Hyperion Records

This most indelibly memorable of all Beethoven’s songs – as well as the most overtly playful – sets the famous passage from Goethe’s Faust known as Mephistopheles’ ‘Song of the Flea’. The insect’s darting movements are brilliantly suggested by the registral hopping of the piano part, while the last verse screws up the mounting hysteria with a series of excited scratches culminating in the squashing of the flea right at the end.

from notes by Julian Haylock © 1999