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Track(s) taken from CDA67782

Angiolin dal biondo crin, S269 Third version

composer
? 1859; LW N1; published in 1860
author of text

Matthew Polenzani (tenor), Julius Drake (piano)
Recording details: February 2010
All Saints' Church, East Finchley, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Julian Millard
Release date: November 2010
Total duration: 5 minutes 22 seconds

Cover artwork: Photograph of Matthew Polenzani. Sim Canetty-Clarke
 

Reviews

‘Polenzani is evidently a tenor of the finest quality: a lyric voice, sweet and ingratiating, with the capacity to ring out excitingly, gloriously easy on high but with a perfectly adequate body to the tone in its middle and lower registers. He is firm and even, pleasingly expressive … he sings with warmth, intelligence and conviction, matching the superb playing of his pianist Julius Drake’ (Gramophone)

‘Polenzani remains an extraordinarily communicative Lieder singer, possessed of an agile and flexible voice of tremendous versatility. In the most intimate of these settings, as well as in the quasi-operatic ones, Polenzani and Drake create performances that are at once thoughtful, richly atmospheric and never less than compelling … this auspicious inauguration of the series whets the appetite for more’ (International Record Review)

‘This stupendous disc, issued ahead of the Liszt bicentenary next year, marks the start of Hyperion's survey of his complete songs, still a grey area for many despite past attempts by major artists such as Brigitte Fassbaender and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau to rehabilitate them … as with so much of his music, their difficulty in performance is to be found in their emotional and expressive extremes. The challenges are more than met here, with Polenzani doing things in songs such as Der Fischerknabe or Pace Non Trovo that you never thought were possible for a human voice, while Drake's intensity is total and unswerving’ (The Guardian)
The words for Liszt’s first song, Angiolin dal biondo crin, were written by a friend of his, the Marchese Césare Boccella from Lucca, Tuscany. A light-pink damask rose introduced in 1842 was named ‘Marquise Boccella’ in honour of the poet’s wife, and this tender song, originally composed for Liszt’s and Marie d’Agoult’s three-year-old daughter Blandine-Rachel gives off something of the same flowery scent. The first version was published in 1843 by Schlesinger, but we hear the third version, published in 1860. (The novelist Anthony Trollope’s mother, Frances Trollope, visited Boccella on her Italian tour and praises a poem in which the Marquis scolds his friend George Sand for failing to meet properly elevated standards of womanhood.) Sadly, Blandine, who married a French statesman named Émile Ollivier, would die in 1862 at the age of twenty-six of septicaemia from an infected breast shortly after giving birth.

from notes by Susan Youens © 2010

Le texte de la première mélodie de Liszt, Angiolin dal biondo crin, a été écrit par l’un de ses amis, le marquis Césare Boccella de Lucques, en Toscane. Une rose de Damas d’un ton rose clair, créée en 1842, a été baptisée «Marquise Boccella» en l’honneur de la femme du poète, et cette tendre mélodie, composée à l’origine pour la fille de Liszt et de Marie d’Agoult, Blandine-Rachel, alors âgée de trois ans, dégage un peu le même parfum de fleur. La première version a été publiée en 1843 par Schlesinger, mais on a enregistré ici la troisième version, publiée en 1860 (la mère du romancier Anthony Trollope, Frances Trollope, a rendu visite à Boccella lors de son voyage en Italie et fait l’éloge d’un poème dans lequel le marquis s’en prend à son amie George Sand pour n’être pas parvenue à assurer un statut assez élevé aux femmes). Malheureusement, Blandine, qui a épousé un homme d’État français nommé Émile Ollivier, allait mourir en 1862 à l’âge de vingt-six ans de septicémie à la suite de l’infection d’un sein peu après un accouchement.

extrait des notes rédigées par Susan Youens © 2010
Français: Marie-Stella Pâris

Der Text für Liszts erstes Lied Angiolin dal biondo crin stammt von dem mit ihm befreundeten Marchese Césare Boccella von Lucca in der Toskana. Eine hellrosafarbene Damaszener-Rose wurde 1842 zu Ehren der Gemahlin des Markgrafen „Marchesa Boccella“ genannt, und Liszt komponierte dieses zarte Lied, das etwas vom Duft der Rose vermittelt, ursprünglich für seine dreijährige Tochter Blandine, die ihm Marie d’Agoult geboren hatte. Die erste Fassung wurde 1843 von Schlesinger veröffentlicht, doch hier hören wir die 1860 erschienene dritte Fassung. (Frances Trollope, die Mutter des englischen Romanautors Anthony Trollope, besuchte Boccella auf ihrer Italienreise und äußert sich lobend über ein Gedicht, in dem der Markgraf die mit ihm befreundete George Sand wegen Vernachlässigung ihrer Weiblichkeit tadelt.) Blandine heiratete den französischen Politiker Émile Ollivier. Sie starb 1862 im Alter von sechsundzwanzig Jahren nach einer Geburt an Blutvergiftung aufgrund einer infizierten Brust.

aus dem Begleittext von Susan Youens © 2010
Deutsch: Henning Weber

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