BaL 26.03.16 - Schumann: Frauenliebe und -leben

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

0930
Building a Library: Schumann's Frauenliebe und -leben
Erica Jeal recommends a recording from the available versions of this great song cycle written in 1840, which was Schumann's "year of song." They chart the progress of a woman's relationship with a man from the first meeting through marriage to his death, and after.


Available versions:

Elly Ameling, Dalton Baldwin
Marian Anderson, Franz Rupp
Janet Baker, Daniel Barenboim
Janet Baker, Martin Isepp
Juliane Banse, Graham Johnson
Teresa Berganza, Ricardo Requejo (download)
Lisa Della Casa, Karl Hudez (or) Sebastian Peschko
Sarah Connolly, Eugene Asti
Alice Coote, Christian Blackshaw
Jan DeGaetani, Lee Luvisi
Zara Dolukhanova
Brigitte Fassbaender, Irwin Gage
Brigitte Fassbaender, Erik Werba
Kathleen Ferrier, John Newmark
Kathleen Ferrier, Bruno Walter
Bernarda Fink, Roger Vignoles
Elisabeth Grümmer, Aribert Reimann
Sena Jurinac, Franz Holetschek
Vivian Hanner, Frank Peter
Bozena Harasimowicz, Olga Niecziporenko
Barbara Hendricks, Roland Pöntinen
Rudolf Jansen, Edith Weins
Michaela Kaune, Burkhard Kehring
Astrid Kessl Natalia Ehwald
Angelika Kirchschlager, Helmut Deutsch
Elisabeth Kulman, Eduard Kutrowatz
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Julius Drake
Lotte Lehmann, Paul Ulanowsky
Lotte Lehmann, Bruno Walter
Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Daniel Blumenthal
Marjana Lipovšek, Graham Johnson
Dame Felicity Lott, Graham Johnson
Christa Ludwig, Gerald Moore
Lois Marshall, William Aide (download)
Edith Mathis, Christopher Eschenbach
Caroline Melzer, Anette Fischer-Lichdi (download)
Ann Murray, Malcolm Martineau
Jessye Norman, Irwin Gage
Anne Sofie Von Otter, Bengt Forsberg
Miah Persson, Joseph Breinl
Susan Platts, Rena Sharon
Lucia Popp, Geoffrey Parsons
Margaret Price, Thomas Dewey
Margaret Price, James Lockhardt
Charlotte de Rothschild, Adrian Farmer
Sibylla Rubens, Uta Hielscher
Elisabeth Schumann, Gerald Moore
Nathalie Stutzmann, Inger Södergren (or) Catherine Collard
Tamara Takacs, Jeno Jando
Tatiana Troyanos, James Levine
Dorothea Röschmann, Mitsuko Uchida
Irmgard Seefried, Erik Werba

(arr. oboe & piano)
Guido Ghetti, Amedeo Salvato (download)

[gurnemanz]

I shall certainly be listening, although I already have several favourites from the above list: Fink, Ludwig, Ferrier, Stutzmann, Seefried, Baker (both). Juliane Banse is superb on the complete Hyperion Schumann set. Otter is also essential. Her Frauenliebe comes as part of a marvellous and very generous recital with Bengt Forsberg on DG.

Thanks as usual for a great list. An impossible job to pick just one. A version I like which is not on the list is: Edith Mathis with Christopher Eschenbach, now admittedly only available as part of DG's Masterworks box and on YouTube

I've enjoyed sampling the recent version from the Austrian mezzo Elisabeth Kulman with Eduard Kutrowatz on Preiser. Not listed above but certainly worthy of inclusion. Last year she created headlines in Austria by renouncing opera performance while still at the top of a starry career. Reported here by Lebrecht

I would have liked to have been at QEH in 2006 when Matthias Goerne presented Frauenliebe, even if apparently not completely successfully. There seems to be no male recorded version.

[aeolium]

Thanks again for the list, EA, though a historical version that really has to be added is that by Elisabeth Schumann, available on the Icon set of her recordings. Hers is an extraordinary and unforgettable voice.

Another hopeless task for the reviewer with an embarrassment of riches in the available recordings.

[verismissimo]

Hard to get past Janet Baker with Martin Isepp...

[Bryn]

Hard to get past Janet Baker with Martin Isepp...

Agreed. My introduction to both the work and the voice, back in the mid-60s, purchased with 'dinner money' from the record department above the then Singer Sewing Machine shot opposite Windsor Castle.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Presumably that was the Saga LP? There were some gems on this label, but it was dodgy ground for the unwary.

[Bryn]

Presumably that was the Saga LP? There were some gems on this label, but it was dodgy ground for the unwary.

Indeed. Other Saga gems from around that time were the Bartok String Quartets (Fine Arts Quartet), Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire (Howland/Zipper) and Stravinsky Dunbarton Oaks (Newstone), Bach Brandenbergs (also Newstone), Shostakovich 10th (Mravinsky), Beethoven 'Hammerklavier' (Kentner) etc.

[gradus]

Saga, whose records were produced in a factory where the stampers heated the fish and chips of the workers - an aim oddly missing from the Communist Manifesto.

[gurnemanz]

Agreed. My introduction to both the work and the voice, back in the mid-60s, purchased with 'dinner money' from the record department above the then Singer Sewing Machine shot opposite Windsor Castle.

That Baker/Isepp version on Saga LP was for many years my only recording. Still an absolute favourite, with an exquisite rendition of Süßer Freund, probably my favourite song in the cycle.

PS To keep us on our toes, there's a third Baker version on BBC Legends from 1968, accompanied by Geoffrey Parsons. I don't know it but the BBC Music mag review on there describes it as "surely the finest recording of Schumann's cycle Baker ever made".

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Saga, whose records were produced in a factory where the stampers heated the fish and chips of the workers - an aim oddly missing from the Communist Manifesto.

- a pity the records could only be bought by the over-50s, though.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

- a pity the records could only be bought by the over-50s, though.

It took me a while . . .

[Barbirollians]

Ferrier Walter

[mikealdren]

- a pity the records could only be bought by the over-50s, though.

Not a problem for most of us on this forum though......

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Not a problem for most of us on this forum though......

Not now, certainly - but back in the '60s and '70s ...

[LeMartinPecheur]

Hmm, another BaL where I'll be really hoping that I don't end up needing to buy another one!

I have one recording not on EA's list: Julia Culp/ Otto Bake, once available in the wonderful HMV 8-LP box of historic recordings of Brahms and Schumann lieder (RLS 1547003).

Apart from that, just Baker (x2), Fassbaender/ Gage, Ferrier (x2), Lehmann/ Walter, Mathis/ Eschenbach, Price/Lockhart...

Oh yes, also Elisabeth Schumann - not EA's unaccompanied version, the one with Gerald Moore