Welcome to Hyperion Records, an independent British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods from the twelfth century to the twenty-first.

Hyperion offers both CDs, and downloads in a number of formats. The site is also available in several languages.

Please use the dropdown buttons to set your preferred options, or use the checkbox to accept the defaults.

Click cover art to view larger version
Track(s) taken from CDD22010

Selige Welt, D743

First line:
Ich treibe auf des Lebens Meer
composer
Autumn 1822; published by Sauer und Leidesdorf in August 1823 as Op 23 No 2
author of text

The Songmakers' Almanac, Richard Jackson (baritone), Graham Johnson (piano)
Recording details: November 1983
St Barnabas's Church, North Finchley, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Martin Compton
Engineered by Antony Howell
Release date: March 1997
Total duration: 1 minutes 3 seconds

Cover artwork: Party Games of the Schubertians (Gesellschaftspeilungen der Schubertianer). Leopold Kupelwieser
 

Other recordings available for download

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Graham Johnson (piano)
Maarten Koningsberger (baritone), Graham Johnson (piano)

Reviews

‘Impossible to imagine anyone not deriving enormous pleasure from this collection’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘Reviewers have long since run out of adjectives to describe Graham Johnson's superb complete Schubert song series for Hyerion. Now, for the Schubert centenary year, comes a re-release of a Schubertide which while not part of the series is certainly in the same spirit. "Back catalogue" at Hyperion means caskets of jewels rather than dusty shelves. There are so many matchless performances on this set that you could operate the player blindfold and pick a winner every time. All conjure up memories of superb evenings in the concert hall where this group could justifiably claim to have set a new standard for the presentation of song’ (The Singer)
This and Schwanengesang are the only two Schubert songs to poems by his schoolmate Senn. Neither is longer than a page but each is a perfect musical entity. Senn was a goodlooking firebrand who from his school years on was always getting into trouble with the authorities (on one occasion in 1820 with Schubert as part of the gang). He had a burning hatred for injustice and his writings were constantly subjected to heavy censorship. He had something of a military career and outlived Schubert by nearly thirty years. Selige Welt recalls Mut from Winterreise in its compact energy and shape, and certainly seems to be a musical portrait of the poet whom Schubert regarded as something of a hero. The piano doubles the vocal lilne which gives an aura of exceptional determination to this song. The words have a type of existential quality. Schubert's friends and contemporaries are often maligned for writing obscure and confused verse but there are times when the strangeness of their works appears genuinely expressionist. The Viennese hot-house was to produce the poetry of Georg Trakl for example, and the same stifling society gave birth to the odd works of Senn and Mayrhofer which often seem like presentiments of the literary experiments of nearly a century later. Certainly, disgust with modern civilisation is a theme which unites Trakl and Mayrhofer and one cannot help wondering if Schubert's friends would have been more prized as poets if they had been contemporaries of Schoenberg.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 1988

Other albums featuring this work

Schubert: The Complete Songs
CDS44201/4040CDs Boxed set + book (at a special price) — Download only
Schubert: The Hyperion Schubert Edition, Vol. 2 - Stephen Varcoe
CDJ33002
Schubert: The Hyperion Schubert Edition, Vol. 28 - Maarten Koningsberger & John Mark Ainsley
CDJ33028Download only
Waiting for content to load...
Waiting for content to load...