Search - Schubert, Stachelhaus, Henschel :: Songs Arranged for Voice & Orchestra

Welcome aspects, a bit of absurdity

Rudy Apffel | Oakland, CA | 10/07/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The Reger orchestrations bring a Mahlerian vastness to Schubert that is often most welcome (Abendrot, Nacht und Traume). Oddly Erlkonig in orchestration, lacking the primitive stress-strain of the piano's triplet octaves, is diminished in urgency and fright (no pianist can hear the piano accompaniment without a degree of empathic physical dread). On this recording the soprano (Ms Ina Stachelhaus) gets to sing only 3 of the 15 songs. This is Mr Henschel's show (well, he HAD to let Stachelhaus sing Gretchen am Spinnrad, at least). Still, there is an absurdity in Mr Henschel's show: he sings ALL 9 stanzas of Litanei (Reger's orchestration simply repeated)--the track is over a quarter hour long. Did Mr Henschel really fear lest we be deprived of hearing the sincere verses of the 18th century German hack JG Jacobi set 9 times to Schubert's 9 bars of music? True, it IS a litany, but like 99-barrels-of-beer-on-the-wall litanies go on being fun to sing long after they're fun to listen to..."