Schubert

Lots of the numbers on this recital will be familiar to Schubert lovers – the teenager’s masterpieces Gretchen am Spinnrade and Erlkönig, miniature jewels like Nachtviolen, and the late, great Der Hirt auf dem Felsen with clarinet obbligato, from the final months of his life. Confusingly, Franz Liszt’s piano transcription of Schubert’s Auf dem Wasser zu singen is also included, an impressive but oddly alien concert warhorse within the recital.

Our rating

3

Dr Natasha Loges

Published: December 4, 2017 at 5:32 pm

COMPOSERS: Franz Schubert
LABELS: Sony
ALBUM TITLE: Schubert
WORKS: Liebesbotschaft; Erlkönig; Rastlose Liebe; Geheimes; Ganymed; Du bist die Ruh; Im Frühling; Die Götter Griechenlands; Gretchen am Spinnrade; Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt; Suleika I; Nachtviolen, etc
PERFORMER: Natalie Dessay (soprano), Thomas Savy (clarinet), Philippe Cassard (piano)
CATALOGUE NO: 88985419882

Lots of the numbers on this recital will be familiar to Schubert lovers – the teenager’s masterpieces Gretchen am Spinnrade and Erlkönig, miniature jewels like Nachtviolen, and the late, great Der Hirt auf dem Felsen with clarinet obbligato, from the final months of his life. Confusingly, Franz Liszt’s piano transcription of Schubert’s Auf dem Wasser zu singen is also included, an impressive but oddly alien concert warhorse within the recital.

This inspired collection of songs could serve as a useful introduction to newcomers to this repertoire, and Philippe Cassard’s tender, balanced touch is a delight. But I often struggled to decipher Natalie Dessay’s German, and her voice leaned towards the fragile rather than the intimate.

In the liner notes, musings by Dessay, Cassard, and Wolfgang Holzmair (who coached the artists) are translated into three languages. However, the German poetry is not translated, a strange decision which will put off many non-native speakers.

Natasha Loges

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Dr Natasha Loges

Journalist and Critic, BBC Music Magazine

Natasha Loges is the head of postgraduate programmes and professor of musicology at the Royal College of Music. She is a regular critic for BBC Music Magazine and broadcaster on BBC Radio 3 and BBC TV. Her research interests include German song, concert history, 19th-century performance practice and gender studies, with a particular focus on the lives and music of Brahms and the Schumanns. Her PhD, undertaken at the Royal Academy of Music, was titled 'Text and Context in Brahms's Lieder'. Her books include Brahms in the Home and the Concert Hall: Between Private and Public Performance (Cambridge University Press, 2014), Brahms and His Poets (Boydell, 2017), Brahms in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Musical Salon Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century (Boydell, 2019) and German Song Onstage (Indiana University Press, 2020).
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