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

Rastlose Liebe

First line:
Dem Schnee, dem Regen
composer
author of text

Mark Padmore (tenor), 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: 2 minutes 23 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 is one of three Goethe Lieder that Zelter wrote in April 1812—the others were Neue Liebe, neues Leben and Mailied (‘Zwischen Weizen und Korn’). Beethoven had published his setting of the former poem in 1810. Zelter writes to his friend that he had not dared previously to set these poems, and that he has perhaps come too late to them to do them justice. How should I expect at my time of life, Zelter asks, to find restless love, new love, new life? In another letter (May 1813) the composer wonders whether a man of fifty-four is able to depict a ‘rastlose Liebe’. In terms of fire and energy he need not have worried—the song is even more restless than that of the eighteen-year-old Schubert. The prelude, interludes and postludes of Zelter’s setting still carry listeners away with their virtuosic energy. In this moto perpetuo we hear prefigured the music of his pupil Mendelssohn whose famously tricky accompaniments for songs like Hexenlied and Reiselied are typical of the Berlin lieder school. The song is in four sections, ABCA where the ‘A’ section is propelled forward by stormy triplets. The metre changes from 2/4 to 6/8 and back again in the middle sections. This awkwardness is counterbalanced, as often in Zelter, by an ardent impulse whereby the composer’s better judgement seems overruled by the heat of the musical moment; in the context of the restraint of many of Zelter’s song-writing contemporaries this is an attractive quality.

comparative Schubert listening:
Rastlose Liebe D138. 19 May 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
Waiting for content to load...
Waiting for content to load...