Hyperion Records

A warm-hearted, sublimely understated setting that finds Beethoven at his most poetically subtle, especially when at the end the suggestion of falling tears in the piano accompaniment becomes slightly less free-flowing than has formerly been the case. So too the constant breaks in the vocal line allow the piano to ponder further on what is being sung. Most effective of all is the major-key setting which perfectly encapsulates the poem’s central theme of finding joy through sadness.

from notes by Julian Haylock © 1999