Schubert: Fülle der Liebe D854 (F von Schlegel)

Two musical titans in the classical world, British tenor Ian Bostridge and Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, both major EMI Classics artists, are brought together once again in a 2CD compilation celebrating their great contribution and commitment to Schubert for the label. As well as featuring specially selected lieder and piano fragments from their critically acclaimed Bostridge / Andsnes Schubert Sonata and Lieder series, the album also includes five newly recorded lieder never previously released by Bostridge. Their partnership was described by The Times as "one of the most inspired of record-company matchmakings: the two musicians really do test and try each other at every turn, as well as being mutually supportive…” Firmly established in the opera house, concert hall and recital room, and much sought after internationally as one of the finest of his generation of tenors, Ian Bostridge is today one of the leading Schubert lieder interpreters, repertoire that he openly states as his first love. Ian’s passion for lieder dates back to early studies at his school in England. Ian explains: ‘I had a wonderful German teacher at my school who got me into German lieder and that has been the thing that has really made me a musician – the lieder.’

Lucia Popp was an absolute audience favourite for several decades. Besides her great operatic roles – first as a coloratura soprano, then in the lyric fach – she always maintained a large concert and lieder repertoire that demonstrated in equal degree her great musicality and charm.

At the Munich Opera Festival in 1984, Lucia Popp presented a combination of lesser-known songs of well-known composers in a programme that formed a musically colourful and harmonious whole. This live recording, made in the intimate rococo hall of the Cuvilliés Theatre, allows us to experience that concert once again.

Lucia Popp was partnered there by Irwin Gage, whose musical qualities matched her own, yet who refrained from placing himself in the foreground. With their opening selection of Schubert they were able to transfix the audience in such a manner that the ensuing group of Schoenberg’s early songs Op. 2 seemed to follow on quite naturally. In Strauss’s Ophelia Songs, Popp displayed her extraordinary ability to portray a stage character swiftly, yet in a manner wellrounded and accurate, by purely vocal means.

The last quarter of this song recital, also devoted to Strauss, was the most popular and was received with frenetic applause. These songs reached a magnificent climax in the encore 'Allerseelen'. This was followed by a return to Schubert with 'An Silvia'. It rounded off a dramatically conceived evening of German Romanticism, a superb example of how Popp could present her admirers with a performance deeply felt in its artistry, but never calculating or sentimental. It makes one regret all the more her all-too-early death.

Schubert set the poetry of over 115 writers to music. He selected poems from classical Greece, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, from eighteenth-century German authors, early Romantics, Biedermeier poets, and Heine. The Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition presents all Schubert’s Lieder, over 700 songs, grouped according to the poets who inspired him. Thanks to Bärenreiter’s Neue Schubert-Ausgabe (New Schubert Edition), Tübingen, which uses primary sources, the performers have been able to benefit from the most recent research of the editorial team. This disc is the fourth part of the Romantic Poets series. Volumes One, Two and Three are available on 8554797, 8557831 and 8557832.