Search - Franz Schubert, Peter Schreier, Graham Johnson :: The Hyperion Schubert Edition 18 / Peter Schreier, Graham Johnson

Peter Schreier Sings Schubert

Robin Friedman | Washington, D.C. United States | 08/21/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This CD is volume 18 of the monumental recording of the complete Schubert songs on the Hyperion label. The performers are tenor Peter Schreier and pianist Graham Johnson. Johnson served as the artistic director of the entire project. He accompanies on each disk and wrote the extensive and scholarly liner notes for each volume. Peter Schreier sings in a light, lyrical tenor, which is yet capable of great expression and feeling. He is at the top of his form in this outstanding recording. The Hyperion collection offers an unparallelled oppotunity to hear a variety of the great singers of our day performing the Schubert songs.



There are 22 songs on this CD, almost all of which are in Schubert's simplest song style called strophic. Strophic songs are in a familiar stanza (similar to a church hymn) form in which the same music is used to set each verse. The form is common, but in lengthy songs it runs the risk of monotony.



Johnson's detailed liner-notes (almost book-length) begin with an introduction titled "Schubert and the Strophic Song" in which he traces the antecedents of Schubert's song forms in earlier composers and illustrates the many variations and subtleties Scubert brought to his compositions. Johnson sees many of the songs on this disk as pointing to the way to Schubert's final masterpieces, the song-cycles Die Schone Mullerin and Winterreise, both of which are predominantly strophic in form. He also points out the many beauties of these songs themselves. The liner notes also include extensive commentary, musical analysis, and biographical information on each of the songs, including text and translation. Johnson is a passionate and informed guide indeed to the Schubert lieder.



The songs on this CD fall into two basic groups. The first 11 tracks consist of a series of early strophic songs, most of which date from 1815-1816. These songs vary greatly in mood, intensity, and in the variety Schubert brings to the piano accompaniment. The songs I most enjoyed in this group include "Erntelied" (Harvest Song), D. 434, which Schubert set in 18166 to a poem by Ludwig Holty, and "Drang in Die Ferne" (Longing to Escape) D. 770, which Schubert set in 1823 to a text by Karl Gottfried von Leitner. The former is a bucolic song with ties, as Johnson points out to Mozart's famous song Das Veilchen (the violet) while the later work is full of a young man's longing to break free of the comforts of home and to explore the world and its risks for himself. It must surely have had a personal meaning for Schubert.



The second group of songs on this CD focus on a series of Schubert's settings of poems by Ernest Schulze (1789-1817). Scubert wrote this great group of songs in 1825-1826. Again Johnson provides full biographical information. Schulze's poems derive from a "poetic daybook" to express his frustration over an unrequited love. These are passionate, driven, texts and songs which Schreier performs masterfully. Johnson has ordered the ten songs on this CD to form an early Schubert song-cycle.



The first of the group "Auf Der Bruck" D. 853 shows the lover returning by horseback to try to win the woman who has spurned him. The song features an incessant and very difficult beat in the piano part. I was transported by the next song "Am Mitternacht" (At Midnight) D. 862, a song of deep longing. Johnson describes this song well and eloquently as "celestial music of the spheres, a stately dance to the music of timelessness, an impression that deepens as strophe follows strophe."



The Schulze collection includes on of Schubert's most famous songs "In Fruhling" (in spring) D. 882 set to a winsome piano and with bittersweet variations in each stanza. The final three Schulze songs "Lebesmut (Courage for Living) "Uber Wildemann" (Above Wildemann) and "An Mein Herz" (to my heart) are among the strangest, wildest, and most passionate music that Schubert wrote.



Schubert's songs are music for the heart. They are well suited for CD and for listening in quiet, intimate moments when one is alone with oneself. The songs are also works which will bear endless rehearing and much study. The liner notes on this albums, not to speak of the performance, make it a treasure. The listener who as heard Schubert's most familiar songs and has a passion to explore this music in detail will be overjoyed by this CD and by the Hyperion series of the complete Schubert lieder."

In deference to Schubert's lieder, and Schreier's artistry.

Abel | Hong Kong | 11/04/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There aren't many solo recitals by Peter Schreier available to listeners in my part of the world. I have to confess that apart from his many many recordings in operas, oratorios, choral pieces, this album is the only solo album by him that I own.

For too many years Peter Schreier's singing has been eclipsed by his illustrious predecessor Fritz Wunderlich, who passed away tragically early in 1966. Few would like to acknowledge that this low-key but prolific Peter Schreier has since then been a most worthy successor in the classical music world as a lyrical tenor singing a wide range of repertoire, from Bach to Wagner, from cantatas and oratorios to romantic German operas, ALL with great success.

How to measure Mr Schreier's singing? If one insists that Peter Schreier does not own a timbre as beautiful as Wunderlich, one would still be forced to admit that Mr Schreier sings with more affectation than Mr Wunderlich. Such quality would justly compensate any other slight inadequacies, if any.

Listening to this album inevitably makes me compare Wunderlich's other solo albums of Schubert, and the foregoing feeling inevitably emerges.

Had Wunderlich been given more time, no doubt, he would have made a world of difference.

As it is, Peter Schreier has proven to be more than able to uphold the banner of great Germanic lyrical tenors since Wunderlich's premature demise, and this album is a must for his followers."