+bonus DVD interviews with Goerne and Metzmacher
Matthias Goerne has received worldwide praise for his warm, fluid baritone and his profound interpretations. Highly respected as a Lieder singer, he is a frequent guest at renowned festivals and prestigious venues like the New York Carnegie Hall and London Wigmore Hall. Famous pianists such as Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Leif Ove Andsnes, Alfred Brendel, Christoph Eschenbach and Elisabeth Leonskaja are among his musical partners. From 2008 to 2011, Matthias Goerne will perform and record the most beautiful songs by Franz Schubert on eleven CDs for Harmonia Mundi, and important venues including the Wigmore Hall will present the complete series of eleven Schubert recitals with Matthias Goerne in the coming seasons.
"It's a journey any singer would leap at: Matthias Goerne is travelling through Schubert's songs with a new recording contract and a series of live recital bookings as far as the eye can see. It's invaluable for a singer in mid-career. " The Times
“In volume four of Goerne’s Schubert edition, the song selection is still skewed towards the introspective and forlorn. Those moods are perfect for Goerne’s dark baritone...and, always, the elegantly responsive piano of Ingo Metzmacher, better known as a conductor. The pair seem very simpatico.” The Times, 28th November 2009 ****
“Although there are moments when the angst within Schubert's responses to Mayrhofer and the vanished gods could be more biting, Goerne has the measure of the noble declamation of these unique songs. When it comes to the Goethe settings, Goerne excels at recreating the uncanny metaphysical stillness of 'Meeresstille', and of the D224 'Wandrers Nachtlied'. And his final Mayrhofer 'Abschied', taken as slowly as is humanly possible, becomes a valediction of wide spaces and eloquent silences.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2010 ****
“This is a simply unmissable recital, and for two prime reasons - the grave beauty of its programme and the corresponding beauty of the singer's voice. These songs of yearning, essentially spiritual, are very personal, and the imagination never shuts down. The pianist, Ingo Metzmacher, is fully responsive to this, and the recorded sound, of both voice and piano, is warm and vivid.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2010
“The two selections from Heliopolis telescope intimate, personal dramas and larger public spectacle to bewitching effect, Goerne’s lightly burnished baritone liquescently surging and seething against the pointed accompaniment of Ingo Metzmacher...Throughout, Goerne and Metzmacher suffuse these songs with a dark, yearning poetry to discreetly powerful and wholly persuasive effect.” Michael Quinn, bbc.co.uk, 18th December 2009
Gramophone Awards 2010
Gramophone Magazine
