Search - Heppner, Beethoven, Liszt :: Ben Heppner - Dedication (Lieder of Beethoven, Liszt, Schumann and Strauss)

What an appealing title for this wonderful selection of romantic, ardent songs, sung with such radiant, glowing eloquence! Ben Heppner is a two-fold "crossover" phenomenon: a great operatic heldentenor completely at home in the lieder repertoire, and a Canadian who sings German like a native. He captures the warm and lyrical simplicity, the dreamy inwardness, the poetic longing, and the passionate intensity of these love songs perfectly, coloring his incomparable voice with infinite flexibility and subtlety to fit the expression. Heppner reserves its glorious, ringing quality for the climaxes and for Liszt's three Sonnets of Petrarch--Italian opera arias in disguise--the first complete with a dramatic recitative (and one of the program's two high B's), the others rapturous, yearning romances. All are very beautiful, with lush, swooping virtuoso piano parts. Craig Rutenberg, an exemplary partner, plays them marvelously. This is a record to delight the ear and warm the heart. --Edith Eisler