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.
The mood is cheekily racy thinly disguised by courtly euphemism; the decorations in the vocal line at 'umgeben' in the second line lend a period flavour to the proceedings. This is Schubert in his Watteauesque 'Fêtes galantes' mode ( if only he had known it!). The capricious setting of the final line of the strophe ('wo die Liebesgötter scherzten') is virtuosic for the singer (such fast passagework with quick leaps can all too easily degenerate into a Swiss yodel) and utterly captivating for the audience. It also works its magic in the second strophe where one wonders if there could ever have been a more delectable musical incarnation of 'blondes and brunettes'. The postlude in semiquaver triplets, one hand chasing the other, is distinctly dance-like. And yet despite all this fun one feels a sense of modified rapture, even decorum, in this music. It is this which keeps it firmly within the pasticheur's frame.
from notes by Graham Johnson © 1995
Schubert: The Complete Songs ‘This would have been a massive project for even the biggest international label, but from a small independent … it is a miracle. An ideal Christ ... ‘Please give me the complete Hyperion Schubert songs set—all 40 discs—and, in the next life, I promise I'll "re-gift" it to Schubert himself … fo ...» More |