“If all his compositions were to be destroyed except for two, I would say: rescue the last two symphonies.” Such were Antonín Dvořák’s words about Schubert in 1894, and such is the attitude of many today. While Schubert’s six earlier symphonies were esteemed, his last two are known as works of immense beauty and complexity.

Constantin Silvestri (1913-1969) was a Romanian conductor, pianist and composer who was already playing the piano in public at the age of 10. At the age of 16, he won the George Enescu Prize, presented to him by the composer himself. Enescu, who very much admired Silvestri, is believed to have said: "We want Silvestri to be able to do everything we expect of him - and that's a lot". Silvestri was a very humorous man; at the same time, however, very serious and critical; a non-conformist. He was inventive, with complex interests and a difficult nature. Owing to political changes in Romania and rivalry between several colleagues, follow-up performances of "Oedipus" were abruptly cancelled, as were other concerts of his in Romania. Silvestri decided to leave his homeland and eventually settled in England. He successfully performed with many renowned orchestras, and led the rather provincial British Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra to worldwide fame. Nevertheless, in parallel with the prestige attached to being an orchestral conductor, Silvestri (a brilliant improviser) also devoted his time to playing the piano and to compositions for this very personal instrument, to which he entrusted his most secret thoughts colored by his own subjectivity. It is a great credit to the pianist Luiza Borac to be presenting here to the public the first recordings and arrangements of Silvestri's complete piano works.

It was the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler who first gave Gottlob Frick the nickname "Der schwärzeste Bass". This accolade has been picked up time and again, gone through various manifestations, and become a sort of trademark of the German bass Gottlob Frick. That said, the attribute "black" is often applied to define the vocal range of a basso profundo's ability to produce sonorous deep notes. However, the definition of "black bass" means far more than that: it applies primarily to the deep, dark timbre, the rich and sonorous sound and the lasting flexibility of the voice even in the deep registers, paired with strength, momentum, natural resonance and abundant expression in the entire vocal range. "If you have ever heard the timbre of Gottlob Frick's voice, you will never forget it," as the German singing expert Jürgen Kesting accurately observed in his standard reference work "Die großen Sänger". Gottlob Frick is seen rightly therefore as the incarnation of the black bass. He is a German bass who, thanks to the many sound recordings he left us documenting his sonorous, unusually beautiful and fluently melodic singing, enjoys a popularity to this day that is probably unparalleled in this vocal register. One of the reasons the internationally renowned critic John B. Steane advanced to justify his inclusion of Gottlob Frick in his list of 100 most important singers in "Opera Now" is encapsulated in this fitting characterisation: "When it comes to the Wagnerian basso profundo, the only name in recent times that matters" – by which he means the 1940s to 1980s – "is that of Gottlob Frick: a tower of strength in the strongest ensemble and one of the greatest basses of all time. His voice is steady despite its powerful capacity, supple and splendid. Frick's two-and-a-half-octave bass is remarkably well trained and remains constant through its entire spectrum. He has a strong sense of rhythm and he can sing both legato and staccato in exemplary manner, without depriving his listeners of that rich timbre of his."

Classical Music

Classical Music

Includes suite(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Baroque and Blue. Soloists: Roger Goldberg, Rainer Gepp, Andrè Schubert, Christiane Meininger.

Conductor Ferdinand Leitner (1912-96), learning his trade from masters like Walter, Busch, Richter and Karl Muck (as rehearsal pianist at Bayreuth), gained the experience that lead to his being dubbed the "singers' conductor" by all who worked with him during a long and lustrous career marked by his tenure as Zurich Opera music director (1969-84) and some 300 commercial recordings. The 1970's-80's Bayreuth stalwart, bass-baritone Franz Mazura as Tamerlano and famed American lyric soprano Helen Donath as Asteria headline this 1966 Leitner-led performance of Handel's Tamerlano.

Yvonne Lefébure (1900-1986) was one of the most important French pianists and piano teachers of the 20th century. From a very young age she demonstrated real musical talent. When she was only 6 years old she studied the piano with Marguerite Long (1874-1966), initially in a private school, known as the Conservatoire Femina-Musica, then in Marguerite Long’s preparatory classes for the Conservatory. Yvonne Lefébure gave her first recital aged 12. Her earliest concert performances contained demanding works such as the B minor Piano Sonata by Franz Liszt or Robert Schumann’s Etudes symphoniques. Ultimately this gifted pianist took lessons with Alfred Cortot (1877-1962), one of the most important and indeed most influential personalities of musical life in the 20th century. Her most important studies with Cortot took place in his conservatory classes for advanced students, a group she joined in 1911 and from which she was awarded a first prize in 1912. Yvonne Lefébure had further private lessons with Cortot particularly in the period 1919-1939, when she was one of the most important teachers at the Ecole Normale de Musique. Later she went on to lead a masterclass at the Ecole Normale de Musique. From 1952 to 1967 she was Professor at the Paris Conservatory. Yvonne Lefébure was an outstanding soloist, chamber musician and concert solo artiste: by listening to this album listeners can get an impression of her talent for themselves.

REVIEW:

Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations and Sonatas 30-31 were recorded 1955-56 in decent monaural sound. The Diabelli is a fine, forceful reading in one long band (each variation is not tracked). The sonatas are beautifully rendered and show a pianist of discriminating taste and maturity. They also show Lefebure to possess a technical mastery that places her at the forefront among artists of her generation.

Mozart’s Violin Sonata in G with violinist Jeanne Gautier, and Beethoven’s Sonata 32 and Sonata 8 are decent enough, though no reason is given why we are left with only the first movement of the Pathetique Sonata.

The Mozart Piano Concerto 20 with the Berlin Philharmonic under Furtwangler is a pleasant surprise, though the strings are a bit glassy. Bach’s Piano Concerto in D minor along with some organ pieces transcribed by Liszt is the heart of disc 3. The concerto is effectively conducted by Fernand Oubradous, and Lefebure performs with depth and soul. The Liszt transcription of the Fugue in A minor S 543 is especially impressive.

Music by French composers constitutes the bulk of disc 4. Ravel’s Violin Sonata in G with Jeanne Gautier is handled with delicacy and humor, and Debussy’s rarely heard ballet Box of Toys allows Lefebure to handle the subtleties of the narrative with a special joy (it is heard here with French narration). The Dukas Rameau Variations and Roussel Three Pieces, Op. 49, are treasures of French insouciance coupled with elegance.

Very non-French is the single Chopin Mazurka that closes the disc. Pierre Dervaux gets off to a somewhat clumsy start with the French Radio Orchestra in Schumann’s Piano Concerto but rapidly improves to a stunningly warm and rapturous traversal. Mozart’s Concerto 20 contrasts most positively with Furtwängler’s glassy-sounding Berlin account.

-- American Record Guide

"Essentially, in the incredible ease and naturalness of his pianism, in the unassuming simplicity and absorption of the man, Backhaus was much the same artist and personality then. And he was far from unknown. Even before he won the Rubinstein Prize in 1905, Backhaus was internationally celebrated as a prodigious virtuoso. [...] Backhaus never failed to win a succès d'estime among professional musicians. They always knew his qualities, always marveled at his instrumental perfection, his titanic mastery that scorned every complexity, his unsurpassed freedom and endurance. There was never a time when Backhaus could not toss off any or all of the Chopin études or the Brahms-Paganini variations with an imperturbable calm, an implacable security that left one open-mouthed. Not everyone, for only the pianists really knew what was happening before their eyes and ears, knew how to measure such achievement. There they all sat, in breathless astonishment and envy and despair. [...] Backhaus was a shy, unaffected, recessive personality whose sensational capacities were so unsensationally projected that lay audiences remained totally unconscious of his fabulous accomplishments." (Gerhard Melchert)

REVIEW:

This 10-CD box brings us not only concert recordings of works closely associated with him but also early piano roll and studio recordings, including the first complete recording of the Chopin Etudes and a variety of other short pieces.

Backhaus's technique has been praised by many critics, but his scintillating virtuosity in the shorter pieces on CDs 1 and 2 nevertheless came as a revelation to someone who mainly knows him from his later years. These are technical display pieces, and Backhaus plays them to the hilt.

The most impressive piano rolls are of two Liszt pieces (La Leggierezza and a Mendelssohn paraphrase) and of a very difficult arrangement of a Delibes waltz by Dohnanyi. The sparkling virtuosity here is breathtaking.

CD 3 has the 24 Chopin Etudes. They have been reissued repeatedly, but this was a nice opportunity to hear them again. They remain one of the best recordings of these challenging pieces, and the sound is quite good. Backhaus's seemingly effortless technical mastery without musical superficiality is spellbinding. He was the rare German pianist who excelled in Chopin.

The Beethoven sonatas on discs 6-8 come from two recitals: Carnegie Hall, 1954 (8, 25, 17, 26, 32), with four encores, and Carnegie Hall, 1956 (5, 14, 29), with four different encores.  The performances have all the hallmark qualities of Backhaus: They are unfussy, straightforward, and totally convincing.

Turning now to the major concertos, there are two recordings here of Beethoven's Fourth, one with the New York Philharmonic under Guido Cantelli (Carnegie Hall, 1956) and the other with the Suisse Romande under Ferenc Fricsay (Montreux, 1961). They are almost identical in their timing. The sound of the Cantelli recording is boxy, and piano and orchestra are tightly integrated. With Fricsay the sound is better, but the piano is more prominent, drawing attention to the soloist. Backhaus's well-nigh definitive interpretation exhibits superb phrasing, articulation, and dynamics, rhythmic precision, virtuosity without showiness, little rubato, and close coordination with the orchestra.

Not only has this collection been largely cobbled together from previous releases, but CDs 9 and 10 each have less than 40 minutes of music, so there could have been additional recordings of this splendid artist. I already mentioned one omission of information. Some Beethoven sonatas have numbers in the booklet, but others don't. Here a date is duplicated; there a track number is wrong. I wonder how reliable the dates are (see Mozart concerto above). But the booklet essay by Gerhard Melchert is good and includes photographs of the artist at different stages in his career as well as reproductions of newspaper articles and of personal notes or dedications from Brahms (when Backhaus was 10), Arthur Nikisch, Moriz Rosenthal, and Rachmaninoff.

. It struck me that Rachmaninoff and Backhaus have a lot in common. They had a superlative technique; they played serious major works as well as small showpieces (not Backhaus in his later years); their playing was unmannered and unsentimental, brilliant but never superficial; they played hardly any chamber music; they did not teach; and they were very private individuals (especially Backhaus, about whose private life little is known). There is a famous anecdote about Rachmaninoff who, when asked who he thought were the great living pianists, replied, "Well, there is Josef Hofmann and there is myself" and then fell silent. He should have added Backhaus.

-- American Record Guide (Bruno Repp)

Classical Music

Chopin: Etudes

Schubert: Piano Quintet In A Major, "Trout" / Notturno

Haydn, M.: Missa Sanctae Ursulae / Mozart, W.A.: Ave Verum C

A release celebrating the centennial of the birth of German soprano Elfride Trotschel. Songs and arias by Schubert, Schumann and Brahms, among others. Ms. Trotschel not only had exceptional vocal and acting ability; she truly lived her roles, transforming into one of many fragile female figures, whether Rusalka, Tatyana, Mimi or Butterfly, suffering and perishing just as they did. 'She sang what she felt,' as Professor Reinhard Ulbricht, Staatskapelle leader for many years, describes it.

Bach: Symphonies / Harpsichord Concerto

Classical Music

Classical Music

Light and Darkness Religious inspiration: Franz Liszt´s religious compositions for piano solo. Interpreted by Martin Filjak. One of the most exciting artists to emerge in recent years, Martina Filjak is garnering international praise for her poetic passion and technical mastery at the keyboard. She came to international attention by winning the Gold Medal, the 1st prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 2009. During the past seasons she has performed with esteemed orchestras that include the Cleveland Orchestra, the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Barcelona and the Japan Century Orchestra. Filjak’s most recent conductor collaborations include Michael Schønwandt, Heinrich Schiff, Theodor Guschlbauer, JoAnn Falletta, Alexander Shelley, Markus Poschner, Sebastian Lang-Lessing, Josep Caballé-Domenech, Tito Munoz, Carlos Miguel Preto und Stefan Sanderling. Based in Berlin, Martina Filjak speaks seven languages. Fortunately, for an active performer, she loves to travel.

“You don’t need a teacher; what you need is an audience.” Those were the words of the great pianist and teacher Alfred Cortot, after the young Rudolf Firkušný had auditioned for him in Paris. Born in southern Moravia in 1912, Firkušný and his mother moved to Brünn after the death of his father. The boy’s musical ability was already in evidence at the domestic piano, where he enthusiastically played by ear tunes that he had heard. A friend of the family accordingly recommended him to the local conservatory, whose teachers included Leoš Janácek. Firkušný’s relationship to Janácek and his works would do much to shape his international career. Janácek concentrated principally on music theory and composition. His career as a concert pianist began in London in 1933 and he was soon playing in the great centres of music across Europe. He travelled to New York in 1938 and went on to tour North and South America. The German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939 prompted him to take refuge in Paris, from where he travelled to the USA by way of Portugal in 1940. The persecution and expulsion of Jews from large parts of Europe resulted in a tremendous enrichment of American cultural life by Jewish émigrés. Under the direction of Erich Leinsdorf, the Metropolitan Opera soon assembled a Wagner ensemble of world-class singers; conductors like William Steinberg and George Szell placed their stamp upon orchestras with new repertoire, and the concert halls opened their doors to European soloists. A celebrated concert of 1941 in New York’s Town Hall gave Rudolf Firkušný his own opening to a successful career in the New World. This was further enhanced by his grand tour of South America in 1943 and showed no sign of abating when he returned to his native Czechoslovakia after the end of the war.



REVIEW:

Really special are the violin sonatas op. 120 Nos. 1 & 2 in the version for viola and piano, with violist William Primrose clearly dominating the interpretations. The various piano pieces are technically excellent. A highlight is the very sensitively played sonata by César Franck with the Vienna-born violinist Erica Morini, an artist who formed an ideal duo with Firkusny. Their performances of the Beethoven sonatas in this collection are excellent too. This box also contains only one of Beethoven’s concertos, the Fifth, in a grandiose, energetic and lean interpretation. Firkusny (1912-1994) plays brilliantly and with the greatest precision. But the superiority of the performance is ultimately due to the perfect collaboration between Firkusny and the conductor William Steinberg, who allows the Pittsburgh Symphony to play just as transparently and precisely with a springy, slender sound. Firkusny plays the Piano Sonatas No. 8 (Pathétique), 14 (Moonlight), 21 (Waldstein) with the greatest clarity and attention to detail, with little pedal, and it is certainly not bad to hear these works sometimes so objectively and yet excitingly. Profil’s collection also includes more or less inspired solo recordings of works by Schumann, Schubert, Mozart and Debussy, a very good Piano Sonata in B minor by Chopin, rich in details and sensitively played, as well as Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition played with bravura.

Really special are the violin sonatas op. 120 Nos. 1 & 2 in the version for viola and piano, with violist William Primrose clearly dominating the interpretations. The various piano pieces are technically excellent.

Another highlight is the very sensitively played sonata by César Franck with the Vienna-born violinist Erica Morini, an artist who formed an ideal duo with Firkusny. Their performances of the Beethoven sonatas in this collection are excellent too.

Firkusny's playing in the Beethoven Fifth is brilliant, exhibiting the greatest precision. But the superiority of the performance is ultimately due to the perfect collaboration between Firkusny and the conductor William Steinberg, who allows the Pittsburgh Symphony to play just as transparently and precisely with a springy, slender sound.

Firkusny plays the Piano Sonatas No. 8 (Pathétique), 14 (Moonlight), 21 (Waldstein) with the greatest clarity and attention to detail, with little pedal, and it is certainly not bad to hear these works sometimes so objectively and yet excitingly.

Profil’s collection also includes more or less inspired solo recordings of works by Schumann, Schubert, Mozart and Debussy, a very good Piano Sonata in B minor by Chopin, rich in details and sensitively played, as well as Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition played with bravura.

– Pizzicato (Remy Franck)

In comic operas there are stock figures. One of these is the bass, often conceited and self-important, silly or evil – or both – who often ends up being ridiculed, humiliated and has to humble himself. We first meet him in Uberto in Pergolesi’s La serva padrona, then in Il barbiere di Siviglia – Paisiello’s as well as Rossini’s – as Doctor Bartolo. Mustafa in L’Italiana in Algeri is a close relative, as is Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola. The eponymous anti-hero in Don Pasquale is also a pitiable character – the slimy Dulcamara in L’Elisir d’amore less so. Later in history Sir John in Verdi’s Falstaff is possibly the most complex character in this mould, thanks to Boito’s masterly condensation of Shakespeare’s portraits and Verdi’s music. He has predecessors: Salieri wrote a Falstaff before Verdi was even born. On German ground Otto Nicolai created a rather likeable character in Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor. In operas by Lortzing and Flotow we encounter similar second cousins. We shouldn’t forget Osmin in Die Entführung aus dem Serail either. A lesser known but well delineated relative within the German sphere is Abul Hassan Ali Ebn Bekar, the larger-than-life barber in Peter Cornelius’s Der Barbier von Bagdad. He isn’t an evil person, quite the contrary, but he is a big braggart and manages to make a mess of things. The plot goes back to a story from ‘The Arabian Nights’ and a condensed version goes something like this:

The young and rich Nureddin is deeply in love with Margiana, the daughter of the Cadi. His childhood friend, Bostana, arranges a meeting and Nureddin sends for Abul Hassan Ali Ebn Bekar, the best barber in town, to make him presentable. The barber is more interested in talking about his knowledge of art and science and Nureddin asks his servants to throw him out. The Barber turns furious and chases the servants, knife in hand, but some tactical flatteries makes him calm down and do his job. When Nureddin tells him about his approaching meeting, the barber gets so excited that he offers to accompany Nureddin. In the second act the two lovers meet but are disturbed by the sudden return of the Cadi. Nureddin hides and when the barber hears cries from a slave being punished he believes it is Nureddin and rushes into the house. Believing Nureddin to have been murdered he sends for the Caliph, who arrives. Nureddin is found and pressurised by the Caliph. The Cadi accepts that the young couple should be married. The verbose barber makes such an impression on the Caliph that he is invited to work for him.

Not one of literature’s masterworks, maybe, but much thinner and more incomprehensible librettos have been successfully set to music. Cornelius’s opera was not a success at the premiere on 15 December 1858 at Hoftheater in Weimar. The composer describes the disaster as follows:

‘My work had drawn a full house. The performance filled the evening and was excellent, splendid, considering the difficulties the work presents. Right from the start, the applause was accompanied by persistent hissing from a hired, well-organized and expediently distributed group that was unprecedented in the annals of Weimar … At the end there was a fight lasting ten minutes.’

The reason for the debacle was decidedly not the quality of the music or the play. This was a protest against the conductor of the evening, Franz Liszt, whose radical ideas were not to everybody’s liking – and it was successful. The production was taken off the repertoire and Liszt resigned and left Weimar for good. But the one who suffered the most was Cornelius, who never saw his opera staged again during his lifetime. It was revived about twenty years later, again with no success. In 1884 in Karlsruhe, Felix Mottl – who orchestrated Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder – presented it, but in truncated and altered form. It was not until 1904 that it was staged in its original shape. After that it was regarded as one of the best German comic operas – next to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg according to some judges.

I hadn’t heard the opera before, although there exist two studio recordings. Columbia set it down in London in 1956 with Erich Leinsdorf conducting and a starry cast including Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Nicolai Gedda, Hermann Prey and with Oskar Czerwenka as the barber. In the early 1970s Heinrich Hollreiser recorded it with Sylvia Geszty, Adalbert Kraus, Bernd Weikl and with Karl Ridderbusch as the barber. There also seems to have been an even older, Vienna-based recording, from 1952.

What I knew from as far back as the early 1960s was the overture, which appeared now and then in recordings and on concerts. I remembered it as something quite different from the usual potpourri of melodies from the subsequent opera. This piece, with a playing time of over seven minutes, is symphonically constructed – a kind of symphonic poem in fact. It is artfully orchestrated with a lot of woodwind solos and an orchestral texture that is transparent and airy - more Mozartean than Wagnerian. What is more: the whole opera is permeated by this artfulness with impressive ensembles and powerful but still translucent choruses with some contrapuntal writing. On top of all this there is an atmospheric entr’acte opening act two, thematically built on the muezzin’s proclamation of prayer. It is the only music in the score with an oriental touch.

The proceedings are dominated by Nureddin and Abul Hassan Ali Ebn Bekar, the barber. Both singers are excellent. Horst R. Laubenthal, then at the beginning of a great international career – was born in 1939 and made his debut in 1967. He has a mellifluous lyric tenor, ideally suited to Mozart and the lyric German tenor roles. He is also a vivid actor. The fine love duet in act two is one of the high-spots in the opera. There he is especially winning, partnered by Helen Donath, who here manages to soften her voice a little – elsewhere she can be irritatingly acidulous. There is nothing sour about Hans Sotin’s impressive barber, however. This must be a dream role for a fruity bass and Sotin revels in the opportunities to make a show. His is a large, sonorous, warm and evenly produced voice of exceptional beauty. The very lowest notes – and he is required to sing quite a few of them – are somewhat sketchy but otherwise he is admirable. He produces ringing top notes that many a baritone should envy.

The rest of the cast are more or less comprimarios, but the young Dale Duesing – he was only 26 at the time – is a fine Caliph. Veteran Fritz Peter is a Cadi full of character and Marga Schiml – also still in her twenties – does what she can with Bostana’s role. The versatile Ferdinand Leitner, who had a special affinity with Mozart, obviously enjoys the score. He is well supported by the Cologne Radio forces. The male chorus has a field day in the riveting Hinaus aus Hof und Haus (CD 1 tr. 7), where they are ordered to throw the cackling barber out of the house.

The sound is what is to be expected from a 35-year-old radio recording: not very spectacular but well balanced. I wouldn’t have minded some more cue-points and a libretto should have been included. Not many listeners will be familiar with the work and the brief synopsis is no substitute.

Whether Der Barbier von Bagdad will ever be a standard work again is hard to prophesy – this kind of story has probably lost its attraction to latter-day generations. It is nevertheless rather amusing and the music definitely deserves a better fate than oblivion.

-- Göran Forsling, MusicWeb International

Louis Kaufman was born on May 10, 1905 in Portland, Oregon. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Romania who were very interested in the arts and took their son to concerts. Kaufman gave his solo debut in the New York Town Hall in 1928 under the auspices of the International Naumburg Competition, which he proceeded to win. He then went on to play with such acclaimed musicians as Pablo Casals (cello), Mischa Elmann (violin), Jascha Heifetz (violin), Gregor Piatigorsky (cello) and Alfredo Rossi (piano). He also played classical music in ensembles, such as the Musical Art Quartet, the Kaufman Quartet, the Westwood String Quartet, the Bach Chamber Symphony Group. In 1932 Kaufman married the pianist Annette Leibole and performed frequently with her in public. In 1956 Louis Kaufman and his wife returned to Los Angeles. The violinist continued to give wonderful concerts until the late 1970s. After an eye operation he decided to retire from active performance. Louis Kaufman died on February 9, 1994. He was probably the violinist who had recorded the most works in the twentieth century. In addition to building up this huge body of recordings he was also the inventor of the Kaufman chinrest for the violin. The recordings featured on this historic CD album are predominantly from the 1940s and 50s.

Tatjana Masurenko writes: "The idea for the "White Nights" album series came about many years ago in connection with my performances with Roglit Ishay... The sub-title for the recording is: "Viola music from St. Petersburg". I grew up in that wonderful city; I studied there and my family lives there. As a musician who is always on the lookout for interesting new discoveries, I wanted to record these works for viola. You will find some familiar pieces in my selection, works that have long been in the standard repertoire for violists the world over, alongside new, unexpected arrangements. I set great store by expanding the viola repertoire, which is why I often play my own arrangements of well known works, especially ones that appeal to me personally. The three albums in the "White Nights" series are very different from one another; that is because even if we have remained true to ourselves, we have of course, over time, developed further. Unlike in the first two recordings of this series, in the latest one I am no longer playing on my old viola by Testore (Milan, 1756), but on a new instrument by the violin-maker Jurgen Manthey (Leipzig, 2020), whom I have known for 25 years and whose work I rate very highly. My playing technique has changed recently. Nowadays I play repertoire of the nineteenth century with more emphasis on the historical accent. For this reason, on this recording I am using gut strings and a bow made by the most famous nineteenth-century bow-maker, Nikolai Kittel from St. Petersburg (1856). The grand piano we used on this recording is also a historic instrument: a Bluthner of 1905 from Leipzig. Looking back over this music from St. Petersburg, I see it as an inexhaustible source of inspiration, of artistic freedom and love..."

In 1984, just as the long-playing gramophone record was supposedly fading into the sunset, the British record company EMI issued an 8-LP box in green livery compiled by Keith Hardwick and entitled “Schumann & Brahms Lieder on Record 1901-1952”. That was the year after the introduction of the Compact Disc, which was expected to deliver the coup de grâce to the vinyl record introduced in 1948. Fast forward to today: LPs are still around, so are CDs, but EMI as the world’s oldest and once greatest recorded music organization is no more – its heirs and successors are the majors Warner and Universal. Be that as it may, the English company has won eternal honor for its invaluable service to music in preserving historic vocal documents in such painstakingly edited sets as “The Record of Singing” or indeed “… Lieder on Record” (RLS 1547003). However, the Schumann-Brahms box was not available “overseas” – in countries outside Great Britain, that is – save for brief periods and in homeopathic quantities, and then only as an import. Hänssler Classic and editor Dieter Fuoss are now closing the gap, initially with the part devoted to Robert Schumann (born June 8, 1810, Zwickau – died July 29, 1856, Endenich on the outskirts of Bonn). He fills the first three albums with “Lieder in historic recordings”. A fourth album completes the set with three song cycles by Schumann in legendary interpretations.

REVIEWS:

The Profil series Lieder on Record has had a new addition. Volume 2 with songs by Robert Schumann has been released. If you want to find out how important Schumann interpreters have performed his songs, you can’t miss this box. The songs are heard in historic recordings made between 1901 and 1951. The performers include Lotte and Lili Lehmann, Friedrich Schorr, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Victoria de los Angeles, Leo Slezak, Feodor Schaljapin, Richard Tauber, Elisabeth Schumann, Karl Erb, Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender, Frida Leider, Hans Hotter, Elisabeth Höngen, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and many others.  

-- Pizzicato

This set is a treasure trove for anyone who would like to hear dozens of singers from the first half of the 20th Century sing songs of Robert Schumann. It shows how performance style evolved in that time, including interpretive liberties taken. It offers a chance to hear dozens of voices, many I’ve never heard—or even heard of—before. You get to hear how different singers perform some of the same songs.

This set will appeal mainly to people interested in hearing how people of the first half of last century approached lieder. Some of them are very good, others are terrible. Many of the singers are hardly remembered today, and the liner notes tell us little about them. The liner notes give only general background information. As you would expect, texts and translations are not supplied.

-- American Record Guide

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is undoubtedly one of the greatest vocalists of the past century – and one of those with the most extensive discography. Yet we constantly note the disappearance from the catalogue of early recordings for radio or gramophone, particularly those which covered less popular repertoire. And there are a number of recordings that have simply never been issued on album. The present anthology aims to bridge this gap – with seven albums offering an average of 77 minutes playing time, or a total of some nine hours of music: rare repertoire, seldom or never yet available in these versions on album, matched by indispensable gems of recorded music such as the young Fischer-Dieskau in Gustav Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen in the orchestral version under the baton of the great Wilhelm Furtwängler. That legendary orchestra director, in his turn, judged that “no-one has ever sung Mahler better” than the young baritone.

Classical Music