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Track(s) taken from CDA67392

Ablösung im Sommer

First line:
Kukuk hat sich zu Tode gefallen
composer
No 2 of Book III of Lieder und Gesänge 'aus der Jugendzeit'
author of text
Des Knaben Wunderhorn

Stephan Genz (baritone), Roger Vignoles (piano)
Recording details: January 2003
Tonstudio Teije van Geest, Sandhausen, Germany
Release date: October 2004
Total duration: 1 minutes 37 seconds

Cover artwork: The Tomb of Böcklin (1901/2, detail). Ferdinand Keller (1842-1922)
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe / akg-images
 

Other recordings available for download

Dame Janet Baker (mezzo-soprano), Geoffrey Parsons (piano)

Reviews

‘This disc shows Stephan Genz entering his fourth decade with all the light suppleness and ardour of his youthful recordings, but now with darker colours and firmer bass ballast folding into his baritone. His intuitive musical partnership with Roger Vignoles is as sentient and perceptive as ever; and together they uncover the dark, sensual mysteries of the late-Rommantic response to the natural world’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘A rich sonorous eloquence from Genz, while Vignoles musters a full range of orchestral colours. Piano accompaniment lends these works a more personal, intimate feel, turning this generous disc into a pensive, rewarding journey through the many complex moods of Mahler's inner life’ (The Observer)

‘Even in this golden age of Lieder singers, Stephan Genz has few rivals for easeful beauty of tone and acuteness of insight’ (The Daily Telegraph)

‘Stephen Genz is an excellent light baritone whose timbre reminds me sometimes of one of his teachers, Dietrich Fischer-Diskau, and whose interpretations are like Fischer-Diskau's earlier ones,before he began to over-interpret … highly recommended’ (American Record Guide)

‘This is an extremely enjoyable disc, which casts a lot of light on even those songs of Mahler which were written to be accompanied orchestrally … Genz is singing a cycle to which he is utterly suited, and the effect is magical’ (International Record Review)

‘Stephen Genz relies on subtle shading, verbal refinement and a lightness of touch to interpret a generous selection of Mahlerian masterpieces’ (Classic FM Magazine)

‘What surpassingly magnificent music this is, and what a superbly intelligent display of Western high-art at its most poignant from Genz and Vignoles. I just can't stop playing the disc. Endless pleasure, endless sorrow, endless beauty’ (Fanfare, USA)
Ablösung im Sommer is a deft example of the comic, rustic side of the Wunderhorn songs, in which the handover from cuckoo to nightingale is characterized in a shift from naïve slapstick to the sublimely lyrical in the same manner as in the comic singing-competition of Lob des hohen Verstandes in the later collection.

from notes by Roger Vignoles © 2004

Ablösung im Sommer illustre habilement le côté comique, rustique des Wunderhorn-Lieder et voit le passage du coucou au rossignol marqué par un glissement de la bouffonnerie naïve au sublimement lyrique – un effet que l’on retrouve dans le comique concours de chant de Lob des hohen Verstandes (recueil ultérieur).

extrait des notes rédigées par Roger Vignoles © 2004
Français: Hypérion

Bei Ablösung im Sommer handelt es sich um ein geschicktes Beispiel der komischen, rustikalen Seite der Wunderhorn-Lieder, das den „Machtwechsel“ vom Kuckuck zur Nachtigall in der gleichen Art und Weise wie in der späteren Sammlung den komischen Gesangswettbewerb von Lob des hohen Verstandes mit Hilfe eines Wechsels von naivem Klamauk zu erhabener Lyrik charakterisiert.

aus dem Begleittext von Roger Vignoles © 2004
Deutsch: Bettina Reinke-Welsh

Other albums featuring this work

Mahler: Songs of Youth
CDH55160
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