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Track(s) taken from CDJ33001

Meeres Stille, D216

First line:
Tiefe Stille herrscht im Wasser
composer
Second version; published in 1821 as Op 3 No 2
author of text

Dame Janet Baker (mezzo-soprano), Graham Johnson (piano)
Recording details: February 1987
Elstree, United Kingdom
Produced by Martin Compton
Engineered by Antony Howell
Release date: December 1987
Total duration: 2 minutes 5 seconds
 

Other recordings available for download

Florian Boesch (baritone), Roger Vignoles (piano)

Reviews

‘Dame Janet is in glorious voice’ (The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs)

‘One of the loveliest records even Dame Janet has made’ (The Guardian)

‘A generous and revelatory recital of Goethe and Schiller settings. Janet Baker breaks the champagne bottle over one of the most important recording projects of the half century’ (The Times)
This is a marvel of impressionistic calm. The sea is motionless but we are also aware of the sinister implications of a becalmed voyage before the era of steam power. A tensely wrought melodic line is underpinned by breathless modulations - the arpeggii in the piano part convey stillness and fear at the same time. The song is only one page long but it somehow suspends time and place: the horizons are endless, the ship is cradled in dark waters, the piano part seems to measure the sea's depth, its chords vibrating like a sounding with line and lead. Above the vocal line there is no trace of wind in the sails. Fischer-Dieskau has written that 'the score of the song looks like a drawing' and indeed here is a map of motionless semibreves and the undulating lines denoting arpeggii seem nautically illustrative. The only undercurrent is one of human apprehension at the void created by Nature who has withdrawn her cooperation.

Goethe's poem dates from 1787 when, during his Italian journey, he voyaged from Naples to Sicily, and encountered all weathers. Schubert never even saw the sea - Austrian lakes were as near as he got. Beethoven also set the poem (chorally with orchestra} at more or less the same time, linking it with a happy ending - a setting of the pendant poem, Glückliche Fahrt (Prosperous Voyage). Schubert preferred to leave the ship at sea, captured for ever and set under glass on the waters' depths.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 1988

Other albums featuring this work

Schubert: Der Wanderer & other songs
Studio Master: CDA68010Studio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
Schubert: The Complete Songs
CDS44201/4040CDs Boxed set + book (at a special price) — Download only
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