Strauss, R: Schlagende Herzen Op. 29 No. 2

"I thank my Almighty Creator for the gift and inspiration of the female voice." R. Strauss

Strauss displays a consistent ability to bring out the best in a singer, and soprano Gillian Keith - accompanied here by pianist Simon Lepper - amply showcases Straussʼ unique reverence for the female voice.

In song-writing, as in orchestral music, Richard Strauss hit his stride early. His range and confidence is displayed in this group of songs; as the selection shows, he wrote some superb examples in his teens, and by his mid-twenties was already an assured master of the Lied; mastery which continued to develop into old age.

Generations of singers have been inspired by Straussʼ devotion to song; from the dramatic, to the lyric, to the coloratura, Straussʼ songs offer something very special.

In this recital of specially chosen Lieder are many songs which have earned their place in the repertoire, along with less-often heard works such as Mädchenblumen and Drei Lieder der Ophelia, which compliment those more familiar and are at the heart of this recital.

One of Canadaʼs leading lyric sopranos, Gillian Keith made her Royal Opera Covent Garden debut as Zerbinetta in Straussʼ Ariadne auf Naxos, a role she has gone on to repeat with great success. A past winner of the prestigious Kathleen Ferrier Award, she has a natural affinity for Straussʼ music.

This is a unique recital of lieder by composers who were contemporaries of one another whose music is likely to appeal to the same music-lover. Alongside relatively familiar songs by Richard Strauss and Gabriel Fauré, from whence the CD takes its title, we are pleased to include rarely-heard examples from Reger, Pfitzner and Wolf-Ferrari. Sarah Maeder is a much-admired soprano who has made a special study of this repertoire, and she is excellently accompanied by the talented Gérard Wyss, to produce a recording that will be highly-prized by connoisseurs of this distinguished repertoire.

Irmgard Seefried’s interpretation of the Composer in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos is said to have inspired Strauss himself to exclaim that until then he had not known how good his Composer was. She was also one of the most sought-after concert singers and lieder recitalists of her age. Not released until now, the many recordings included in the present CD attest to the richness and variety of that palette even during the early years of her career. The earliest of these recordings are Peter Cornelius's Brautlieder from the heyday of the Romantic art song, settings in which the soprano's exemplary treatment of the words and the vocal line are fully in evidence.The affinities between this cycle of six songs and the traditional German folksong offer the singer - a native of Swabia - a welcome opportunity to colour her tone even further, an approach that is also found in her recordings of songs by Mozart, Brahms,Wolf and two lesser-known composers, Wilhelm Kienzl and Joseph Marx.This compilation of Irmgard Seefried's recordings from the first ten years of her career in Vienna additionally includes some of Strauss's most popular songs, songs such as Morgen and Allerseelen that make it clear why, as we noted above, their composer held the soprano in such high regard.

The recording conditions could hardly have been more dramatic, made in the bleak mid-war winter of 1942-3, lirico-spinto soprano Hilde Konetzni in a Romantic song programme with Josef Krips as her accompanist and mentor. Konetzni is best known as the Sieglinde in two complete recordings of the Valkyrie under Wilhelm Furtwängler; Krips had been banned from working by the Nazis, so his coaching activities had to be carried out underground, under a constant threat to his life.These private recordings were made by Hermann May, the then sound engineer of the Vienna State Opera, and can now be released on CD thanks to their careful restoration by the Eichinger recording studio in Vienna in collaboration with Gottfried Kraus. The result will delight more than just those interested in Josef Krips's legendary talent for carefully coaching singers, on account of the warmth and immediacy of the ensemble achieved by Konetzni and Krips.This is just as evident in the songs by lesser-known composers such as Robert Franz and Joseph Marx.The Gypsy Melodies by Antonín Dvorák are both the highpoint and the culmination of this recital, not just on account of the interpretative art they display, typical of the time, nor merely as a document of two artistic personalities. But as testament to a friendship that was sustained despite adversity.