What Are Your Favorite Schubert Lieder Recordings?
This site is young, and there aren’t many readers yet, but for the few of you who are reading, you are probably here because you share my love for Schubert’s wonderful lieder. What are your favorite recordings? Who are your favorite singers? I’ll be posting reviews of mine in the coming weeks and months, but it would be interesting to get an idea of what you all like. And it may give me some ideas for singers or recordings that I’m not familiar with.
Feel free to post about your favorites in the comments.
Posted: 9/1/2012 by Kirk | Filed under: Recordings | Tags: Recordings | 7 Comments »
@JAHall721
Most any recording by Hermann Prey. Couple favs:
“Goethe: Lieder und Balladen” (Saphir) with Helmut Deutch accompanist.
Winterreise – Denon
Elly Ameling. I saw her at Hertz Hall in Berkeley around 1971, with (I think) Dalton Baldwin. The audience called her back for three encores; she introduced the third by saying she thought it was time “to thank music,” and sang (of course) “An die Musik.” The memory, and the lied itself (which I’ve accompanied a few times), still can reduce me to tears. One German Lit professor dismisses the text as “Hallmark greeting card verse,” and I sort of see what she means–”ein süsser, heiliger Akkord von dir”–but I’m still a pushover for the lied itself.
Fritz Wunderlich; anything he sings, with the most beautiful voice of the last century, is worth listening to. There can’t be any finer ‘An die Musik’, for example. Fischer-Dieskau and Schwarzkopf I find too mannered, the latter almost a caricature of a Truly Serious Art Singer. My favourite Schubert song is Stanchen (Zögernd, leise), for alto and, unusual for Schubert, male chorus. I first heard this 30 years ago, sung by the Vienna Boys Choir; now I like the Sarah Walker version on the Hyperion collection. If you want to be immediately transported into a calmer place, try this.
I remember with joy attending many of Graham Johnston’s live performances in London. He inspired me to actively arrange Schubert for voice and guitar; to date I have adapted over 187 lieder of Schubert, Schumann and Brahms into 16 volumes for this format. Happy to send you a few pdfs of the arrangements if you write to me: Gregg Nestor
gmn002@aol.com
Olav Bär’s recording of Schwanengesang on EMI says it all..
I like a lot of the big name singers mentioned above.
I’ll always have a soft spot for Olaf Baer’s recordings of the Schubert cycles with Geoffrey Parsons, since they were among the first recordings of the pieces I’d ever heard. They still sound really fresh and spontaneous to me.
I also really like Dietrich Henschel’s Schubert CD “An den Mond” with Helmut Deutsch.
Jan Degaetani made a beautiful Schubert recording with Gilbert Kalish. Probably the fastest “Musensohn” on record, but somehow it works.
Ernst Haefliger’s old Winterreise recording with fortepiano is really simple and plain compared to many other recordings, yet I find it very touching.
I am an old man of 76 but have to admit to often being reduced to tears by Schubert’s songs. I find a great affinity to this man and his music and this affinity becomes stronger the older I get. For me the songs have to be Im Abendtrot and Trockne Blumen as sung by Fritz Wunderlich. I also enjoy the honesty and sincerity of Kathleen Ferrier who bravely carried on giving performances even though she knew she had terminal cancer. May she rest in peace.