Christoph Berner – Swan Songs (2018/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:14:22 minutes | 690 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © CAvi-music
The phrase “Swan Song” would somewhat mean, admittedly, that the composers knew that their time had come, and that they wanted to bid the world adieu and give some retrospective on their life and work. Absolutely not! None of the four composer included here intended to go back ad patres any time soon, starting with Schubert whose Schwanengesang is actually a blend made posthumously by a publisher, who packed under this title some fourteen isolated Lieder, which weren’t meant to form a cycle. Baritone Christian Immler has chosen the six Lieder whose poems are from Heinrich Heine. Brahms himself, in 1896, was only lamenting the passing of Clara Schumann, but did he know that he would only outlive her for a year when he wrote his Four Serious Songs. Above all, his own swan song would be the eleven chorale preludes for organ which evoke imminent death in a poignant way—even if the four songs are greatly emotional. Samuel Barber’s Three Songs, written in 1972 for Fischer-Dieskay, are admittedly among his last works (and his ultimate opus for choir and piano), but the composer still had almost ten years to live. That being said, the crepuscular mood will escape no one’s attention, as well as the extreme focus of the discourse. Finally, on the polar opposite of this feeling, Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles, written in 1988—two years before his death, then—are not, absolutely not even, funeral or contemplative! This is some work of explosive vitality, deliciously conceived for baritone, mezzo and four-handed piano. For the end of this album, Immler is joined by the mezzo-soprano Anna Stéphany.
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Werner Güra, Christoph Berner – Beethoven: Lieder & Bagatellen (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:11 minutes | 994 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Beethoven the song composer.The giant of the symphony and the sonata has somewhat overshadowed Beethoven the creator of songs. Yet his lieder are certainly not lacking in appeal or originality, as is shown by this selection that includes the most famous, from Adelaide to the first song cycle in history, An die ferne Geliebte. Christoph Berner plays a Streicher fortepiano of 1847, perfectly suited to both the songs and the wonderful Bagatelles op.126.
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Werner Güra, Christoph Berner, Julia Schröder, Roel Dieltiens – Haydn: Scottish Airs (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:05:47 minutes | 595 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Late in life, Franz Joseph Haydn made about 125 arrangements of Scottish songs for the publisher George Thomson. Thomson’s project was an ongoing one in the 1790s and early 1800s; after a volume with arrangements by Scots composers sold well, Thomson was apparently inspired to commission more of the same from “name” composers like Haydn and later Beethoven, Hummel, and Weber. The results were more than purely financially motivated. The aged Haydn proclaimed in one of his submissions to Thomson that he was proud of his work, and Beethoven seems to have gone on to set a variety of national popular songs (the term “folk songs” is anachronistic here, for the materials were contemporary) without any commission at all. Haydn’s are pretty regular in structure, with a strophic setting for a trio of piano, violin, and cello, and an instrumental introduction that neatly sets the mood and the pitch world for the song. It’s easy to see why Haydn became intrigued by the project: within the severe constraints of the form, he introduces quite a variety of expressive touches, and he was obviously well coached on the meaning of the texts (or absorbed a great deal of English in the course of his travels to London), even those in Scots dialect. There is little to tell the listener that German tenor Werner Güra is anything other than a native English speaker, and he even does well with the Scots pieces (everything is translated into German and French in the CD booklet, and the Scots texts are heavily footnoted for English speakers). The interpretations by Güra and his trio of instrumental collaborators (keyboardist Christoph Berner plays a fortepiano) are probably ideal for these little pieces. Güra keeps the music to its proper small scale, and he gives the instrumentalists room to move and avoids the mechanical quality of earlier readings. There’s nothing revelatory here, but for those interested in the development of Scottish song, or in hearing some of the last notes Haydn set to paper, this is a strong pick.
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Anke Vondung, Christoph Berner – Fin de Siècle: Lieder by Schreker, Schönberg, Zemlinsky, Berg & Mahler (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:10:03 minutes | 599 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © CAvi-music
This is the first solo album of the Mezzo Soprano Anke Vondung, who is travelling the world and the most prominent Opera Houses and Concert Halls. Two years ago, inspired by their shared love of Viennese music and visual arts at the turn of the 20th century, Anke and Christoph put together a vocal recital programme featuring lieder by Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, Alexander Zemlinsky and Gustav Mahler.
This recording is based on that programme with the addition of the strikingly expressive early songs of Franz Schreker.
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