Dichterliebe, Op. 48 Performer: Neal Peres Da Costa. Singer: Koen Van Stade. Deux Elles.

Compilations are highly useful in understanding the works of the inexhaustibly tuneful British composer Henry Purcell (1659-1695). He had a few big hits, like the Funeral Music for Queen Mary (which is included here) and the opera Dido and Aeneas (which isn't). But much of his best music is scattered around in small bits, residing within genres that are rather odd from today's perspective. Purcell spent much of his short adult life as a theater composer, and his incidental music, for example, is filled with perfect miniatures…

The Orchestra of the Antipodes' 2011 set of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos is certainly worth having for its exquisite period performances of these perennial favorites, but it is even more attractive for offering eight popular sinfonias from the cantatas, thereby giving listeners added value in an already excellent set. The Australia-based ensemble plays original instruments, and the performances are appropriate in textures, tempos, and ornamentation, so everything a fan of Baroque performance practice could want can be found here. The pacing is fleet and efficient, the counterpoint is transparent, and the sonorities are bright, so the combination will certainly excite even the most experienced devotees of these works.

Robert Schumann’s talismanic song-cycle Dichterliebe has been recomposed by German composer and conductor Christian Jost. The results can now be heard on an album from Deutsche Grammophon which pairs the new score with recordings of Schumann’s Dichterliebe and the Liederkreis op.39 made by Jost’s wife, mezzo-soprano Stella Doufexis, a year before her tragic death from cancer. Jost’s reimagined Dichterliebe, performed by tenor Peter Lodahl and the Horenstein Ensemble, casts new light on the shifting moods of Schumann’s composition. Dichterliebe is set for worldwide release on April 12 via Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Music Canada, the country’s leading music company.

Julian Prégardien decided to record the Dichterliebe cycle after he came across the new Bärenreiter edition; he went on to explore the work in concerts with his constant accompanist, Eric Le Sage, inserting other works by Robert and also by Clara Schumann, whose bicentenary is celebrated in 2019. When Clara played the Dichterliebe in the 1860s, she used to slip extracts from Kreisleriana between the songs. Prégardien asked Eric Le Sage to record the same extracts on a Blüthner piano of 1856, the year of Robert’s death, and also to include Romances composed by both Robert and Clara at a time when their future marriage was still uncertain.