Brahms: Vergebliches Ständchen, Op. 84 No. 4

“From Roger Vignoles's first light-filled notes in 'Bei mir sind meine Gedanken', with Bernada Fink's smiling, wide-eyed voice, these performers make it sound as though the ink is still wet on Brahms's manuscripts. The real skill of Fink and Vignoles is to capture that fusion of physical and emotional movement within a song - and to recreate it with real spontaneity.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2007 ****

“'Bei dir sind meine Gedanken', one of Brahms's happiest songs, makes an inviting aperitif. Buoyed by the evanescent shimmer of Roger Vignoles's accompaniment, Bernarda Fink is all confiding eagerness, phrasing deftly and gracefully and showing a natural feeling for Brahmsian rubato. One would expect Fink's warm, luminous mezzo, flecked by darker, deeper tints, to be near ideal for, say, the nostalgia of 'Alte Liebe' or the many songs of elegiac loss and heartbreak, all touchingly done here. But having thought of her as an essentially 'serious' singer, dignified, eloquent, the vivacity and 'face' she brings to 'Bei dir sind meine Gedanken' and other lighter songs is sheer delight. 'Ständchen', here more sunlit than moonlit, is charmingly characterised, with an affectionate caress on the dreaming girl's 'Vergiss nicht mein'. Fink is playfully coquettish without archness in the delicious 'Spanisches Lied', and sings 'Vergebliches Ständchen' with an outgoing boldness and witty touches of timing – and the tender lingering on the penultimate 'Mein Knab' suggests that the boy's luck may soon be about to change.
Other singers have brought a more intense yearning to 'Die Mainacht' and found greater mystery amid the slumberous balm of 'Feldeinsamkeit'.
But Fink's flowing performances, sensitively shaped and inflected, are never less than satisfying. It is good to be reminded, too, that, for all its melancholy, 'Die Mainacht' is also a song of spring, suffused by warm major-key harmonies, with a hint of excited anticipation at the line 'Wann, o lächelndes Bild'. On the face of it, Fink's lyric mezzo would seem to be on the light side for 'Von ewiger Liebe'. But with Vignoles imaginatively 'orchestrating' the keyboard part, she gives a finely graded, deeply moving performance, vividly contrasting the contained passion of the boy's words with the girl's gentle candour. The glowing climactic avowal of eternal love is truly overwhelming, setting the seal on a Brahms recital of rare distinction.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“For all the tragic, premature loss last year of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Argentinian Bernarda Fink is just one of a golden generation of mezzos vying for the mantle of Janet Baker. One of the most versatile, as at ease in Baroque repertoire as in music from Handel and Mozart to Schumann, Fink's rich, warm voice boasts the perfect blend of colour and clarity for this selection of 31 songs from the almost 200 Brahms wrote. Her musical intelligence combines with the sensitivity of Roger Vignoles to capture the folk-song spirit behind their urbane polish.” The Observer

“Listening to these Brahms songs culled from BBC broadcasts one realises just why Dame Janet's reputation continues to remain so high and why so many of her successors don't quite match her standards. To every song here, familiar or unfamiliar, she brings her special ability of making it her own and reaching to its heart. It's an almost uncanny gift, and not one easy to explain, but it makes every song in this programme momentous. Wondrous is the sustained half-voice with which she invests Nachtwandler with its intimate, sad feeling.
Then there's the outpouring of joy that is Meine Liebe ist grün to which she brings the most lustrous tone and an outgoing manner, and finally the gentle sense of fun, never overdone, which she brings to the very familiar VergeblichesStändchen.
If Brahms had written no other songs than Feldeinsamkeit, Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nacht and Von ewiger Liebe, he would surely be hailed as a great Lieder composer. Baker obviously understands their astonishing high quality. The first is sung, as it should be, with a kind of inner wonder, each amazing line given its full due. In the second, a Liebestod avant la lettre, she sings with the proper impassioned feeling, while the last, a happier statement of eternal love, is sung with the rugged conviction that always showed the singer at her very best.
Lush and Hamburger, especially the latter, are fully cognisant of what to do with Brahms's intricate writing for the piano. The sound is admirable, catching early Baker in full flow.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“This is an important disc and one that will give great pleasure since it contains so much fine and deeply committed singing. It’s certainly a mandatory purchase for all admirers of Brahms’s lieder or of Dame Janet Baker.” MusicWeb International

“what singing: what a voice, what beauty of line, variety of colour, incisive diction and unforced mastery of the whole difficult art of Lieder…the disc is a feast.” The Times