Schumann: Liederkreis, Op. 24

“Finley and pianist Julius Drake are well attuned to those pervading atmospheres and psychological shifts; beginning with the veiled tone with which Finley opens Op 39 every song is individually coloured (some of his inflections suggest a close study of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's performances), and the text is always clear.” The Guardian, 26th September 2012 ****

“With his slow tempos and dark vowels, Finley draws from the Op. 39 Eichendorff Liederkreis a real sense of the fear lurking behind even the ecstasies of love...Drake is perfectly attuned to the palette of shifting colours in Finley's dark baritone - here in top form.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2012 ****

“This new recording shows a greater richness in Finley's voice plus an evolving intimacy in his approach to recording Lieder, one that retreats from the word-by-word vocal painting of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau...Each song's overall conception - of which Julius Drake is a key part - reflects great thought as to its core emotion.” Gramophone Magazine, January 2013

“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 *****

“The Austrian baritone opens with an exquisitely gauged Liederkreis, Op 24, full of subtle emotional twists and turns. The rest is a carefully varied selection of settings of words by Heine.” Sunday Times, 3rd May 2009 ****

“Having an accompanist as perceptive and exquisitely musical as Malcolm Martineau is a big asset, these are lieder performances of very high quality indeed.” The Guardian, 1st May 2009 ****

“There is much to enjoy in Boesch's dramatic, intensely "lived" performances, and in the imaginative playing of Malcolm Martineau (ultra-sensitive in Schumann's secretive piano postludes).” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2009

“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

“A contemporary composer takes a 19th-century classic, Schumann's song cycle Liederkreis, and sets it in a musical frame of his own devising: a short, astringent 'Praeludium' and four extended movements, the style hovering between pure homage and what the composer calls 'phantasmagorical collage'. Certainly sufficient to cause hackles to rise! But the result, entitled Fantasy-Pieces on the Heine 'Liederkreis' of Schumann is uniquely fascinating, haunting and increasingly rewarding the more one goes back to it.
Brief though it is, the 'Praeludium' is just enough to tell the ear that the performance of Liederkreis that follows isn't going to be the whole story. Holloway picks up magically on Schumann's ending, in a short movement, 'Half asleep' (what follows is, at times, intensely dream-like).
Then come an Adagio, a Scherzo and a finale – on one level, symphonic, on another, an intricate series of references and cross-references based on Schumann's songs (not all from Liederkreis). The manner drifts between masterful irony and fleeting moments of intense self-revelation. Liederkreis remains Liederkreis, and yet something profound and (in the wider sense) modern is added.
The Serenade in C is a kind of post-modern divertimento. Scored for the same forces as Schubert's Octet, it alternates, charmingly and teasingly, between sensuous Viennese cosiness, something closer to the salon Elgar, and delightful, end-of-the-pier vulgarity – though with a more acerbic harmonic colouring from time to time. Play a short extract to a musical friend and he/she might well date it before the First World War. But nothing is ever what it seems for very long; the disruptive subtlety of Fantasy-Pieces is here too, despite the seeming holiday feeling.
Splendid performances from the Nash Ensemble – colourful, precise and sensitive to Holloway's kaleidoscopic shifts in mood. The recordings are quite excellent: the change in perspective for the Schumann songs makes perfect aural sense.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Singer and pianist work together almost by instinct in thinking themselves into the very heart of these songs... Holzmair's plangent, very Viennese voice bespeaks the vulnerability that lies at the soul of Robert's Eusebius side, heard to mesmeric effect in the great, slower songs of Op 35, but he is just as capable of tramping the ways with Schumann when he is in his Florestan mood.... [Imogen Cooper's] playing throughout the programme is at once supportive of her partner and individual in itself. The recording is faultless” Gramophone Magazine

“Holzmair with his light, tenorish baritone proves a perfect poet in Dichterliebe and Imogen Cooper is an inspired accompanist....[In Liederkreis], too, Holzmair proves a masterly interpreter alert and intense but finely controlled....The sound throughout is impressive,” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ***

“I was transfixed by the sheer artistry... Rarely have I heard so sensitive, intelligent and gloriously musical a partnership... no one could have asked for more attentive, detailed expressions nor more complete harmony of feeling between singer and pianist” The Independent

“Ludlow has a beautiful bass-baritone voice and excellent diction. He sings these songs with intelligence and a fine sense of drama, well matched by Tong...Perhaps the best performance on this disc is the Fantasiestücke...The playing at the start of the second piece is particularly beautiful, the answering cello and violin phrases given with a lovely unforced eloquence, sensitively supported by the piano.” International Record Review

“The young ensemble...perform superbly. Schumann’s E flat Piano Quartet, every bit as wonderful as his Piano Quintet in that key, and rendered with a bubbling brilliance, gives place with a certain frisson to piano and baritone sonority for the earlier of the two Liederkreis song cycles, heart-touchingly eloquent.” Sunday Times, 30th January 2011 ***