Christoph Prégardien

Schubert's "Winterreise" is one of the most famous song cycles that exist in classical music and musicians take it up again and again because of its beauty, sorrow and depth. It is about life itself and which performer does not want to give his or her opinion on life? Both tenor Christoph Prégardien and pianist Michael Gees have their own vision on the cycle. Playing together, a third view develops, combining their two visions into an exciting interpretation of Winterreise.

When Deutsche Harmonia Mundi released this disc of lieder by Schumann, Schubert, and Mendelssohn in 1994, it was considered a part of the historically informed performance practice movement because it featured performers closely associated with the movement. Prior to this release, tenor Christoph Prégardien was best known for his work with Gustav Leonhardt and Philippe Herreweghe, while fortepianist Andreas Staier made his mark playing continuo with Musica Antiqua Köln. Listening to the disc a decade later, however, the performances sound less like a memento of their time than like still vital artistic achievements.

A famous cantata for baritone by Johann Sebastian Bach (“Kreuzstabkantate”), combined with two cantatas by Georg Philipp Telemann. In addition and as a supplementary musical colour there are three purely instrumental pieces: overtures by J. F. Fasch and Telemann, and as an “encore”, the Larghetto from Handel’s Concerto Grosso Op. 6/4.

This first volume of Brahms’ complete songs spans a period of nearly 25 years. A prolific composer of Lieder, Brahms’ adherence to traditional form was accompanied by a modern approach to compositional style. Thematically, most songs explore ideas of love, loneliness and solitude, perfectly exemplified by the Vier Gesänge, Op. 43. In a similar way the Sechs Lieder, Op. 86 share a common theme of a farewell to life. This volume contains some of his greatest songs, including Die Mainacht, as well as little-known jewels such as Versunken.

It is not always easy to avoid writing a shade smugly about the arrangements Mozart made of choral works by Handel. Nowadays, increasingly, we try to listen to such works as Acis and Galatea and the Cecilian Ode in the form in which Handel composed them; to hear them through the prism of the classical musical consciousness is disconcerting. For once we feel that we know better than Mozart. Well, so we do, about Handel and the way he makes the best effect (at least on us); but a different kind of historical awareness is needed here, one that puts us into the frame of mind of late eighteenth-century Vienna and its perception of Handel.