Heavens what an outstanding recording of this cycle by the young Konstantin Krimmel on Alpha - highly recommended .
Die schöne Müllerin
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I heard Konstantin Krimmel in a lunchtime concert at the Oxford Lieder Festival a few years and was very impressed. I've just listened to his Schöne Müllerin on Spotify. I greatly enjoyed the sound of his voice and found much to love in the interpretation in general. For my taste, though, he gives us too much ornamentation of Schubert's melodic line. I do not object so much to this as improvisation in a live performance and this was no doubt done in Schubert's time, where each performance was necessarily a one-off. Presumably such ornamentation would vary with each performance and for me it is not appropriate to fix one such interpretation in a studio recording. The ornamentation can become a distraction, even an irritant, on repeated listening. I'm pleased to have heard it but won't therefore be purchasing.
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This is from my notes on it.
Konstantin Krimmel's got a gorgeous voice, baritone, like a cup of velvety Italian style hot chocolate. He is sensitive to the text in an unforced, natural sounding way. He can do introspective beautifully. It's very much Krimmel's show but Heide is absolutely fine. Good sound. A downside it's that he occasionally embellishes the music in a way which becomes predictable, I think they're called turns.
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This work has always been special for me. One of my first LPs, as I was just getting into classical music decades ago, was Fischer-Dieskau/Moore in mono (this one). I have about 20 CD versions, listen frequently and I am afraid I do sing along. As I recall, none of them use random ornamentation of the vocal line.
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