Composers: Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms
Performers: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (mezzo) & Julius Drake (piano)
Recorded: 4 October 1999
Released: 27 October 2008
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Wigmore Hall Live
ASIN: B001H5GK7E
Tracks
Brahms: 8 Lieder und Gesänge, Op. 57
1. Von waldbekränzter Höhe – 2.51
2. Wenn du nur zuweilen lächelst – 2.04
3. Es träumte mir – 3.30
4. Ach, wende diesen Blick – 1.51
5. In meiner Nächte Sehnen – 1.33
6. Strahlt zuweilen auch ein mildes Licht – 1.39
7. Die Schnur, die Perl’ an Perle – 3.07
8. Unbewegte, laue Luft – 4.38
Schumann: 4 songs from Lieder und Gesänge aus Wilhelm Meister, Op. 98a
9. Kennst du das Land – 4.26
10. Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt – 2.39
11. Heiß mich nicht reden – 3.54
12. So laßt mich scheinen – 3.09
Schumann: Frauenliebe und -leben Op. 42 (1840)
13. Seit ich ihn gesehen – 2.57
14. Er, der Herrlichste von allen – 3.40
15. Ich kann’s nicht fassen – 2.06
16. Du Ring an meinem Finger – 4.12
17. Helft mir, ihr Schwestern – 2.12
18. Süßer Freund, du blickest – 5.31
19. An meinem Herzen, an meiner Brust – 1.25
20. Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan – 5.26
Encores
21. Debussy Fantoches (from Fetes galantes) – 1.26
22. Handel ‘Angels ever bright and fair’ from Theodora – 4.17
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, originally from Northern California, died in 2006 at the age of just 52. She brought an almost paradoxical combination of serenity and intensity to her performances, with her graceful presence, mellow voice and her subtle, but penetrating illumination of both text and music.
Her legacy of studio recordings is surprisingly small, making this recital – originally broadcast by the BBC in 1999 and centred on the German song cycle for the female voice, Frauenliebe und -leben – even more of a treasure. It complements Wigmore Hall Live’s other CD with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson of songs by Mahler, Handel and Peter Lieberson – the singer’s husband.
What the critics say
BBC Music Magazine
“One of the finest recordings of Frauenliebe und -leben currently available. A sense of hushed diffidence opens this deeply thoughtful performance, in which time is taken to reveal a shudder of timid sensuousness here, a dark intimation of mortality there. And all – even the daringly slow last song – within an easeful, instinctively shaped line”
Gramophone
“It’s rare that something arrives so enticing that I can’t wait top open it. But a new disc of mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson singing at Wigmore Hall in 1999 definitely qualifies … Hunt Lieberson is an artist who gets under your skin, and perhaps I am already liking her Schumann in ways that I’m not even aware of yet”
Evening Standard
“Lorraine, usually heard in oratorio and baroque opera, was a lieder singer of the utmost sensitivity and colorific variation”
The Independent
“no mezzo alive could match her luminous intensity in the music she made her own … her fans still can’t get enough of a singer whose early training as a
violist must have something to do with the refined musicality she brings to these exquisite songs”
Telegraph
“We should treasure every recording made by the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson … This Wigmore Hall recital captures those special qualities of introspective intuition that marked her out as a great artist, indeed one of the greatest. Julius Drake is the masterly pianist … Prepare to be overcome” The Sunday
HMV Choice
“Another outstanding Wigmore Hall recital from the late Hunt Lieberson … This is a disc that every lover of song will want under their Christmas tree”
Metro
“Aside from the awe-inspiring beauty of her sound, Hunt Lieberson and pianist Julius Drake bring an unforgettable directness and intensity to Brahms’s 8 Songs Op. 57 … a beautiful, even heart-rending, disc”
The Times
“The luminous mezzo voice of Hunt Lieberson is beautifully captured here at a Wigmore Hall solo recital in 1999, six years before her death from cancer at the age of 52″
Audiophile Audition
“This is a rich a faultless programme … The encores are wonderful, the Handel especially getting a smattering of applause from the delighted audience before the first note begins. Lieberson’s reputation obviously preceded her across the pond. Julius Drake, as always, is paired at the hip with the singer, and you can hardly speak of one without the other. Sound is excellent, with notes, tests, and translation. Superb”
The Observer
“In this Wigmore Hall recital, Hunt brings her trademark warmth, focus and immaculate phrasing to the Schumann cycle Frauenliebe und leben”
Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 6 October 1999 „ A mezzo for all seasons“
Rating *****
If British audiences hadn’t already realised that there was something very special about the American mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, then her performance as Irene in the Glyndebourne production of Handel’s Theodora in 1996 put them straight. In that role Hunt Lieberson proved that she was one of the finest singers of our time, an artist of unfailing musicality, piercing directness and evenly beautiful tone.
In the Wigmore Hall on Monday, with Julius Drake as the ever attentive pianist, she devoted her recital to Brahms and Schumann, and it was spell-binding. There is no artifice, no affectation and most of all no self-regarding ego about Hunt Lieberson; she is on the platform to communicate. It helps, of course, that she possesses a voice of such haunting beauty – it’s extraordinary that she began her musical career as a viola player, then sang as a soprano, before settling down as a mezzo – and that her musicality is so instinctive.
But the way in which she launched her programme, with the first of Brahms’ Eight Songs Op 57 still took the breath away. Daumer’s winsomely sentimental poems on which the set is based hardly deserve to be given with such devastating commitment, and she brought more uncomplicated passion out of Brahms’ settings than one would have thought possible; this was the kind of alchemical performance to bring round even the agnostics who think of Brahms as terminally uptight, and his songs as the final proof of that repression.
Schumann, of course, is another matter, but here Hunt Lieberson revealed even more subtlety, even more perception. She lavished meticulous attention on the little group of Mignon Songs, while each number of Frauenliebe und-leben ran through a whole spectrum of colour and emotional flux. The way in which “Ich kann’s nicht fassen” grew from breathless wonder to untrammelled ecstasy was a microcosm of the emotional journey that the whole cycle charts. Magical.
AH Guardian
Still they come, reminders of how much we lost with the premature death from cancer two years ago of the great American mezzo Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, at the age of only 52. In this Wigmore Hall recital, recorded live in October 1999, Hunt brings her trademark warmth, focus and immaculate phrasing to the Schumann cycle Frauenliebe und leben and Brahms’ 8 Songs, Op 57. Fond memories serve to underline the songs’ largely melancholy mood, lending particular poignancy to her second encore, Handel’s ‘Angels Ever Bright and Fair’.
Melanie Eskenazi
www.classicalsource.com
“Frauenliebe und -leben” is one of those works which singers just can’t leave alone, even if they are men and the sentiments were simply not written for them, so there are vast numbers of attempts at it, often forgettable or, unfortunately, memorable for all the wrong reasons.
On this Wigmore Hall Live release we have the nearest I have heard to a definitive version of the work, although of course I’m well aware that “definitive” really just means “I like it”. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s untimely death deprived us of one of the true greats, of an artistry so compelling that even the stoniest of critics find it a challenge to listen to her without tearing up, and her pairing with Julius Drake is a partnership made in heaven. In this recording, “Frauenliebe und -leben” is part of a near-perfect recital.
The song-cycle is so often given as a sentimental piece, complete with ‘appropriate’ actions in performance, so it’s refreshing to hear it sung with due attention to the reality of Chamisso’s poems. As Richard Stokes has pointed out, these vignettes depict the feelings of an ordinary lower-class girl, and are “an eloquent testimony to a woman’s right to express her own feelings” – the poet married a girl much younger than himself, as indeed Schumann was about to do at the time of the work’s composition.
Typically Hunt Lieberson’s singing is utterly without artifice whilst still being touching in the extreme – a tough combination, and nowhere heard to greater advantage than in the rapt concentration of ‘Seit ich ihn gesehen’ and the whirlwind of ecstatic joy that is ‘Helft mir, ihr Schwestern.’ I know of no other version of ‘Süsser Freund’ which so engages your emotions, the limpid piano as involving as the moving quality of the intonation – if you can listen to the lines “Und daraus dein Bildnis / Mir entgegen lacht” without a lump in your throat then you’re made of much sterner stuff than I am.
The Brahms group is equally intense, the long-breathed lines of the beginning of ‘Unbewegte, laue Luft’ (the final song) as sensuous as the closing invocation is passionate, and ‘Es träumte mir’ sung with a suppressed ardour all the more effective for its restraint. Schumann’s ‘So laßt mich scheinen’ receives a blazing performance, the line “Macht mich auf ewig wieder jung!” almost unbearable in its poignancy. The aria from Handel’s “Theodora” represents this artist at her finest, with singing of an emotional force, clarity of line and depth of expressiveness that has few equals. I was at this recital, and it was unforgettable – just as this superb recording promises to be.
John Woods, Musicalcriticism.com, 11 December 2008
http://www.musicalcriticism.com/recordings/cd-lieberson-finley-wigmore-1208.shtml
Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 stars
The two latest additions to Wigmore Hall Live’s ever-expanding catalogue of song recitals come from a pair of singers who have both distinguished themselves as much on the concert platform as they have on the opera stage. Both are very popular with British audiences and exhibit (or exhibited, in the case of the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson) talents and a gift for communication particularly suited to the intimate acoustic of the Wigmore Hall.
Hunt Lieberson’s recital opens with Brahms’s Eight Songs from Op. 57. It takes a few moments for the singer to get her intonation together and balance her voice which, to start with, comes across as excessively weighted towards the top. But once matters are in hand, she reveals an exceptionally appealing approach to Lieder. Every mood and nuance of the text is captured through vocal colour and sensitive rubato, with none of the intrusive and often pedantic picking apart of individual words that can so often prevail in performances of this repertoire. Hunt Lieberson aims for, and achieves, beautiful singing first and foremost, and uses this as the basis of her interpretation. The results are, if anything, more direct and moving than those attained by singers who seek to impose expression on a text through effects and gestures from the outside. I believe a large part of Hunt Lieberson’s popularity with audiences stemmed from the simple honesty of her delivery.
Hunt Lieberson was billed variously during her career as a soprano and more frequently as a mezzo-soprano, the latter being the case on this disc, but throughout this recital, she shows many colours that would seem to entitle her to lay claim to contralto status. Perhaps she avoided such a tag to prevent the possibility of others imposing restrictions on her operatic repertoire, but there is an unmistakable, rare richness to her voice that makes it especially beguiling.
There is a charming fragility to the performances of the Brahms songs, the texts of which caused shock in their day due to their sensuality. This slightly tentative quality in the singing gives the impression that any corporeal desire in the poetry is born out of genuine love. What one loses in terms of eroticism is more than made up for in the warmth of Hunt Lieberson’s approach, and the results draw the listener in to the poet’s predicament far more than other interpretations I have heard which highlight the physical yearning in the words. This isn’t to say that Hunt Lieberson sings without urgency – one is thoroughly swept away, for instance, as she climaxes in the fifth song with the words ‘Du göttlich Weib’.
The Brahms group is followed by four of Schumann’s Lieder from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre Op. 98a. The singer again performs with more precision and reserve than is sometimes afforded these songs, so that whilst in some hands they can seem operatic in nature and desperate in feeling, here they feel rather classical. This creates the impression that Mignon’s yearning to get out of her situation is a more profound, ongoing state of sorrow, rather than an isolated passionate outburst. There is real anguish and expression however, particularly in the third song, ‘Heiß mich nicht reden’, and if some might find the absence of any special inflection on a line like ‘Doch füllt ich tiefen Schmerz genug’ a little odd, the overall, goal-orientated direction of the fourth song towards the final line ‘Macht mich auf ewig wieder jung!’ makes it clear the interpretation has been thought out at the macro level in a way that eschews distracting details and convinces thoroughly.
The concert continues with what must be one of the best performances of Schumann’s song cycle Frauenliebe und –leben on record. Hunt Lieberson is at one with her pianist, Julius Drake, in an approach which, although never extrovert, feels absolutely natural and inevitable. The performing edition used appears to be in keys lower than the original, which suits Hunt Lieberson very well, and allows her to do seemingly anything she wants to with her voice. Tempi tend towards the slow side, particularly in the cycle’s centrepiece, ‘Du Ring an meinem Finger’, but the depth with which both artists appear to have identified with the dramatic situation means the music never looses its momentum.
The stillness achieved in the song which deals with the coming of the couple’s child, ‘Süßer Freund’, is spellbinding, and the profundity of the expression of pain in the final song, after the protagonist has been widowed, is remarkable. Drake rounds off the cycle with an unfussy performance of the postlude, notable for its sensitivity and clarity. This is a hugely effective performance of the work which is characterised chiefly by an approach which places absolute trust in the composer, and appears to seek to realise his instructions as faithfully and simply as possible. If only this could be said of more Lieder performances.
David Shengold, Operanews.com, April 2009
All admirers of the profound vocal art of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (1954-2006) will want to acquire this disc, yet another posthumously released souvenir of her intensity in live performance, as sensitively accompanied by the protean Julius Drake in London’s Wigmore Hall. The concert took place on October 4, 1999, a year after a Wigmore appearance by Hunt Lieberson and Roger Vignoles already made available on the Hall’s archival label. Unlike that disc, devoted to three composers readily associated with the singer – Mahler, Handel and her husband Peter Lieberson – this new one, while pleasing and capturing her very recognizable plaintive tone in good condition, would not be among my highest recommendations for anyone seeking out the included music for the first time.
By the wide-ranging Hunt Lieberson’s standards, it could seem a fairly conventional program, one the previous generation’s Liederabend worthies Janet Baker or Brigitte Fassbaender might have offered, pairing Brahms and Schumann. Yet the eight Brahms songs (Opus 57, settings of one of the composer’s staple poets, Georg Friedrich Daumer) are scarcely chestnuts. Hunt Lieberson here creates definite moods rather than stressing individuated words. Occasional stray pitches suggest that she was still warming up. The four Schumann Mignon songs (from Op. 98a) are relatively infrequently heard; though singer and pianist are both convincingly expressive in the often oddly unmelodic, almost conversational structures the composer employs, it’s not enough to mitigate one’s wish to hear the familiar Goethe texts as set by Schubert or Wolf.
Hunt Lieberson is in excellent voice for Frauenliebe und -leben. But she and Drake dare uncommonly slow traversals of several of the songs, specifically “Seit ich ihn gesehen,” “Du Ring an meinem Finger” and “Süsser Freund, du blickest.” Very likely her formidable communicative platform skills made this approach work when witnessed live. Heard on CD, despite the pellucid beauty and finish of her tone, it emerges over-mannered, particularly on the opening and fourth songs, in which the young woman protagonist sounds near-catatonic from joy.
For encores, the artists offer first a bit of Debussy’s aggressively whimsical espagnolerie, ‘Fantoches,’ from Fêtes Galantes, in which the mezzo frequently surges sharp. Then they give the appreciative Wigmore public a transcendent account of “Angels ever bright and fair” from Theodora, a Handel work closely associated with both the soprano and mezzo stages of Hunt Lieberson’s memorable career. Overall, this well-produced disc is certainly a welcome, if not an epochal, addition to her discography.