Schubert: An eine Quelle D530 (Claudius)

“Goerne… and Schneider offer grave and solemn performances of Goethe's Mignon and Harper songs, before ending on a higher note, celebrating the eternal joy of love in 'Willkommen and Abschied'.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2009 ****

“Battered by Bryn Terfel dramatics, the ears cried out for a pure dose of lieder from a master of the craft. Matthias Goerne… seems to own a different shade of baritonal colour for every syllable Schubert wrote. The voice is sweet and serene, even at fff, and the shifts that Goerne applies to the changing of seasons and the fickleness of love are done with enviable delicacy. More reticent than Fischer-Dieskau or Thomas Quasthoff to bend a line for expressive emphasis, when Goerne takes a liberty the effect is breath stopping… T his is not an album to gorge at one go. Take it two songs a night before bedtime, and it might see you through to the end of recession.” Norman Lebrecht, Evening Standard CD of the Week

“Goerne used to record for Decca, but it apparently had no interest in his 12-volume Schubert compendium, so the less ruthlessly commercial Harmonia Mundi comes to the rescue, for which the France-based company deserves the highest praise. From a vocal point of view, few male singers, even Fischer-Dieskau, command such a rich palette of colours as Goerne does here…he goes where Dieskau never ventured: he includes two of Mignon's songs, Heiss' mich nicht reden and Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, as well as the Harper trilogy… In the middle Harper song, Mayrhofer's Nachtstück and Nähe des Geliebten (Nearness of the Beloved), Goerne approaches the sublime and captures perfectly the wry wit of Goethe's sly dig at water-nymphery, Der Fischer, in which the surprise encounter of an angler with a "moist woman" is wryly underlined by Schubert. Luxury support from Deutsch and Schneider sets the seal on an outstanding issue.” Sunday Times Classical CD of the Week

“This promises to be a landmark series, up there with Hans Hotter and Fischer-Dieskau.” The Observer

“Here elegy, fatalism and death-longing predominate and in such repertoire Goerne's mellow, darkly rounded timbre, expressive diction and care – rare in Lieder singers today – for a true, 'bound' line are well nigh ideal. Even at the most anguished fortissimo, his tone never grows harsh or hectoring. Perfectionism like Goerne's has inevitably provoked charges of over-calculation.
Some might protest at the ultra-slow tempo for Du bist die Ruh. Yet Goerne's beauty of tone and phrasing (founded on seemingly superhuman reserves of breath), and a rapt intensity that rises to spiritual radiance in the final verse are mesmerising. At a more conventional tempo, he sings An die Musik as a simple, sincere confession of faith, with affectionate touches of rubato (and how eloquently Helmut Deutsch's left hand duets with the voice). Elsewhere Goerne's unsentimental tenderness can illuminate little-known songs that seem ordinary on the printed page – Abschied von der Harfe, say, or the quasi-operatic lament Der Sänger amFelsen. He even appropriates, successfully, two of Mignon's songs, giving one of the most desolate and – in the central section – disturbed performances of Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt you will hear.
True to form, Goerne makes an uncommonly melancholy serenader in An die Laute and DesMädchens Liebeslauschen, which never smiles. Yet he can lighten up, as in the story-telling of DerFischer and Wie Ulfru fischt. Like Deutsch on the first disc, Eric Schneider fully matches Goerne in acumen and command of colour, not least in a performance of Nachtstück of mingled grandeur, mystery and compassionate gentleness.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Goerne's virtuoso vocal sculpting draws you into the inner landscape of each song, his warm, expressive baritone shaping detail often understated by lesser artists. This promises to be a landmark series, up there with Hans Hotter and Fischer-Dieskau.” The Guardian, 12th October 2008

'What riches are to be found here in a recital that is, by any yardstick, a profoundly satisfying one ... the musical marriage of the performers seems one made in heaven' (Gramophone)

“The pre-Romantic poets of Empfindsamkeit ('sensibility'), represented here by Hölty, Claudius and Stolberg, inspired a handful of famous Schubert settings alongside dozens of songs that are still too little known. Die Mutter Erde, for instance, written when the composer was suffering from the first symptoms of syphilis, is quintessentially Schubertian in its mingled grandeur, serenity and yearning; Stimme der Liebe, dating from 1816 but sounding 10 years later, is one of his most poignant and intense love songs (a reflection of his failed affair with Therese Grob?); An die Apfelbäume is a bel canto melody of delicious sensuous grace. Elsewhere we have what must be the jolliest song ever about death (Toten-gräberlied), a pair of solemnly archaic hymns, and charming Haydnesque settings of poems in that faintly risqué (and, to us, impossibly coy) vein beloved of the 18th century.
As ever, Wolfgang Holzmair, with his plangent, tenorish (and distinctly Viennese) timbre, is a highly sympathetic Schubertian, scrupulous in enunciation, always sensitive to mood and nuance yet never prone to exaggeration. Where darker, deeper voices make Death in Der Todund das Mädchen a solemn, hieratic figure, Holzmair intones Death's chant with a gentle beneficence.
The many songs of pathos or wistful longing – say, Der Leidende or the exquisite Seufzer – suit Holzmair to perfection. He brings an unforced variety to the successive verses of strophic settings like Abendlied (another littleknown gem), finds the vocal equivalent of a twinkle in the eye for Der Traum (marked to be sung 'flirtatiously'), and even compels you to listen in the potentially absurd ballad Die Nonne, in which a nun of fiery Latin temperament turns murderess. Holzmair understands, too, the virtue of simplicity in early Schubert.
Reservations? Well, these days Holzmair sounds a touch strained at high-lying climaxes; and while he can spin a true legato, his line can on occasion be slightly bumpy, as in an otherwise touching (and unusually reflective) Auf demWasser zu singen. But there is nothing to detract seriously from enjoyment of a shrewdly planned recital that begins in the grip of Death and ends with an exuberant affirmation of life's pleasures (Seligkeit). Ulrich Eisenlohr is a discerning partner, drawing an array of delicate, evocative sonorities from his 1820s fortepiano, including (in, for instance, An den Mond) a hazy con sordino (muted) resonance impossible to conjure on a modern grand. Naxos provide texts and translations via their website.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“As ever, Wolfgang Holzmair, with his plangent, tenorish (and distinctly Viennese) timbre, is a highly sympathetic Schubertian, scrupulous in enunciation, always sensitive to mood and nuance yet never prone to exaggeration. The many songs of pathos or wistful longing - say, Der Leidende or the exquisite Seufzer - suit Holzmair to perfection. Ulrich Eisenlohr is a discerning partner, drawing an array of delicate, evocative sonorities from his 1820s fortepiano.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2006