Search - Michael Volle, Franz [Vienna] Schubert, Ulrich Eisenlohr :: Schubert: Schwanengesang

Volle has the vocal and interpretative resources needed.

John Austin | Kangaroo Ground, Australia | 07/19/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Website shoppers who baulk at paying top price for the complete survey of Schubert's songs on 37 Hyperion CDs, might like to investigate an alternative "budget" survey now being issued on the budget Naxos label. Planning, policy, and performers differ. The Hyperion series grouped songs according to a text theme, and matched them with a singer. In the Naxos series, the plan seems to be to group songs according to the authors of their text. Singers of various nationalities participated in the Hyperion survey; the singers in the Naxos edition are all performers whose first language is German. The provider of all the accompaniments, the research and the fascinating program notes in the Hyperion survey was Graham Johnson. All these roles are assigned to more than one person in the Naxos survey. An additional feature of the Naxos series is the provision of footnotes, showing changes that Schubert made to the original texts. To sample the Naxos issue, try this CD, Number Two in the series. Baritone Michael Volle has the vocal and interpretative resources needed. He has a beautiful voice, and I hope to hear more of his work. Pianist Ulrich Eisenlohr does something strange with the familiar Ständchen. He pauses slightly at the end of every bar and uses the sustaining pedal to keep the sound going into the next bar, suggesting he's temporarily lost the use of his right hand. The sound quality is excellent, with the piano well forward. In addition to the 17 songs conventionally grouped together under the title "Schwanengesang", three more settings Schubert made by Ludwig Rellstab poems are here also, one lengthy one with a horn obligato. Schubert composed them at about the same time as the others, but for a reason unknown they have never been included in the cycle."

Schubert's Schwanengesang

Robin Friedman | Washington, D.C. United States | 12/22/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Schwanengesang" (swan-song) is a collection of the last songs of Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828), the greatest master of the art song. The collection is not a song-cycle -- a collection of songs arranged around a particular poet or story -- in the sense that Schubert's "Winterreise" or "Die Schone Mullerin" constitutes a song-cycle Rather the collection was put together from Schubert's final manuscripts after his death by an enterprising publisher, who gave the collection its title in the hope of increasing sales.The set consists of settings of 14 poems. The first seven are by Ludwig Rellstab (1799-1860); the next six are by the great German poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856); and the final poem is by Johann Seidl (1804-1875).The songs cover a wide range of emotions and of song forms. They bear eloquent testimony to how Schubert's great gifts were cut short by his untimely death at the age of 31. The songs range from the simple strophic setting of "The Fishermaiden" by Heine to the complexities in thought and in composition of the thorough-composed "The Double" ("Der Doppelganger) also by Heine. Many regard the latter as Schubert's greatest song. But there are many other possible candidates, including some from "Schwanengesang" itself.Even though it is a mixed collection, the best way to approach "Schwanengesang" is to listen to it through several times. (This recording includes texts of the songs together with translations.) Each listener will find favorities. Because the work does not constitute an integrated song-cycle, every listener will want to pick and choose among the songs after gaining some familiarity with the set. The songs I return to from "Schwanengesang" most frequently are "The Carrier Pigeon" ("Taubenpost") by Seidl, the famous "Serenade" ("Standchen") by Rellstab and the "Farewell" ("Abschied") also by Rellstab. Many other choices are possible.To me the final song in the collection, "Die Taubenpost" is the masterpiece of the set and a great work of music. This was Schubert's last song and it was simply added to the collection at the end. It is melodic and wistful with beautiful piano interludes, a prelude and a postlude. It is Schubert at the top of his lyrical form and a fitting end to the collection.This disc also includes three earlier songs with texts by Rellstab including a long piece, written for public perfomrance, "Auf dem Strom" featuring an obligato part for French Horn.This CD is part of a planned collection of Schubert's entire song output on Naxos, a budget-priced label. The collection is a worthy rival to a complete Schubert set on Hyperion and costs much less. The performers on this disc are Michael Volle, baritone, Ulrich Eisenlohr, piano, with Sjon Schott playing horn on "Auf dem Storm." Volle and Eisnelohr collaborate masterfully on the collection. I tend to pay close attention to the piano part in these songs, and Eisenlohr's playing in "Standchen" "Taubenpost" "Doppelganger" and elsewhere is outstanding. Volle has a rich full voice but seems to me to sing in a slurred way at times. Tempos are slightly on the slow side.This is outstanding music. Even though it is a late work, the "Schwanengesang" is a good place to start with Schubert's songs for the new listener. This disc makes an excellent introduction to Naxos' planned edition of the Schubert songs."

Schubert's last songs look death in the face.

darragh o'donoghue | 09/06/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"the settings in this song-cycle of poems by Rellstab, Heine and Seidl were written in the year of Schubert's death, and published posthumously under the title 'Swansong', so it is appropriate that they should be so obsessively concerned with death, exile, yearning, loss, the passage of time, the evanescence of humanity in the face of undying nature. These are songs in a minor key, as simple and pared back and immense as a Beckett drama, all pretence and flourish abandoned in the face of final truths. Even seemingly jaunty tunes, such as 'Farewell' or 'The Fishermaiden', have a melancholy undertow. The Heine settings especially have a Gothic feel, with their narratives about wanderers, dead lovers, abandoned houses, infernal sufferers and doubles, as in the clanging doom of 'the Doppelganger'. The evocation of nature is not merely pathetic fallacy - the summoning of breezes, storms and streams with economic means anticipates Debussy. The most remarkable song on this admirable CD is one of three based on Rellstab texts not in the cycle, 'Upon a River', a lengthy, meandering, infinitely sad masterpiece, in which the voice and piano are joined by a horn, winding like the river away from loved ones, home and life. Michael Volle's singing on first listens might seem overly harsh, but is later revealed to be exceptionally alert to the words and his accompanist's dramatic, often disorienting playing. The liner notes by Karsten Bartel offer an unusual take on the repressive political context in which Schubert wrote and the subversive subtexts of his lieder - you don't have to totally buy it to rejoice in an essay that goes beyond the bland puffery we usually get."