Description:
So ends Graham Johnson's staggering project, conceived in the mid-1980s, to record every Schubert song. A string of the world's finest lieder singers have done him proud. There is more to this swansong than just the appropriate "Schubert's last year" tag. Johnson, like so many before him, has struggled with how to present the collection of songs known as Schwanengesang. He adheres to the order as first published (Rellstab settings, then Heine and finally Seidl's Die Taubenpost) but accommodates the theory that Schubert intended distinct Rellstab and Heine cycles by using separate singers for each, namely John Mark Ains
So ends Graham Johnson's staggering project, conceived in the mid-1980s, to record every Schubert song. A string of the world's finest lieder singers have done him proud. There is more to this swansong than just the appropriate "Schubert's last year" tag. Johnson, like so many before him, has struggled with how to present the collection of songs known as Schwanengesang. He adheres to the order as first published (Rellstab settings, then Heine and finally Seidl's Die Taubenpost) but accommodates the theory that Schubert intended distinct Rellstab and Heine cycles by using separate singers for each, namely John Mark Ainsley and Anthony Rolfe Johnson, positioning the 1828 song for three voices, "Glaube, Hoffnung und Liebe", between them. Johnson also places "Lebensmut", possibly the rejected opening to the Rellstab "cycle", immediately before the first Schwanengesang song. All fascinating stuff. Johnson's three tenors give fine, committed performances, while the pianist himself is admirable as always. If we must judge this Schwanengesang alongside the sternest competition, for all his passion and commitment, the excellent John Mark Ainsley lacks the last ounces of vocal resource and emotional breadth, but Anthony Rolfe Johnson rates very highly indeed in performances of searching and weighty intensity. --Andrew Green
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Manufacturer: Hyperion
Release date: 1 October 1999
EAN: 0034571130378 UPC: 034571130378
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