Wolf, H: Lebe wohl (No. 36 from Mörike-Lieder)

The American baritone Barry McDaniel was one of the outstanding singers of the post-war era. As a successful opera singer and Lieder interpreter, he enjoyed a long and eventful career, both in Germany and abroad. Despite numerous performances and many recordings for radio and television, he nonetheless remained largely unnoticed by the media, partly because his name almost vanished in the shadow of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who was five years his senior. Unjustly so, since the two singers were equals as artists, albeit with different characters. Today, Barry McDaniel is hardly mentioned in specialist literature and one searches in vain for CDs since, until now, recordings from radio archives have not been phonographically processed. However, Audite now presents a première double CD of Lieder sung by Barry McDaniel. These studio recordings from the archives of Radio Berlin-Brandenburg (formally Sender Freies Berlin) were made between 1963 and 1974 with Hertha Klust and Aribert Reimann as accompanists.

This selection of songs by Schubert, Schumann, Wolf, Duparc, Ravel and Debussy reveals diverse facets of McDaniel’s artistic personality. His interpretations are characterised by an interleaving of knowledge and naivety, feeling and craftsmanship, expression and impeccable singing. Apart from his immaculate technique, his accent-free German is particularly remarkable.

Barry McDaniel moved from the USA to Germany in 1953 in order to further his studies. He then gave his first song recitals, together with Hermann Reutter, and later began a career as an opera singer. In 1961 he was engaged at the newly re-opened Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he remained for thirty-seven years. At the same time, he gave guest performances at the Vienna Staatsoper, the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Frankfurt Opera and the Munich Opera Festival, as well as broadcasting for radio and television. In addition, Barry McDaniel gave numerous song recitals, for example in Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Hanover, Brunswick and Berlin, including, in the latter city, the first ever song recital at the newly built Philharmonie in 1963. Today, the 81-year-old baritone declares: “Whatever I sing, I have to believe in it.” That is exactly how these recordings sound.

This is the second volume of the first complete recording of the songs of Hugo Wolf. All the works are performed by internationally renowned lieder singers and were recorded live at the Oxford Lieder Festival. Sholto Kynoch is the founder and director of the festival and is in demand as a chamber musician and song accompanist.

Two of the world’s most seasoned Schubertians, both long associated with Wigmore Hall, come together for the next new release from Wigmore Hall Live.

Live from Wigmore Hall - 19 February 2008

This recording comprises 26 of the 53 lieder that Wolf wrote on the poems of Eduard Mörike, born just seven years after Schubert in 1804, but outliving the composer nearly five decades.

Reviewing the concert in Seen & Heard International stated that: “The partnership between Cooper and Holzmair is so close, it’s almost symbiotic”

“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 … I was transfixed by the sheer artistry.” (The Independent)

Wolfgang Holzmair is a native of Upper Austria, and the British pianist Imogen Cooper, whose training included a period in Vienna studying with Paul Badura-Skoda, Jörg Demus and Alfred Brendel.

On 12th August 1953, at the Salzburg Festival, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf gave a memorable concert entirely dedicated to Hugo Wolf’s Lieder. She was accompanied, at the piano, by Wilhelm Furtwängler. IDIS now has the pleasure to offer a new edition, of exceptional sound quality, of that unforgettable evening, which is unanimously considered one of the finest performances in the career of the great Austrian soprano. The many appreciators of Hugo Wolf’s music - and all those who, outside the German-speaking countries, still do not know it - will welcome this CD as an essential document to enter the rich and fascinating expressive world of one of greatest lied composers of all times.

Orfeo's Salzburg series finds its culmination in a group of songs by Hugo Wolf and Franz Schubert that Elisabeth Schwarzkopf sang between 1953 and 1963, with accompanists Wilhelm Furtwängler and Gerald Moore.

Schwarzkopf’s diction and the manner in which she moulds the text in Wolf’s Spanish and Italian Songbooks have remained a benchmark to the present day, and brought them to attention properly for the first time. She also turned Schubert songs such as Gretchen am Spinnrade into self-contained mini-dramas.