Liszt: Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh (Wandrers Nachtlied II), S.306

This second volume of Hyperion’s newest Lieder series features the great dramatic and musical gifts of mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager. Internationally renowned on the opera stage, the concert hall and the recording studio, Kirchschlager is an ideal performer of these most varied, complex and emotionally charged songs. She is accompanied by the multi-Gramophone Award-winning Julius Drake, who curates the series.

The songs recorded here encompass thirty years of Liszt’s life, with texts in German, French and Italian, and contain many examples of the hidden beauties of this undervalued and little-known strand of the composer’s works.

Detailed and informative notes by Susan Youens and a beautifully intimate recorded sound complete a volume which will be indispensable to any lovers of Lieder.

For her first solo CD, Marlis Petersen and her partner Jendrik Springer have devised this programme of 19 lieder, from nearly two centuries of music, centreing on the concept of the 'Eternal Feminine'.

"For this CD we made a selection of songs sung by several female characters from Goethe’s dramas (Stella, Klärchen, Gretchen, Mignon, Philine, Suleika and Helena). Among them are a number of poems which have been set to music countless times in the past two centuries, but are today often known only in a standard setting: if one speaks of 'Gretchen am Spinnrade' or Klärchen’s 'Freudvoll and leidvoll' (to take just two examples), then each of us thinks immediately of the compositions by Franz Schubert and Ludwig van Beethoven respectively. These poems too are on our CD, but set by Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt! By choosing composers who are not usually associated with the lied genre (Ernst Krenek, Charles Ives) or in certain cases probably completely unknown to some listeners (Nikolay Medtner, the pianist Wilhelm Kempff), we wanted to encourage a fresh approach to the poems, one not cluttered by listening traditions. However, to make the selection of songs as varied and balanced as possible, we have also included a few well-known settings like Schubert’s 'Was bedeutet die Bewegung' or Robert Schumann’s 'So laßt mich scheinen'. Furthermore, Manfred Trojahn has contributed a new setting of words portraying Helen of Troy, thus bringing our survey right up to date. Between the individual groups and at the end we have placed a setting of Goethe’s second ‘Wanderer’s Night Song’, 'Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh'. This is intended to serve as a restingpoint, an emotional ‘reset’; at the same time, it gave us the possibility of presenting a single poem in the interpretation of six different composers: the naive idyll of Hans Sommer and the threatening, doom-laden atmosphere of Nikolay Medtner’s setting are worlds away from each other. It was a thrill and a delight for us to explore this virtually inexhaustible musical treasure-trove in order to come up with an interesting selection of songs that amply repay discovery. We hope you will be as fascinated by this rich diversity as we were!" Marlis Petersen/Jendrik Springer

After her sumptuous album of Strauss songs with orchestra, soprano Diana Damrau marks the bicentenary of Liszt’s birth with an album of his most celebrated songs in German, French and Italian, accompanied by pianist Helmut Deutsch.

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.

Janina Baechle has been a member of the Vienna State Opera since 2004. She has performed Mahler’s Symphony No.2 and The Song of the Earth with the Vienna Philharmonic and has given many recitals.

For this new recording on Capriccio mother and son unite. For more than fifteen years Renate Behle has been one of the world’s most outstanding interpreters of dramatic roles. With her “warm, sumptuous, full voice” whose “sound is etched in one’s memory” (Financial Times), she has thrilled audiences and critics alike on nearly every major opera stage in the world. Here she performs a recital of works by Mendelssohn, Schumann, Beethoven and Brahms amongst others, with her son Daniel, a tenor in great demand on the major opera and concert stages of the world.

Welcome to the world's first "classical" protest CD. The music is wide-ranging, from Germany, France, England, Austria, Poland, Chile, USA, and Australia, covering issues as diverse as world wars, the Holocaust, dictatorships and the stolen generation. It is a no-holds-barred plea for humanity to get a grip on humanitarian values, before it is too late.

This CD has been undertaken as a labour-of-love by the artists and by Tall Poppies, and the profits will be shared with the Fitzroy Learning Centre in Melbourne. (This organisation gives educational and other assistance to refugees in Australia. www.fitzroylearningnetwork.org.au)

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.