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 CDJ33051/3

Monolog der Iphegenia

First line:
Heraus in eure Schatten, rege Wipfel
composer
author of text

Susan Gritton (soprano), Graham Johnson (piano)
Recording details: March 2004
All Saints' Church, East Finchley, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Julian Millard
Release date: October 2005
Total duration: 8 minutes 50 seconds
 

Reviews

‘This enterprising, often revelatory set should intrigue and delight anyone interested in the development of the Lied’ (Gramophone)

‘Since making music with friends was Schubert's whole raison d'etre, this 3-CD box is an inspired idea … led by the soprano Susan Gritton, the performances are pure A-list’ (The Independent)

‘Anyone who loves lieder will find here a rich, diverse, and delightful offering. There isn't a bad song among the 81 songs by 40 composers who wrote during Schubert's lifetime, and there's a lot of fine music here by well-known and also practically unknown composers and poets. The singing is consistently excellent… anyone interested in this genre will find here a broad-ranging and generous collection’ (American Record Guide)

‘If 81 songs are too many to mention individually, sufficient variety exists and enough songs are receiving a first recording for this set to be indispensable for anyone interested in the genre’ (International Record Review)

‘Graham Johnson once again demonstrates that he has few peers today in his combined function as scholar-musician’ (Fanfare, USA)
This scena was composed in 1798 and published in the same year. It was later issued as part of Reichardt’s Lieder der Liebe anthology of 1804. In a letter to Goethe of this year Zelter remarked on the music in unfriendly fashion, comparing his rival’s setting to an unnecessary operation on a healthy body. Goethe had originally written Iphigenie in Tauris (in prose) in 1778 for the actress Corona Schröter, his mistress of the time; in the Weimar production of that year the poet himself had played Orestes. The version that Reichardt set was the fourth, now in blank verse. Goethe completed this in 1786 in Rome, and it was given its first performance in the Burgtheater, Vienna—the play’s Austrian connection may account for the fact that Schubert was interested enough in this music in 1815 to make his own handwritten copy (now in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge) of Reichardt’s score. The ‘Monolog’ is placed at the very beginning of the play (before the entrance of Arcas), where Iphigenia stands in front of the temple of Diana. Goethe mentions nothing about a chorus which Reichardt introduces to echo the heroine’s words, a device that Zelter also criticizes as extraneous—in fact it is highly effective because it suggests key thoughts resounding in the heroine’s mind. The plight of Iphigenia who feels herself enslaved in her marriage to Thoas must have appealed to a young composer who had already responded sympathetically to Gretchen in extremis. This extended use of recitative was very much a subject of study for the younger composer; and his contemporary interest in adding a supplementary chorus to a song is shown by his setting of the Szene aus Faust, D126, at the end of 1814.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 2006

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...