Schumann: Dichterliebe, Op. 48 (A Poet's Love)

“A moving Brahms Four Serious Songs from a young and physically impassioned Fischer-Dieskau, and a fascinatingly exploratory Dichterliebe from 1957, both incomparably accompanied.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2012 *****

“Fischer-Dieskau is a superb interpreter of the cycle” Gramophone Magazine (Dichterliebe)

“this is a masterly performance, a towering interpretation of these dark, noble songs” Gramophone Magazine (Brahms: Four Serious Songs)

“Fischer-Dieskau is splendid in the furious little Hahm setting, Kein Haus, keine Heimat, the shortest of all Brahms’s songs, and gives a ravishing account of Feldeinsamkeit. … [His] performance is clearly among the greatest” Gramophone Magazine (Brahms)

“Bezuidenhout plays an 1837 Erard...giving the kind of clarity and crisp articulation in the middle and upper registers that certainly gives an extra piquancy to the textures...Padmore's performances of both the Heine cycles are as restrained and as carefully enunciated and musically polished as one might expect, his tone almost disembodied at times” The Guardian, 4th November 2010 ***

“Padmore's sweetness of tone is capable of growth and intensification, and he is sensible to the subtleties of modulation. Kristian Bezuidenhout...feels and thinks with the singer, makes his points without exaggeration and misses nothing” Gramophone Magazine, December 2010

“Padmore, in superb voice, brings a vivid new confidence to the German text ...and he and Kristian Bezuidenhout tackle those recital favourites "Mit Myrten und Rosen" (from Liederkreis) and "Ich grolle nicht" (from Dichterliebe) with a freshness that bears plenty of repetition.” The Observer, 28th November 2010

“from a circumscribed palette Padmore draws an intense and startling range of colour...the evident intelligence and directness of both performers reaches an almost perfect unity of approach through their mutually supportive expression” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2010 ****

“Padmore, a singer celebrated for his intelligent performances, superb diction, and ethereally pure voice, here surpasses even himself...Nothing is overstated and nothing forced...Bezuidenhout's accompanying is wonderfully responsive and atmospheric too...anyone who appreciates subtlety, detail, and the virtues of objectivity will be unable to resist.” Classic FM Magazine, January 2011 *****

“Güra …deserves a place among the elite….it is the only one by a tenor recommendable at present.” Alan Blyth, Gramophone Magazine, January 2003

“[Gura's] partnership with Dutch pianist Jan Schultz is consolidated here with highly intelligent, deeply felt accounts of Schumann's two immortal song cycles....Gura's dashing, dynamic Dichterliebe even invites comparison with Fritz Wunderlich.” The Observer, 2 February 2003 Classical CD of the Week

“[Finley] brings eloquence to the text and maturity to his interpretations, but with a still youthful-sounding voice. Darker and more “bassy” of tone than Dieskau, he is especially impressive in the sardonic and bitter songs...Finley is a gripping narrator, too, in the tale of Belshazzar’s feast, and can refine his voice to the most arresting of internalised confidences in the love songs to Clara Wieck.” Sunday Times, 14th September 2008 ****

“Finley is a much less knowing, more direct performer than Fischer-Dieskau, concentrating less on precise verbal nuance (though his German diction is wonderfully clear) than on more generalised expressive contours, but the effect is still overwhelmingly powerful.” Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 5th September 2008 *****

“Doubts as to whether the world needs yet another Dichterliebe are allayed by a performance that probes the extremes of Schumann's evocation of remembered, blighted love. Gerald Finley's burnished baritone is one of the most beautiful voices to have recorded the cycle.” The Telegraph, 6th September 2008

“Finley's performance gives huge pleasure and insight…” BBC Music Magazine, September 2008 ****

“In close collusion with the ever-sentient Julius Drake, Gerald Finley gives one of the most beautifully sung an intensely experience performances on dic of Schumann's cycle of rapture, disillusion and tender regret. This is a Dichterliebe firmly in the past tense, the poet-lover achingly resigned from the outset. Singer and pianist are just as compelling in the other Heine settings here.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2008

“Isserlis's mobile, feeling but never gushing legato lines… Hough's winged, crystalline partnership.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2005

“[Finley] sings Schumann's great song-cycle with much tonal beauty and feeling, above all capturing the deep disillusion of Schumann's inspiration” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ****

“In close collusion with the ever-sentient Julius Drake, Gerald Finley gives one of the most beautifully sung and intensely experienced performances on disc of Schumann's cycle of rapture, disillusion and tender regret. This is a Dichterliebe firmly in the past tense, the poetlover achingly resigned from the outset. Finley sings the second song, 'Aus meinen Tränen', as if in a trance, and lingers luxuriantly, even masochistically, over the remembered 'Ich liebe dich' in 'Wenn ich' in deine Augen seh''. Yet here and elsewhere some dangerously slow tempi are vindicated by the acuity of his verbal and musical responses. Where most singers end 'Im Rhein' in wistful tenderness, Finley infuses his final words with a wry bitterness. The disenchantment of 'Ich grolle nicht' is already glimpsed. In the cycle's latter stages Finley veers between numb reverie and acerbic self-dramatisation.
The birds' assuaging response in 'Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen' is magical, barely breathed, the mounting trauma of the funereal dream-song 'Ich hab' im Traum geweinet' chillingly conveyed, the dissolving vision of the penultimate 'Aus alten Märchen' relived with ineffable sadness. Adding a cutting edge to his warm, mahogany baritone, Finley imbues the final song with savage irony, before the rueful, healing close. Throughout, Drake's playing is a model of clarity and acutely observed detail (he is more attentive than most to bass-lines), epitomised in his fluid, exquisitely voiced epilogue.
Singer and pianist are just as compelling in the other Heine settings here. The church acoustic is more resonant than is ideal for Lieder, though that hardly detracts from a glorious Schumann recital.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Grotesquerie, beauty, irony, sentimentality and overwhelming passion mingle to breathtaking effect...His in-the-moment honesty is matched note-for-note by pianist Julius Drake, who partners him with a superb sense of drama and detail. It's a recital which can stand comparison with the greatest Schumann recordings.” METRO

“With this recital Christian Gerhaher confirms his pre-eminence in Lieder, and bids fair to equal or surpass his fellow baritones by dint of his attractively warm, firm tone and his complete understanding of the songs. In Dichterliebe he fully enters into the melancholic, romantic world of the rejected lover, projecting the love and sorrow in a committed yet unexaggerated manner. It's hard to imagine a reading by a voice of his kind that could possibly surpass his inspired performance – and that includes even the legendary Fischer-Dieskau.
He makes as good a case as possible for the SixPoems and Requiem, though it's hard to breathe life into the broken-backed ballad that is DieLöwenbraut. On the other hand, Gerhaher arrestingly enacts the melodrama of Belsatzar, biting consonants to the fore; the sadness of Derarme Peter benefits from the same thoughtful approach as Dichterliebe. Huber supports his partner with finely honed playing. The recording could not be better balanced or more immediate.
This is, in every respect, a winner.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Gerhaher's Dichterliebe sets a new standard for intelligent leider singing. Like Olaf Bar, Gerhaher has an impeccable touch with consonants; singing through them and connecting and shaping the subsequent vowels eloquently. His musicality is evident, but the text is pre-eminent. Gerold Huber's accompaniment is equally rewarding; beautifully pitched, fluid playing. An excellent recital.” The Independent on Sunday

“Few tenors have matched the young Wunderlich in the freshness and golden bloom of the voice. The open manner could not be more appealing here in glowing performances” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ***

“Bostridge makes you think anew about the music in hand, interpreting all these songs as much through the mind of the poet as that of the composer, and, being youthful himself, getting inside the head of the vulnerable poet in his many moods. Quite apart from his obvious gifts as a singer and musician, that's what raises Bostridge above most of his contemporaries, who so often fail to live the words they're singing. Every one of the magnificent Op-24 songs has some moment of illumination, whether it's the terror conveyed so immediately in 'Schöne Wiege', the breathtaking beauty and sorrow of 'Anfang wollt ich' or the breadth and intensity of 'Mit Myrten und Rosen'. In between the two cycles comes a group of the 1840 Leipzig settings that adumbrates every aspect of Bostridge's attributes, as well as those of his equally perceptive partner.
The vivid word-painting in Belsatzar brings the Old Testament scene arrestingly before us. Perhaps best of all is the unjustly neglected Es leuchtetmeine Liebe, a melodrama here perfectly enacted by both performers. Mein Wagen rollet langsam forms a perfect introduction, in its lyrical freedom, to Dichterliebe, an interpretation to rank with the best available in terms of the sheer beauty of the singing and acute response to its sustained inspiration. Listen to the wonder brought to the discovery of the flowers and angels in 'Im Rhein', the contained anger of 'Ich grolle nicht', the sense of bereavement in 'Hör ist das Liedchen' and you'll judge this is an interpretation of profundity and emotional identification, the whole cycle crowned by the sensitivity of Drake's playing of the summarising postlude. To complete one's pleasure EMI has provided an exemplary and forward recording balance.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“It would be difficult to overpraise this issue given its manifold revelations concerning the setting of Heine's poetry by Schumann” Gramophone Magazine, April 1998