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Track(s) taken from CDJ33051/3

Erlkönig

First line:
Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?
composer
author of text

Gerald Finley (baritone), Graham Johnson (piano)
Recording details: October 2004
All Saints' Church, East Finchley, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Julian Millard
Release date: October 2005
Total duration: 2 minutes 20 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)
Zelter began this song in 1797, a few months after Schubert was born; he completed it in 1808 and it was not printed until Max Friedländer prepared the first of his two Gedichte von Goethe in Kompositionen volumes (1896 and 1916) for the Goethe Gesellschaft. Unusually for settings of this text the song is in the major key which does not limit the composer’s ability to communicate a sense of menace. The fleet pianistic interjection following ‘es ist ein Nebelstreif’ (and later ‘säuselt der Wind’) admirably depicts both vanishing mist and the whistling of the wind—it serves a similar purpose to the semiquaver triplets in the introduction to Irrlicht in Winterreise. The insidious voice of the Erl King climbs gradually up the stave for seven bars before dropping a fifth for the final few words. In the strophe of the spirit’s final appearance the accompaniment thickens and the boy’s cries become increasingly desperate. A disturbing and dramatic immediacy is given to ‘Leids getan’ as Zelter prolongs the cadence which resolves in an adagio morendo. It is as if the boy is giving up the ghost as he sings this phrase, an emphasis that is not to be heard in other settings.

comparative Schubert listening:
Erlkönig D328. October (?) 1815

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
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