Schubert

likely to divide listeners. Some may object to French players performing Austro-German music, while others will embrace the notion of musical internationalism. Others may object to first-rate Schubert being joined to second-rate Hummel, while others will enjoy the chance to hear an unfamiliar as well as a familiar work. After they hear it, however, most listeners will likely agree on two things. First, they will likely find that the French players do a marvelous job of breathing life into both these works.

She's not shy, this Anne-Sofie von Otter. Her performances are, to say the least, incredibly expressive. Her Suleika I (D. 720) is Brigitte Bardot in Contempt. Her Im Abendrot (D. 799) is Kim Novak in Vertigo. Her Totengräbers Heimweh is Eli Walach in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Nor is von Otter dumb. Her interpretations are sly, subtle, and very, very sensitive. Her Der Wanderer an den Mond (D. 870) is hearty and lightly but profoundly philosophical.

Juliette Hurel's 2013 album on Naïve explores pieces for flute and piano by Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert, evoking the period between Classicism and early Romanticism. Perhaps the subtlest work of the program is Beethoven's Flute Sonata in B flat major, WoO A4, written in 1790 and fashioned under the influence of Haydn. Its sunny disposition and light textures are periodically interrupted by unexpected key changes and sudden digressions into the minor, characteristics that anticipate Beethoven's later development and mark it as a transitional work. His Serenade for flute and piano, Op. 41, is an arrangement of the Serenade for flute, violin, and viola, Op. 25, and it has a similar, if sometimes deceptive, air of Classical simplicity, which is all the more apparent because of the brevity of the movements. Only Schubert's Variations on a Theme from Die schöne Müllerin is unequivocally Romantic, and its sudden changes of mood and key make it the most fascinating piece on the disc.

"The trees are coming into leaf/Like something almost being said." Taking a cue from these lines of Philip Larkin, pianist Simone Dinnerstein casts her album of the music of J.S. Bach and Franz Schubert in poetic terms. Her understanding of the composers is summed up in her own words: "The music of Bach and Schubert share a distinctive quality, as if wordless voices were singing textless melodies." Of course, Bach and Schubert were masters of setting texts to profoundly expressive music, so it is fruitful to look for the lyrical impulse in their keyboard works and appropriate to find songful interpretations. Yet Dinnerstein doesn't merely serve up rhapsodic renditions or treat the music as some kind of tuneful vehicle for idiosyncratic or personal reveries. Her playing is quite in character for both composers, and her treatment of the material is far from self-indulgent.

Abbado’s complete Schubert symphony cycle is a benchmark recording, exhibiting a “freshness of approach and authentic Schubertian warmth and glow” (Gramophone). Not only does this collection contain the entire collection of Abbado's Schubert symphonies, it also features the added bonus of Joseph Joachim’s great orchestration of the "Grand Duo", originally for piano duet, now a virtual symphony in its own right.

Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow have already established themselves in the Schubert discography with their world class recordings of Schubert's piano works. Goldstone, in particular, has a reputation for being one of Schubert's greatest champions. The caliber of his interpretations is simply phenomenal. Beyond this, when Clemmow joins Goldstone to form their illustrious piano duo, we have been given an ambrosia of world premiere piano arrangements: Mendelssohn's 3rd, Dvorak's 9th, Tchaikovsky's 4th, his Romeo and Juliet overture, Grieg's piano concerto, and now these exquisite rarities of Schubert.

Transcriptions of chamber works to orchestral works have been interesting asides for composers for a long time - whether the transcription are alterations of a composer's own songs or chamber works to full orchestral size or those of other composers for which the transcriber had a particular affinity. Stokowski's transcriptions of Bach's works are probably the most familiar to audiences. The two transcriptions on this recording are the creations Gustav Mahler and his election to transcribe the quartets of Beethoven and Schubert is not surprising: Mahler 'transcribed' many of his own songs into movements or portions of movements for his own symphonies. Listening to Mahler's transcriptions of these two well known quartets - Franz Schubert's String Quartet in D Minor 'Death and the Maiden' and Ludwig van Beethoven's String Quartet in F Minor 'Serioso' - provides insight into both the orginal compositions and the orchestration concepts of Gustav Mahler. The themes of these two works would naturally appeal to Mahler's somber nature. Mahler naturally extends the tonal sound of each of these transcriptions by using the full string orchestra and in both works it is readily apparent that his compositional techniques within string sections are ever present.

The Naxos Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition: Schubert set the poetry of over 115 writers to music. He selected poems from classical Greece, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, from eighteenth-century German authors, early Romantics, Biedermeier poets, and Heine. The Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition presents all Schubert’s Lieder, over 700 songs, grouped according to the poets who inspired him. Thanks to Bärenreiter’s Neue Schubert-Ausgabe (New Schubert Edition), Tübingen, which uses primary sources, the performers have been able to benefit from the most recent research of the editorial team. This disc is the third of a series devoted to Schubert’s friends, including Mayrhofer.

In the course of the 1996-97 season, Anima Eterna played and recorded Schubert's complete symphonies in the particularly innovative interpretation of their conductor, Jos van Immerseel. This interpretation, based on the study of Schubert's manuscripts and on the instruments used at the time of their first performance, allows us to discover sound colours that combine freshness and profundity.