Hanna-Elisabeth Müller writes of her new release: “A Lieder recital is sung speech. So it is my job as an interpreter on the song to...

Hanna-Elisabeth Müller writes of her new release: “A Lieder recital is sung speech. So it is my job as an interpreter on the song to lead those listeners speedily and simply into this sphere, to open the way for them into this quite different world. On this album are songs that I have grown into. Straight away Alban Berg with his “Seven Early Songs”, I definitely wanted to record them in their original version for piano, although I do sing the orchestral version as well these days. Then I searched with pianist Juliane Ruf – she is really on my wavelength – and we soon found Lieder from Richard Strauss. I am in my element with his music and it fits in well with Berg’s fin-de-siècle feeling. Then we targeted our search on songs that leave reality behind, and came upon songs with flowers as their theme. There is a lot of ambiguity in them. I believe the feelings that are portrayed, addressed, analyzed in these songs are absolutely contemporary feelings as well. Since they were composed decades have passed, there is much that we may express in different words today, as a singer, I translate that state into the present day. They are beautiful, wonderfully executed paintings of girls, miniatures on an imaginary wall, which speak directly to us.”