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 CDJ33002

Fahrt zum Hades, D526

First line:
Der Nachen dröhnt, Cypressen flüstern
composer
January 1817; published in 1832
author of text

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Graham Johnson (piano)
Recording details: October 1987
Seldon Hall, Haberdashers' Aske's School, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Antony Howell
Release date: December 1988
Total duration: 4 minutes 16 seconds
 

Reviews

‘A delightful collection of songs inspired by water’ (The Guardian)

‘Listen and marvel’ (Fanfare, USA)

‘How can a lover of Schubert songs do without this release?’ (Stereophile)
This marvellous song, with a text by Schubert's close friend Mayrhofer, has never achieved the popularity of its Schiller counterpart Gruppe aus dem Tartarus (D583) in which rushing semiquavers in the accompaniment propel the voice part through a gruesome tour of the underworld. Fahrt zum Hades is equally dramatic in its own way but the tempo is set in triplets: taken at a funereal pace (as often happens) this music can seem lifeless and complacent. In fact it should rage eloquently against the dying of the light. D minor is a favourite Schubert key to depict epic travel: the first song in Winterreise launches another ominous journey; the winter clouds fly in strife in Der stürmische Morgen in the same cycle, the old coachman Kronos drives a path in D minor through life itself with ineluctable force and it is in this key that Death invites the Maiden to cross the threshold into his domain. The commendatore scene from Mozart's Don Giovanni (the Don also travels to Hades) must have played a part in Schubert's feeling for this tonality and in the choice of key for these songs. In the opening section of Fahrt zum Hades the bass line is particularly strong and the power of the triplets is merciless. This is after all a journey across the river Styx and Schubert here writes very unusual water music indeed. He often illustrates the crystalline, sparkling qualities of water, but here thick chords depict a heavier substance—Lethean ooze, denser than the Dead Sea, 'heavy with death' as Mayrhofer says. The modulation to the relative major ('Da leuchten Sonne nicht') gives rise to music which is a hymn to earth's beauties rather than a description of their absence. We cannot forget that the most famous musical visitors to these realms was Gluck's Orpheus. The influence of that composer is discernible in the nobility of the vocal line at 'die letzte Träne'. We then glimpse King Danaus's fifty daughters, the Danaïdes who everlastingly fill leaking pails—Schubert himself added the adjective 'pale' to the poem to describe them. Among the many punishments traditionally ascribed to the wretched Tantalus was eternal hunger and (although up to his neck in water) eternal thirst … 'water water everywhere, nor any drop to drink'. As the music falls from B flat minor to the remote reaches of D flat minor the black depths of the ancient river Lethe are revealed; the vocal line here falls to its nadir. The last verse of the poem as Mayrhofer wrote it describes the soul's final struggle to break free, and Schubert provides a hectic ascending chromatic scramble for life which launches an impassioned but fruitless recitative. After a majestic and rhetorical bridge passage the composer uses the poet's first verse again for a recapitulation which is subtly varied in the vocal line to end the journal unequivocally with no right of appeal. This da capo gives the whole piece a shape which seems appropriate to its classical subject and epic emotional scale.

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
Waiting for content to load...
Waiting for content to load...