Strauss: Favourite Lieder (CD)

Favourite Lieder (re-release of Strauss Recital from 1996)
Composer Richard Strauss
Performers
Simon Keenlyside
Malcolm Martineau
Label (EMI Eminence) Emi Classics
Code (Originally CDEMX2250) 5859032
Recorded 22-24 March 1995 in All Saints, East Finchley
Released (May 1996) Re released March 1, 2004
Number of discs 1
ASIN (Originally B000025XY9) B0001EMLA2

Track Listing

1. Nichts (Nr. 2 from 8 Lieder aus Letzte Blätter by Hermann Gilm op. 10)

2. Das Rosenband (Nr. 1 from 4 Lieder nach Texten von Klopstock, Rückert und aus “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” op. 36)

3. Hochzeitlich Lied (Nr. 6 from 6 Lieder auf Gedichte von Liliencron, Falke, Dehmel, von Bodmer und Lindner op. 37)

4. Ständchen (Nr. 2 from 6 Lieder nach Gedichten von Schack op. 17)

5. Heimliche Aufforderung (Nr. 3 from 4 Lieder auf Texte von Henckell, Hart und Mackay op. 27)

6. Efeu (Nr. 3 from Mädchenblumen op. 22)

7. Wasserrose (Nr. 4 from Mädchenblumen op. 22)

8. Liebeshymnus (Nr. 3 from 5 Lieder auf Texte von Henckell, Liliencron und aus “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” op. 32)

9. Nachtgang (Nr. 3 from 3 Lieder nach Texten von Bierbaum op. 29)

10. Waldseligkeit (Nr. 1 from 8 Lieder auf Texte von Dehmel, Remer, Henckell, Panizza, aus “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” und den “Elsässischen Volksliedern op. 49)

11. Mein Auge (Nr. 4 from 6 Lieder auf Gedichte von Liliencron, Falke, Dehmel, von Bodmer und Lindner op. 37)

12. Winternacht (Nr. 2 from 5 Lieder nach Texten von Michelangelo und Schack op. 15)

13. All mein Gedanken (Nr. 1 from Schlichte Weisen op. 21)

14. Meinem Kinde (Nr. 3 from 6 Lieder auf Gedichte von Liliencron, Falke, Dehmel, von Bodmer und Lindner op. 37)

15. Weihnachtsgefühl, AV 94

16. Befreit (Nr. 4 from 5 Lieder nach Gedichten von Dehmel und Bierbaum op. 39)

17. Allerseelen (Nr. 9 from 8 Lieder aus Letzte Blätter by Hermann Gilm op. 10)

18. Traum durch die Dämmerung (Nr. 1 from 3 Lieder nach Texten von Bierbaum op. 29)

19. Sehnsucht (Nr. 2 from 5 Lieder auf Texte von Henckell, Liliencron und aus “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” op. 32)

20. Junggesellenschwur (Nr. 6 from 8 Lieder auf Texte von Dehmel, Remer, Henckell, Panizza, aus “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” und den “Elsässischen Volksliedern op. 49)

21. Cäcilie (Nr. 2 from 4 Lieder auf Texte von Henckell, Hart und Mackay op. 27)

22. Herr Lenz (Nr. 5 from 6 Lieder auf Gedichte von Liliencron, Falke, Dehmel, von Bodmer und Lindner op. 37)

What the critics say

Reviewed by Hilary Finch for Gramophone, June 1996

First Schubert (8/94), now Strauss; Simon Keenlyside’s distinctive baritone and keen musical intelligence are making his successive additions to the bulging catalogue a truly valuable contribution to our understanding of each composer.

For a start, he understands and respects both Strauss’s sentiment and his sentimentality for what it is. With steady, thoughtfully considered word-placing, he relieves Allerseelen of its sicklier scents and keeps its movement light and fresh, bringing the song to a strong, firmly syllabic climax. This skill in estimating the expressive potential of verbal weight and measure also strengthens the contours of his Sehnsucht; and in Standchen keeps the vocal focus clear and bright in the more fleet, high notes.

Keenlyside exploits the heroic character of his baritone in the bold rhetorical questions of Nichts, and in Liebeshymnus where the voice rings out with fearless resilience in its top register. This sense of heroic address and acclamation tends to replace, for Keenlyside, the more tremulous, passionate response some singers find in songs such as the Hochzeitlich Lied and Heimliche Aufforderung: the lip seldom trembles here, the voice yields little to Strauss’s harmonic sidesteps and melodic melismas.

Whether you miss that, or find it a relief, will be purely a matter of taste. With Malcolm Martineau delighting equally in the complexity and the simplicity of the piano writing displayed in this 20 years’ worth of love songs, the recital certainly takes a significant place in my own Strauss collection.’

John Steane in his “Quarterly retrospect” in Gramophone July 1996

“Simon Keenlyside’s Richard Strauss recital (EMI Eminence CD-EMX2250, 6/96) combines verbal expressiveness with vibrant tone and a finely drawn line. If there is a limitation here it is probably temperamental. Hilary Finch noted it as an absence of “the more tremulous, passionate response some singers find in Hochzeitlich Lied and Heimliche Aufforderung”, and I fancy she was not greatly sorry to go without it (“the lip seldom trembles”). But in at any rate the second of those songs the passionate response is essential, and Keenlyside’s way with it is too healthy, too innocent of its scented seduction. He is a splendid singer nevertheless with an exciting timbre as caught on records and the ideal baritone range that can encompass the deep notes of Efeu and the almost tenor tessitura of Liebeshymnus. And equally praiseworthy is Malcolm Martineau’s playing.”