Recordings
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Schumann: The Complete Songs
CDS44441/50
10CDs Boxed set (at a special price)
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Schumann: The Complete Songs, Vol. 1 – Christine Schäfer
CDJ33101
Archive Service Only
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My Garden
CDA66937
Archive Service Only
Download currently discounted
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Shakespeare's Kingdom
CDA66136
Archive Service Only
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Details
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No 1: Herzeleid
Die Weiden lassen matt die Zweige hangen
author of text
No 2: Die Fensterscheibe
Die Fenster klär' ich zum Feiertag
author of text
No 3: Der Gärtner
Auf ihrem Leibrösslein
author of text
No 4: Die Spinnerin
Auf dem Dorf in den Spinnstuben
author of text
No 5: Im Wald
Ich zieh' so allein in den Wald hinein!
author of text
No 6: Abendlied
Es ist so still geworden
author of text
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The Op 107 songs are united by a mood of wistful other-worldliness. The theme is unreciprocated love, whether it is poor suicidal Ophelia in love with Hamlet, the gardener in love with a princess, a girl spinning a trousseau in vain and so on. This is not tragic music, rather does it contain the delicate half-lights of fairytale and fantasy.The characters, some of them folk-tale archetypes, all seem to come from old German picture-books The music seems fragile and much responsibility lies in the hands of the performers who need to have a light touch to find the correct transparency of texture. As a whole the cycle has many exquisite moments and cries out not to be measured by the standards of the 1840 songs. Aribert Reimann has made an arrangement of this set for string quartet and voice; for this he transposes the music into higher key.
from notes by Graham Johnson © 1996
English