Search - Matthias Goerne, Ingo Metzmacher :: Schubert: Heliopolis-Matthias Goerne Schubert Edition Vol.4

	Matthias Goerne, Ingo Metzmacher Schubert: Heliopolis-Matthias Goerne Schubert Edition Vol.4 Genre: Classical During his career, Franz Schubert wrote over six hundred songs to texts by over one hundred and fifty different poets. However, more remarkable than his prolific output was his exceptional skill. The lied had previously be... more » « less
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CD Details

All Artists: Matthias Goerne, Ingo Metzmacher
Title: Schubert: Heliopolis-Matthias Goerne Schubert Edition Vol.4
Members Wishing: 0
Total Copies: 0
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Original Release Date: 1/1/2009
Re-Release Date: 12/8/2009
Album Type: Import
Genre: Classical
Styles: Historical Periods, Classical (c.1770-1830)
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 794881924929

Synopsis

Product Description

During his career, Franz Schubert wrote over six hundred songs to texts by over one hundred and fifty different poets. However, more remarkable than his prolific output was his exceptional skill. The lied had previously been the province of amateurs -- a genre for composers and performers of modest means and limited ambition. Schubert elevated the lied to the status of art through his extraordinary musical and poetic sensitivity. Heliopolis is the fourth volume of Harmonia Mundi's Matthias Goerne Schubert Edition, a series that has already created quite a stir, garnering a Gramophone Editor's Choice and a Choc du Monde de la Musique, among other awards. The release is further augmented by a free DVD about the making of this recording.

CD Reviews

A mature, often dark singer enjoying his mastery

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 12/09/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Matthias Goerne has a large fan base and much critical acclaim, but even with these advantages and his honeyed voice, it's risky to record a dozen Schubert CDs. He won't be covering every song suitable for the male voice, as Fischer-Dieskau did for DG, so completists won't be attracted on that score. The artistry of each installment will have to speak for itself. So far, it has, and using different pianists as collaborators has helped leaven the sameness of the first four editions. This time we get the noted German conductor Ingo Metzmacher, who proves to be capable and thoroughly musical, if not exactly a revelation. The theme centers on the ancient world of Greece (or Griechenland as the first, haunting song has it).

I'm no specialist, but as a lover of Schubert lieder, I recognized as old favorites about a third of the songs presented here, and about an equal number were completely new, including the paired Heliopolis songs, D. 753 and D. 754, that give the album its title. I am an on-again, off-again fan of Goerne's smooth, creamy delivery, and having heard him now in over a hundred lieder since the series began, I find it harder to find much variety. Yet I must hasten to add that this is singing of a very accomplished order -- it's not as if Goerne has to worry about close rivals except for a veteran like Thomas Hampson. I wish he weren't so eternally serious, to the point of grimness, in this repertoire. Schubert has lightness as one of his main characteristics, but Goerne is never carefree, even when Schubert is. The cursed Orestes is meat for him, or any song that's tragic, gloomy, declamatory, or lamenting.

In short, Goerne likes to stay on the dark side, and as a result, his Schubert can grow wearisome. Take his intense artistry a few songs at a time, and you find an exceptional singer enjoying the fruits of his maturity."