I had originally wanted to raise this as a belated Summer BaL but summer seems to have gone and the real BaL is nearly upon us. I could also have raised it under Po3 with reference to the Wigmore recital on Monday by Anne Schwanewilms and Geoffrey Vignoles. But I'd rather simply have a discussion about the work - one of my favourite song cycles - and its performance styles and memorable recordings.
I think the Eichendorff Liederkreis settings seem to have been unjustly overshadowed by Dichterliebe as the Liederkreis songs are more unaffectedly romantic - the most romantic songs he had written, according to Schumann - as well as more tightly linked tonally. The song cycle starts in F sharp minor and concludes in F sharp major; many of the songs are in either A/A minor or the dominant E/e minor, A major being typically used as a key expressing love, while E major often seems to me to be used in expression of an unearthly quality. The texts of the songs have the full panoply of German romanticism (rather than the ironically detached romanticism of Heine's poems) with distant lands, Waldeinsamkeit, hunting songs, the Lorelei, country weddings, moonlight and ghostly figures.
As to its interpreters, I prefer a tenor voice to either soprano or baritone. Ian Partridge is as ever unfailingly musical and lyrical in this work, excellently accompanied by his sister Jennifer. Among sopranos I am especially impressed by Margaret Price and Geoffrey Parsons, IIRC still on Hyperion. I don't have any recordings with baritone on CD. Interestingly there is a recording with Peter Pears and Murray Perahia, possibly from the late 1970s, but I think this cycle above all others perhaps needs to be sung by someone young. Anne Schwanewilms in her Wigmore recital had a very beautiful voice but perhaps seduced by the temptation to show off its beauty seemed to draw out phrases, and some songs like the opening In der Fremde were terribly slow.
I think the Eichendorff Liederkreis settings seem to have been unjustly overshadowed by Dichterliebe as the Liederkreis songs are more unaffectedly romantic - the most romantic songs he had written, according to Schumann - as well as more tightly linked tonally. The song cycle starts in F sharp minor and concludes in F sharp major; many of the songs are in either A/A minor or the dominant E/e minor, A major being typically used as a key expressing love, while E major often seems to me to be used in expression of an unearthly quality. The texts of the songs have the full panoply of German romanticism (rather than the ironically detached romanticism of Heine's poems) with distant lands, Waldeinsamkeit, hunting songs, the Lorelei, country weddings, moonlight and ghostly figures.
As to its interpreters, I prefer a tenor voice to either soprano or baritone. Ian Partridge is as ever unfailingly musical and lyrical in this work, excellently accompanied by his sister Jennifer. Among sopranos I am especially impressed by Margaret Price and Geoffrey Parsons, IIRC still on Hyperion. I don't have any recordings with baritone on CD. Interestingly there is a recording with Peter Pears and Murray Perahia, possibly from the late 1970s, but I think this cycle above all others perhaps needs to be sung by someone young. Anne Schwanewilms in her Wigmore recital had a very beautiful voice but perhaps seduced by the temptation to show off its beauty seemed to draw out phrases, and some songs like the opening In der Fremde were terribly slow.
(I exclude "The Joy of Charity Shops" from this comment.)
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