Please recommend me some Brahms Lieder recordings

[Mandryka]

Have at it, gentlemen!

[Mandryka]

Oh by the way, 10 years ago I made a Spotify playlist of favourite Brahms which I shall now recreate. Miraculously I found the details - I have no idea if I’ll still like it. At the risk of answering my own question I’ll post it here.

Julius Patzak Regenlied, Nachtigallen Schwingen

Leo Slezak Feldeinsamkeit.

Julia Culp, Muss es eine Trennung geben.

Karin Branzell, Wanderer.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer.

Ernestine Schumann-Heink - Sapphische Ode. be sure to hear her little speach about he relationship with Brahms.

Emmi Leisner -- Vom Strande.

Lulu Mysz-Gmeiner, Schwesterlein.

Irmgard Seefried Feinsliebchen

Alexander Kipnis, Verrat.

Hina Spani Alte Liebe, Sandmaennchen

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf - Liebestreu

Heinrich Rehkemper -- Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen

Karl Erb -- Lerchengesang

Lotte Lehmann -- Wir wandelten

Ria Ginster -- Meine Liebe ist Grun, Botschaft

Kirsten Flagstad -- Meine Liebe ist Grun

Christa Ludwig -- Der Schmied

Elisabeth Schumann -- Der Tod, ist die kuhle Nacht

Irmgard Seefried -- Standchen

Askel Schiotz -- Standchen

Gustav Walter -- Feldeinsamkeit. He sang for Brahms, who I believe liked his style.

Jessye Norman, Daniel Barenboim, Wolfram Christ -- Zwei Gesange

Janet Baker, Andre Previn, Cecil Aronowitz -- Zwei Gesange


The Thomas Allen recital disk with Parsons (really for Parsons)

Fassbaender's Brahms CD, the Janet Baker CD on BBC Legends,

Fischer Diekau's Brahms recital CD with Klust,

FiDi's Brahms with Hermann Reutter

[Dave2002]

It's years since I thought about this - but I think the Liebeslieder Waltzes Op 52 (also Neue Liebeslieder Walzer Op 65) are worth hearing.Probably not great music, but pleasant to listen to.

There are several good versions I think, including:

Barbara Bonney, Anne Sofie von Otter, Kurt Streit, Olaf Bär on Warner Classics

At one time I think we had this one:

Edith Mathis & Brigitte Fassbaender & Peter Schreier & Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau & Karl Engel & Wolfgang Sawallisch on DG, which was probably a strong recommendation at the time.

There is also this - https://youtu.be/wVFtYwA6wRE An die Nachtigall, op. 46 n. 4

and this https://youtu.be/dGd7Ic7pi4U by Jonas Kaufmann. I went looking for Elisabeth Schumann - but Kaufmann is much better to my ears.

[Mandryka]

Im listening now to FiDi and Klust from Berlin in 1951/2, an Audite CD with some Beethoven. Mixed views, some things are absolutely jaw-droppingly beautiful - es träumte mir, abenddämmerung - and in others he starts to become too forceful for me, too much like a dog barking. Anyway, it’s a pleasure to return to this music.

[Mandryka]

I’ve just discovered a singer whose voice I rather like, Hidenori Komatsu. He made recordings with Jorg Demus. This one seems the most successful, at least from the point of view of sound

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8625488--schubert-brahms-lieder

[gradus]

My way into these pieces was through my wife performing them over many years and with many different pianists (including I believe one of our 'Boarders'). Because of this I find it difficult to single out commercial recordings so the original request is beyond me but I confess that I enjoy almost all that I hear of these lovely songs and Mandryka's list of performances will not disappoint anyone.
Amongst the songs my favourite remains Die Mainacht.

[Mandryka]

I listened to the disc where I made this comment in 2013

The Thomas Allen recital disk with Parsons (really for Parsons)

Bloody hell! The piano playing is astonishing. They must have known what they had because the recording’s been balanced «equally» - same prominence to voice and keyboard. It makes me realise that this music, or maybe it’s just the selection on Thomas Allen’s recording, is contrapuntal - certainly not just voice with accompaniment! I haven’t heard the Wolf on the same disc, but if they can do this with Brahms I expect even astonishing, revealing, things there.

Is Geoffrey Parsons always good? I’m surprised that lieder singers let him take so much limelight - you know what they can be like.

[richardfinegold]

I have a disc with Contralto Bernarda Fink and Pianist Roger Vignoles. Her plummy voice is perfect for Brahms

[gradus]

I listened to the disc where I made this comment in 2013



Bloody hell! The piano playing is astonishing. They must have known what they had because the recording’s been balanced «equally» - same prominence to voice and keyboard. It makes me realise that this music, or maybe it’s just the selection on Thomas Allen’s recording, is contrapuntal - certainly not just voice with accompaniment! I haven’t heard the Wolf on the same disc, but if they can do this with Brahms I expect even astonishing, revealing, things there.

Is Geoffrey Parsons always good? I’m surprised that lieder singers let him take so much limelight - you know what they can be like.

Never known otherwise. The last time I saw him live was in the late 1970s when he accompanied Victoria de los Angeles, a poignant occasion as she was not in her best voice and her husband (or could have been manager) sat in the front row with a cassette recorder, recording the performance. I wouldn't have thought him a limelight stealer but some accompanists are so brilliant that it can sometimes take a very powerful vocal personality to maintain an appropriate balance.

[Lordgeous]

I listened to the disc where I made this comment in 2013



Bloody hell! The piano playing is astonishing. They must have known what they had because the recording’s been balanced «equally» - same prominence to voice and keyboard. It makes me realise that this music, or maybe it’s just the selection on Thomas Allen’s recording, is contrapuntal - certainly not just voice with accompaniment! I haven’t heard the Wolf on the same disc, but if they can do this with Brahms I expect even astonishing, revealing, things there.

Is Geoffrey Parsons always good? I’m surprised that lieder singers let him take so much limelight - you know what they can be like.

Nothing but the highest praise for him. He accompanied Janet Baker at Aldeburg in the first performance of a song cycle she commissioned from me. (Britten said he found it moving - but I'm not sure in what way!) Incidentally I believe he was the brother of Nicholas Parsons - can anybody confirm?

[gradus]

Intriguing thought but not confirmed by Wikipedia which says he was born in Australia. Incidentally the only time I ever saw Nicholas Parsons was at Covent Garden of all places, passing him on the stairs he was saying to his companion the it was his first time at the opera, he landed Rosenkavalier so one hopes he enjoyed it.

[gurnemanz]

Great list from Mandryka above.

In addition to the recommendable complete Brahms Lied editions from cpo (well-priced at jpc) and Brilliant Classics which I have and Hyperion which I do not. Naxos have just started one with an excellent new recording from Christoph Prégardien.

The good value 6 CD Fischer-Dieskau set on Brilliant Classics with various pianists, including the 1970 HMV Schöne Mageloneis with Sviatoslav Richter, is still available second hand: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brahms-Fisc...s=music&sr=1-1

I really enjoy Alexander Kipnis in Brahms and have a fine selection on Preiser: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alexander-K...%2C1842&sr=8-1

I second Bernarda Fink and Roger Vignoles mentioned above and also recommend the Jessye Norman twofer with Barenboim: https://www.prestomusic.com/classica...-brahms-lieder

Mitsuko Shirai with Hartmut Holl is another favourite https://www.prestomusic.com/classica...-brahms-lieder.

[gurnemanz]

Is Geoffrey Parsons always good? I’m surprised that lieder singers let him take so much limelight - you know what they can be like.

Olaf Bär is a favourite baritone and I have a very good disc from 1987 (EMI coproduction with East German Eterna lable) in which Geoffrey Parsons accompanies him at a recording in the pleasing acoustic of the Lukaskirche, Dresden.

Parsons played a part in launching Bär's career. I found this online:

At 10, Bär began singing as a boy treble in the Dresden Children’s Choir. In 1983 he won the Walther Grüner Lieder Competition in London. Pianist Geoffrey Parsons was a juror and accompanied Bär at his Wigmore Hall debut, the first of many times Parsons would accompany Bär in recital and on disc. "As a young singer from East Germany with no experience, I was very lucky when Parsons took me under his wing," Bär recalls gratefully. (Quoted from here)

[DoctorT]

Incidentally I believe he was the brother of Nicholas Parsons - can anybody confirm?

Surely unlikely since Geoffrey Parsons was Australian

[Lordgeous]

Yea, think I got that wrong. Just something somebody told me once!