Schumann: Aus den hebräischen Gesängen, Op. 25 No. 15

The internationally renowned opera singer Franz Grundheber is engaged by all important opera houses from Paris to Barcelona, New York, and Hamburg to Vienna. His overwhelming performances of the most diverse characters have delighted audiences over past decades. On this CD the baritone proves himself to be a sensitive and expressive Lieder interpreter.

As the renowned Austrian opera administrator Ioan Holender said: “Franz Grundheber’s quality has influenced the history of the Vienna State Opera – and that’s not all...“

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.

The only piece in this collection originally composed for cello and piano is Op.102. Schumann’s first editions were accompanied by versions for violin or cello and these were just as excellent as the original.

This CD is devoted to music for violin and piano by Robert Schumann, and includes the first two sonatas, opus 105 in A minor and opus 121 in D minor, alongside four song arrangements. The performers are the German violinist Lionel Roth, a protégé of Anne-Sophie Mutter, and the Argentinean pianist José Gallardo.

Written in 1851, Robert Schumann’s first Violin Sonata in D minor was premiered by his sister Clara and the violinist Ferdinand David a year later. Schumann himself expressed a certain amount of displeasure with the work at the time, and claimed that he wrote the Sonata No 2 in D Minor to make up for his disappointment with the earlier work. Both pieces are now staples of the chamber music repertoire. Four beautiful song settings, three of which have been arranged by the artists themselves, make a unique addition to this disc. Linus Roth studied music at the Music Academies of Zurich and Munich during which time he received major support from Anne-Sophie Mutter and her Foundation. As a soloist he has performed with many of the greatest music ensembles around the world, including with the Orchestra of Stuttgart State Opera, Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Radio Orchestras of SWR and Berlin, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and the Vienna Chamber Philharmonic. Argentinean pianist José Gallardo has won many national and international awards, and appeared at many major music events including the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival, the Asiago Festival in Italy, and the Rheingau Music Festival.

Schumann’s passionate, hypersensitive nature makes him one of the great romantic German composers. He created a body of work that reveals, according to Gilles Cantagrel, "a world of dusk and twilight where reason topples into madness, of tragic nuptials, of sating yet wretched love affairs, of soul carnivals and noxious dreams and vistas." This inspired pair of artists is totally committed to sharing an offering of Schumann’s “lyrical poetry.”

The bicentenary of Robert Schumann sees Cascavelle issue a strategically important set of the key works. Packaged in a slim line box this 7 CD set is available at budget price and will be eagerly sought by the avid collector and keen music enthusiast alike.

The great American mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne celebrated her her 70th birthday in January 2004 and that year also marked 50 years since her professional debut.

Horne’s debut in 1954 was in in Los Angeles. That same year her name and voice was brought to many more people than could ever hear her in the opera house through the 1954 film Carmen Jones in which she sang the dubbed voice of Dorothy Dandridge. Her Covent Garden debut was as Marie in Wozzeck (sung in English at that time) in 1964 – she had made her San Francisco debut in 1960 with the same role. It was with Joan Sutherland that Marilyn Horne found the perfect vocal partner and their performances in the great bel canto operas by Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti took the opera world by storm in the 1960s and early 1970s.

By the time she retired in 1998, Marilyn Horne’s long and distinguished career embraced an enormous variety of operatic roles, as well as a wide variety of solo song ranging from Schubert, Schumann and Mahler through to modern American songs. Such a wide repertory was due to the sheer range of her voice and its remarkable flexibility, a voice that could sustain long lines of melody as well as negotiate the most florid vocal pyrotechnics.

Marilyn Horne participated in a number of complete opera recordings (among them classic recordings of Norma and Semiramide with Joan Sutherland) for Decca and also made ten recital programmes.

The complete recitals are now reissued in their entirety as a Collector Edition on 11 CDs and preserve the original sequence of music as presented on vinyl; the original LP cover art is reproduced for the CD sleeves.