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Track(s) taken from CDA67123

Frühling, Op 4 No 4

First line:
Die Wellen blinken und fliessen dahin
composer
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924)
25/9/1874
author of text
Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Clifford Benson (piano)
Recording details: January 1999
Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel, Hampstead, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Antony Howell & Julian Millard
Release date: March 2000
Total duration: 2 minutes 25 seconds
 

Reviews

‘Sung with exceptional sensitivity and intelligence … a pleasure to listen to’ (Gramophone)

‘No praise can be too high for Stephen Varcoe … his warm, natural baritone, finely judged legato and sensitivity to words are a joy throughout’ (International Record Review)

‘A beautiful release’ (American Record Guide)

‘Warmly recommended’ (Classic CD)
Frühling Op 4 No 4, for all its gentle, pastoral atmosphere, is a melancholy utterance, typical of Heine’s irony. A shepherdess, sitting beside the stream amid the May blossom, weaves her garlands of flowers, for whom we are not told. This tranquillity is disturbed by the entry of a gallant knight (marked by an unexpected tonal shift from A flat to G) who gallops by, startling her. As he disappears into the distance she begins to weep (conveyed by A flat minor) and throws her posy into the river. The nightingale, that ubiquitous romantic symbol of grief and lament, sings of her unrequited love.

from notes by Jeremy Dibble © 2000

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