allows her to spin a rapt, unblemished line in "Nacht und Träume".” Gramophone Magazine, February 2009

“Hailed as a singer to watch after winning the 2006 Kathleen Ferrier Award and the 2007 Cardiff Song Prize, Elizabeth Watts makes her CD debut with this refreshingly unhackneyed Schubert programme. Perennial soprano favourites – DieForelle, Nacht und Träume, Frühlingsglaube, Suleika – are not shunned. But Watts has alighted on some rarely aired gems. How often in recital do we hear the agitated scena-in-miniature AusDiego Manzanares; or the playfully charming paean to spring Die Blumensprache; or the Novalis setting Marie, where sacred and profane blur in a song of exquisite, rarefied grace? A voice in its first, radiant freshness is always to be cherished in Schubert. Watts is a thoughtful interpreter, too, alive to mood and atmosphere, colouring her tone in response to a darkening of the harmony in, say, Sei mir gegrüsst. Crucially, she also brings a measure of innocence and simplicity – not quite the same thing as artlessness – to many of these songs, allied to a technical mastery that allows her to spin a rapt, unblemished line in Nacht und Träume. Encouraged by Vignoles's buoyant accompaniment, she makes an engaging story-teller in Die Forelle, with an unexaggerated touch of indignation at the angler's treachery; and she sings the mildly salacious refrain song Die Männer sind méchant with just the right wide-eyed mock-pathos.
Quibbles? Well, in one or two songs, including the opening An den Mond, Watts struck me as overly languid. She treats Nähe des Geliebten as an elegiac litany, where, say, Janet Baker, choosing a more mobile tempo and finding greater variety from verse to verse, sings it as a passionate avowal of love. Watts also emphasises melancholy over excited anticipation in Frühlingsglaube and Suleika. Here and elsewhere, Watts under-exploits the expressive potential of German consonants. That said, highlights are lovely performances of Nachtviolen – the high tessitura effortlessly negotiated – or the Mozartian barcarolle Liane: just two songs among many where the vernal purity of Watts's tone and the grace of her phrasing are priceless assets.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Few discs of favourite Schubert songs match this for sheer beauty...[Bostridge] offers fresh revelation in even the best-known songs” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ****

“A voice more for Schöne Müllerin than Winterreise, Bostridge's fresh, buoyant, beautifully articulated tenor suits these Lieder perfectly. The literary and musical impulses are in perfect equilibrium, and Drake's rapport is absorbing.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2006 ****

“With Gerald Moore (who returned to the studio out of retirement especially for the occasion) still at this finest, this is a hugely satisfying collection...There are no texts, but this remains an unmissable reissue.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition ****

“Ludwig presents them with disarming dedication and to hear the hackneyed Ave Maria sung like this is to realise afresh the beauty which all too often is jellied over with sentiment. Gervase de Peyer provides an engaging clarinet obbligato...the bouncing jollity is unbounded” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ****