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Track(s) taken from CDJ33018

O Quell, was strömst du rasch und wild 'Die Blume und der Quell', D874

composer
January (?) 1826; fragment completed and first published in 1959 by Reinhard van Hoorickx
arranger
author of text
from the Poetisches Tagebuch

Peter Schreier (tenor), Graham Johnson (piano)
Recording details: August 1992
St George's, Brandon Hill, United Kingdom
Produced by Martin Compton
Engineered by Antony Howell
Release date: June 1993
Total duration: 0 minutes 41 seconds
 

Reviews

‘Superlative’ (Gramophone)

‘An outstanding disc in a distinguished series’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘The record brings joy; I've been playing it again and again’ (The Observer)

‘One of the glories of the series’ (Fanfare, USA)
This fragment consists of four bars of introduction and fourteen bars of virtually unaccompanied melody—only just enough to make it worth including in a sequence of Schulze songs. It is the only one of them which does not speak directly in the poet's own persona. The analogy of Love speaking to Life, or the flower to the river (on 8 January 1814 in the Poetisches Tagebuch) is not extremely promising as a match for the direct and searing statements of many of the other Schulze songs. An August Schlegel song Lebensmelodien from 1816 had adopted a similar pattern (a conversation among swan, eagle and doves) but it does not number among the composer's great successes; when putting words into the mouths, as it were, of rivers, mountains, butterflies and birds (as in the Schlegel Abendröthe settings) Schubert is happier at dealing with one character singing at a time. The greatest dialogue song for one singer is of course Der Müller und der Bach, the penultimate song of Die schöne Müllerin. That song of miller and stream brings another song from the same cycle to mind, Eifersucht und Stolz, in which the overflowing turbulent stream mirrors the miller's jealousy. O Quell, was strömst du rasch und wild is reminiscent of that work, the piano accompaniment bubbling excitedly in the same manner.

The last two bars of the vocal line ('erschaue'), as well as all but the opening five bars of piano writing, are provided by Reinhard Van Hoorickx. In this performance the first two bars of the introduction are recapitulated as a coda.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 1993

Other albums featuring this work

Schubert: The Complete Songs
CDS44201/4040CDs Boxed set + book (at a special price) — Download only
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