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Track(s) taken from CDJ33007

Das Rosenband, D280

First line:
Im Frühlingsgarten fand ich sie
composer
September 1815; published in 1837
author of text

Elly Ameling (soprano), Graham Johnson (piano)
Recording details: August 1989
Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel, Hampstead, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Martin Compton
Engineered by Antony Howell
Release date: December 1990
Total duration: 1 minutes 47 seconds
 

Reviews

‘An extraordinarily rewarding sequence of 24 songs’ (The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs)

‘An exciting voyage of discovery’ (The Guardian)

‘Delightful interpretive insight and authentic enunciation of the language make for a memorable recording’ (CDReview)
This poem was set by Goethe's mistress, the actress Corona Schröter, and his close friend Carl Friedrich Zelter. Challier's Lieder Catalogue of 1885 lists seven others, apart from the American Edward MacDowell, all utterly obscure; the book could not include the Richard Strauss setting (by far the most famous) of 1897. The fact is that nothing can approach the Schubert setting for fragrance and shy delight; Strauss's effulgent song is a vocal splendour perhaps, but in its desire to charm in anachronistic manner, borders on the kitsch. Schubert's arioso, seemingly poised between speech and song, and certainly experimental in this respect, veers in the direction of prophetic modernity: out of context one might guess the composer of the chromatically underpinned line 'mein Leben hing mit diesem Blick an ihrem Leben' as Schumann rather than Schubert, and the song shares with that composer a feeling of improvisation on the spur of the moment, where the poem rules all, rather than a preconceived melody. The rapturous elongation of the final line of the second and fourth verse calculatedly sacrifices prosody for atmosphere, challenging the performers to achieve the feeling of ebb and flow so essential in this style.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 1989

Other albums featuring this work

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