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Track(s) taken from CDJ33023

An Chloen, D363

First line:
Die Munterkeit ist meinen Wangen
composer
fragment first published in 1954 in the Music Review; completed by Reinhard van Hoorickx
arranger
author of text

Christoph Prégardien (tenor), Graham Johnson (piano)
Recording details: September 1994
Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel, Hampstead, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Antony Howell
Release date: May 1995
Total duration: 2 minutes 39 seconds
 

Reviews

‘When the Hyperion Schubert Edition is finally completed I am certain that this wondrous offering will rank among its most precious jewels … Prégardien is a prince among tenors’ (Gramophone)

‘Prégardien is an artist of the first rank’ (Fanfare, USA)
Most of the Schubert fragments were abandoned by the composer - for different reasons no doubt, but the challenge is usually to think of what the composer might have written had he had the time, interest or energy. An Chloen on the other hand was once a complete song; we have to guess what he did write. The manuscript was mutilated, probably by an autograph hunter who cut out part of the vocal line of Die Nacht, another Uz setting which was written on the obverse side. This vandalism was not directed against An Chloen perhaps, but it left only bars 7 to 23 of this song intact. By chance the bass line only of bars 1 to 6 was legible, and Reinhard Van Hoorickx has reconstructed the song using material from the unusually long piano postlude to fashion a vocal line. In the text printed above, the lines in italics are those which are not original Schubert.

The key is G major, the time signature 6/8, which gives the melody a gently loping gait. Like the other Uz setting on this disc, Die Liebesgötter, there is a sense of pastoral artificiality. It is not that this means a lack of feeling - the tender little chromatic inflections are most affecting - it is just that we cannot become too deeply involved with this swain's plaint. He talks of Flora and Zephyr at the same time as heartbreak, and we somehow know that the gods will arrange for him to revive. And so it proves. The left-hand quavers at the beginning were staccato (we know this much for certain), which is a sign, surely, that the composer's original music was not too lovelorn, and that the tempo was not meant to be too slow.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 1995

Other albums featuring this work

Schubert: The Complete Songs
CDS44201/4040CDs Boxed set + book (at a special price) — Download only
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