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Schubert: Favorite Lieder
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Title |
Favorite Lieder (re-release of Schubert Recital, 1994) |
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Composer |
Franz Schubert |
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Performers |
Simon Keenlyside, Malcolm Martineau |
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Contents. Click to hear a music sample |
1. (Der) Einsame 16. Heidenröslein 17. Im Haine 18. Nachtviolen 19. Bei dir allein 20. Du bist die Ruh
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Label |
(EMI Eminence) Classics for Pleasure |
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Code |
(originally EMI CD-EMX2224, EMI 5652342) 5856182 |
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Released |
(Originally August 1994) September 1, 2003 |
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Number of discs |
1 |
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ASIN |
B0000BWTKS |
What the critics say
Alan Blyth for Gramophone, August 1994. http://www.gramophone.co.uk/gramofilereview.asp?reviewID=9408129&mediaID=33440&issue=Reviewed%3A+Gramophone+8%2F1994
Simon Keenlyside is the best baritone singer and interpreter of Schubert this country has ever had and is fully the equal of such Austro-German coevals as Holzmair and Schmidt. Hyperbole? I don't believe anyone who hears this enriching recital could think so. Keenlyside has just about all the attributes needed by a Schubert interpreter: a magnificent tone, firm and natural, rounded throughout an extensive register, an inborn sense of line, perfect German, and in addition to all that an instinctive intelligence that carries him confidently through his long and taxing programme with hardly a phrase that could be bettered in terms of colour or word-painting.
It is so gratifying to hear a singer who is as much at home in the big, dramatic Lieder as in the quiet and reflective ones. You can sit back without a qualm knowing that he will have the reserves and the trenchancy of purpose to conquer such Everests of the Schubert repertory as Prometheus and Gruppe aus dem Tartarus where his vocal means are fully equal to the defiance the songs proclaim. Auf der Bruck is filled with the ongoing energy Schubert calls for. Then there's the thoughtfulness to fulfil the demands of such a philosophical and forward-looking song as Freiwilliges Versinken, the sense of questing romanticism for Im Walde.
Among the reflective pieces, Die Gotter Griechenlands is notable for plangent feeling and tone—just right. Gondelfahrer, that marvellous evocation of bells heard at night, is full of nocturnal mystery. Heidenroslein is delicate in its subtle timbres and smiling tone; so is Die Sterne while Bei dir allein has a Fischer-Dieskau enthusiasm. And the recital is crowned by the final offering, Du bist die Ruh, where the voice opens out in its full beauty. These successes make the one or two failures mystifying. They come at the start of the disc so perhaps the performers weren't yet into their stride. Der Einsame plods at an unduly slow tempo. Standchen lacks airiness, Martineau's foursquare accompanying thereabouts doesn't help. Later he provides many inspired moments (try Im Haine, where he so charmingly supports the baritone's mezzo voce), and he never overeggs the pudding in the heavier songs.
The recording, produced by Mark Brown, is ideally balanced and judged, the texts and translations (RW: admirable) have been carelessly read with all verses of a song printed when only some of them are sung, and the first or last couplets of certain songs have been put at the end or the beginning of the next song. However, these trifling drawbacks don't prevent an outright recommendation for this well chosen and absorbing mid-price disc.'
John Steane in his "Quaterly retrospect", Gramophone October 1994
"Range of both voice and expression, is an impressive feature of another Schubert recital this quarter (EMI CD-EMX2224, 8/94). Of Simon Keenlyside's début on records (as this effectively is) AB has written so warmly that there is little to add, save perhaps to recommend the programme on its own account: some of hte greatest of the lesser-known songs are here. Malcolm Martineau accompanies sympathetically, but the rich and dramatic concentration of the voice is what makes the issue so exceptionally (and for myself, I have to admit, unexpectedly) exciting. Here is one that really does go "straight to the records-of-the-year pile."
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