Graceful phrasing and vernal freshness characterise this promising recital

Lovers of song in the know are watching, and listening to, Elizabeth Watts. This lovely album should let others in on the secret (OK, she has won a couple of major prizes so it’s already not that much of a secret). The voice is silvery and fresh. And with such a young voice these Lieder are imbued with a sense of first love, first loss. Roger Vignoles as ever is among the most perceptive of accompanists.

-- Gramophone [2/2009]



SCHUBERT Lieder • Elizabeth Watts (sop); Roger Vignoles (pn) • RCA 732932 (71:23 Text and Translation)


An den Mond. Suleika I. Im Abendrot. Sei mir gegrüsst. Die Forelle. Heimliches Lieben. Der Sänger am Felsen. Thekla: ein Geisterstimme. An die Sonne. Aus Diego Manzanares. Nacht und Träume. Frühlingsglaube. Die Blumensprache. Nähe des Geliebten. An die Nachtigall. Liane. Des Mädchens Klage. Nachtviolen. Marie. Lambertine. Die Männer sind méchant


Here is a new release—though not her debut album—from English soprano Elizabeth Watts, who is a member of the BBC Radio 3’s “New Generation Artists” program. And what an absolutely ravishing recording it is.


Watts displayed an early interest in and talent for singing as a chorister at Norwich Cathedral, but initially pursued a more pragmatic course of study in archaeology at Sheffield University. In 2002, however, she won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music Britten International Opera School, where she studied with Lillian Watson and won several prizes, chief among which were the Kathleen Ferrier Prize in 2006 and the MIDEM Outstanding Young Artist Award in 2007. She has since been active on the British opera stage in roles that have included Barbarina in The Marriage of Figaro and Papagena in The Magic Flute.


Watts’s voice, at this stage of her career, strikes me as being an ideal instrument for Schubert’s songs, calling to mind the intensely focused clarity and laser-like delivery of Elly Ameling in her four-disc Schubert collection with pianists Dalton Baldwin and Rudolf Jensen on Philips. Watts’s voice, though, has a bit more heft to it, not having quite the soubrette-like quality that makes Ameling’s voice so perfectly suited to the German Lied and French mélodie repertoire, but less so to the heavier operatic dramatic soprano roles. Watts, I think, as her voice develops and becomes weightier still, will be able to widen her own repertoire to include some of the heavier Italian opera roles of Verdi and perhaps even Puccini. It’s exciting to hear another great operatic stage soprano in the making.


Her Schubert recital is a well-chosen mix of the familiar— An den Mond, Im Abendrot , and Die Forelle —and less frequently heard songs such as Aus “Diego Manzanares, Lambertine , and Die Männer sind méchant . You can hear these songs, of course, in Graham Johnson’s comprehensive Schubert collection, assuming you have acquired every one of them. Aus Diego Manzanares , to a poem by Franz Xaver von Schlechta, appears in Volume 17 sung by Lucia Popp; Lambertine , to a poem by Josef Ludwig Stoll, is sung by Arleen Auger in Volume 9; and Die Männer sind méchant , to a poem by Johann Gabriel Seidl, appears in Volume 13, sung by Marie McLaughlin. In each case, however, comparing them side by side with Watts, I preferred Watts, both for the crystalline purity of her voice and for her highly musical phrasing and sensitive shading of the words.


Roger Vignoles has perhaps not lived and breathed Schubert quite to the extent that Graham Johnson has, nor made his mark almost exclusively as a partner in song; but Vignoles’s wider-ranging reach into chamber music and 20th-century repertoire informs his Schubert with a hindsight that can at times impart a feeling to these songs that transcends their time and place.


As densely packed with Schubert Lieder recitals as the current catalog is, it calls to mind Carl Sagan’s “billions and billions of stars.” So any new addition would have to shine brightly indeed to warrant special notice; and this, one, in my opinion, does. Very strongly recommended.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Drawn from the worldwide catalog holdings of Sony Classical, which includes both the Columbia/CBS and RCA Victor label imprints, the SONY Classical Originals, SONY Classical Masters Singles and Box Sets, and SONY Opera House series offer an extensive selection of highly desirable and collectible EU (Germany) pressed import editions, smartly designed and graphically pleasing, featuring the most sought-after recordings by the world's preeminent, legendary artists both past and present, with many titles newly re-mastered in 24bit High Resolution Audio.

Pianist Rudolf Serkin is often recalled as one of the 20th century’s most commanding performers of Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. But he was always a masterful Schubertian as well. After the war, he became American Columbia’s premier pianist in the Classic-Romantic repertoire. This 5-CD box gathers his recordings of the last two Schubert Sonatas – two different ones of the great B flat, D 960: one from 1975 and a live 1977 performance from Carnegie Hall – as well as the Impromptus, Moments musicaux, the “Trout” Quintet (from the Marlboro Festival with “an enthusiastic group that rises to the work’s challenges and Serkin’s inspired promptings” – AllMusic.com) & the exquisite late chamber songs “Auf dem Strom” and “Der Hirt auf dem Felsen”, in which he is joined by soprano Benita Valente, horn Myron Bloom and clarinet Harold Wright.

SCHUBERT: STRING QUARTETS D 81

SCHUBERT: WANDERER FANTASY, ET

Strong and compelling performances with plenty of momentum, yet bringing out the 'smiles through tears' aspect of the more lyrical music.

The alternative (ultimately) complete account of Schubert's keyboard duets is that by Isabel Beyer and Harvey Dagul for Four Hands Music; JM-C reviewed their first volume some time ago (10/89) and the next two issues came my way more recently (7/93 and 6/94). JM-C found ''taste and musicality'' in their performances, although he queried some vigorous attack, while I was even more enthusiastic, referring to ''perceptive refinement'' and ''splendid unanimity''. The first thing one notices about this new issue is the very clear and firm sound; Tal and Groethuysen explain that they have used a Fazioli Model 308 piano and thank their recording team for its ''exceptional abilities''. Indeed, an impressive sound comes from this big instrument, which the artists consider necessary to re-create the ''symphonic ambitions'' and ''extremes'' of the music, although it is unlike anything Schubert could have heard, and they play with a fine tonal and dynamic range which allows intimacy as well as power. The treble is bright yet not glaring, as we hear in the closing page of the Overture. The recording is fairly reverberant but produces a satisfying aural picture.

The performances are strong and compelling, with plenty of momentum, yet flexible enough to avoid the slightly military effect that Beyer and Dagul occasionally impart. I like the simplicity that Tal and Groethuysen bring to the little theme of the Herold Variations, and indeed the whole piece is less clouded than we might anticipate in view of its late date of 1827, having Schwung and playfulness. This performance presents a very Viennese side of the composer that the music warrants. The Rondo also has a winning galanterie, and the players know that Allegretto here applies to style as well as tempo. Indeed, they do full justice to these two pieces and others like them. Incidentally, the Six Polonaises are not otherwise currently available on disc.

The Fantasie is Schubert's best-known keyboard duet and, of course, inhabits a more private world in which despair features strongly. I wondered what Tal and Groethuysen would do with this great work and was not disappointed. Their basic tempo is a genuine Allegro molto moderato, and they know how to make transitions from one mood to the next, as when approaching the doom-laden F sharp minor section at 4'55''. Furthermore, they rightly bring out the 'smiles through tears' aspect of the more lyrical music, do not hurry the scherzo (which is consequently all the stronger) and shape the fugue finely. In other words, they are very impressive, and as I listened to their performance I was reminded of the one by Louis Lortie and Helene Mercier which I reviewed last year, and called magisterial. Strongly recommended

-- Christopher Headington, Gramophone [9/1994]

The series of Schubert recordings by the Tal and Groethuysen Duo received the 1998 Cannes Classical Music Award for "Best Special Edition."

A warm welcome back to the catalogue for one of the all-time great cello discs. The original Columbia LP by Leonard Rose and Leonid Hambro was recorded in New York City on May 12-13, 1955. Sony's new remastering reduces any slight astringency in higher cello registers to insignificant levels, but the slightly enclosed feel of the studio acoustic persists. Schubert's "Arpeggione" Sonata sounds crystalline and pure in its every utterance. Among vintage recordings, only Pierre Fournier's 1968 account with Pierre Fonda on DG brings similarly elegant restraint and musical understanding, but Rose imparts a sense of zest and spontaneity to the piece, suggesting the delight of fresh discovery. Superlatively played throughout, the finale especially brings a display of amazing bravura, as in the clean-cut precision of Rose's string-crossing in the flighty rondo, and in arpeggio writing high above the staff during the closing pages. The first-movement exposition repeat was omitted to accommodate the performance on a single LP side.

The immaculately-performed fillers, cello sonatas by Boccherini (the famous one in A major) and Sammartini, filled the B side of the original LP. As Yo-Yo Ma comments in his introduction, "Mr. Rose set the standard for integrity in artistry...if there is an ideal sound for the cello, he had it...And I know he was particularly proud of this recording." An outstanding reissue.

--Michael Jameson, ClassicsToday.com

The truthfulness of Staier's playing is seconded by Pregardien's command of line and phrase — a superb recital, faultlessly recorded.

This is the third in what is turning out to be a magnificent series of Lieder recordings by this discerning pair (its predecessors were reviewed in 12/92 and 1/94). Their account of Dichterliebe goes straight to the top of my recommendations for the cycle. In a deeply poignant reading, they expose, even more than do the exemplary Schreier and Eschenbach, the wounded pain of the protagonist, and the participation of a fortepiano gives the performance an intimacy that a grand piano cannot match. The simple beauty of the singing in the early songs is rightly countermanded by the darker, more dramatic tone and manner in "Im Rhein" and "Ich grolle nicht", with the top A on "Herzen" piercing, well, to the heart. These in turn give way to the plaintive sorrow of "Und wilssten's die Blumen", the Innigkeit of "Hör ich das Liedchen", the delicately etched line and feeling of "Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen", and the numbed emptiness, so Schreier-like, of "Ich hab im Traum geweinet".

The draining of all passion is summed up in the repeated final line of the penultimate song, "Zerfliesst wie alte Schaum", with the fortepiano's afterthought so translucently played by Staier, whose postlude to the whole cycle, restrained and understated though it is, speaks volumes of the sadness experienced throughout. The truthfulness of the interpretation is seconded by the tenor's command of line and phrase, the player's close rapport with his partner. In short I cannot imagine the work being better enacted.

This intelligently planned programme then offers more Heine in the shape of settings by Mendelssohn and Schubert. The less demanding (for performers and listeners) Mendelssohn group allows an emotional respite between the soulful Schumann and the searing Schubert. Mendelssohn's setting of Allnächtlich im Träume shows him so much less aware of the song's meaning than is Schumann, but in lyrical impulse as in Morgengruss, the ever-welcome Auf Flügeln des Gesanges and Gruss he is a match for anyone, especially when these pieces are sung and played with such alert responses as here by these artists. Their lightness in Neue Liebe, one of the composer's famous scherzos, is exhilarating.

The five towering songs from Schwanengesang call for quite different attributes. At once, in the demanding "Der Atlas", Pregardien and Staier prove equal to the challenge, the anger and defiance arrestingly expressed. That extraordinary pair of anguished songs, "1 hr Bild" and "Die Stadt", are given their full measure of grief (and note the light, diaphanous evocation of the water on the forte-piano in "Die Stadt") with a gentle, rather fast (too fast?) "Das Fischermadchen" in between. Pregardien's silver-voiced sorrowing and communing in "Am Meer" is just right, the verbal accents present but, as throughout, never overdone. And so on to that Everest of a song, "Der Doppelgänger" and a searing performance, with Schreier again as model but never aped, a stark, nerve-tingling interpretation that proves a fitting climax to a superb recital, faultlessly recorded.

-- Gramophone [12/1994]

SCHUBERT: SYMPHONY NO 9 GREAT

SCHUBERT: SYMPHONIES NO 5 & 6

SCHUBERT: QUINTET IN C, RONDO

MARLBORO FEST 40TH ANNIVERSARY

SCHUBERT: 12 DEUTSCHE, RONDO,

SCHUBERT: DIE SCHONE MULLERIN