Schumann Goethe's Faust

The East German-born Stephan Genz, still in his mid-twenties, brings an engaging voice and glowing dramatic sense to this desirable Beethoven collection. Some of the ballad-like songs undoubtedly suit his rich, warm, darkish timbres especially well (‘Klage’ – ‘Lament’, or the mournful ‘Vom Tode’); yet he relishes, too, the lively patter of ‘Neue Liebe, neues Leben’, which, with Vignoles’s lively accompaniment, takes instant flight. The phrasing is nicely sustained, though Genz’s rather self-conscious, earnest delivery can be fractionally unsteady (chiefly in the descent to cadences, a slight overweighting of second syllables, the arching up towards higher notes, and scattered patches of chromatic detail). Goethe’s ‘Es war einmal ein König’ and Gellert’s ‘Busslied’ both hint at the wider emotional range to which this young singer can aspire. His contrast between the end of Goethe’s poignantly pleading ‘Wonne der Wehmut’ and the lightly alert ‘Sehnsucht’ could not be more charming. True, one senses those gloomier timbres might be lightened to advantage (an exquisitely floated ‘May-Song’ cheerfully counters his unusually doom-laden launch to the An die ferne Geliebte cycle). Yet if the disc sometimes suggests a promising artist still just emerging, there is much here that is elegantly persuasive.

The profile of Norwegian soprano Mari Eriksmoen continues to rise through her regular appearance on Europe’s major opera, concert and recital stages, and she is consistently praised for her compelling blend of radiant stage personality and purity of vocal tone. This is her first opera arias recital and is focused on Handel and Mozart. Previously on disc, Eriksmoen features on Schumann’s Szenen aus Goethes Faust with Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Daniel Harding, Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, both with Akademie für alte Musik Berlin under René Jacobs and Glyndebourne Festival conducted by Robin Ticciati, and in a ​“poised, elegant and persuasive” (Guardian) debut recital disc featuring songs by Grieg, Grøndahl, Wolf and Strauss with Alphonse Cemin (Alpha).

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was not only one of the greatest and most important of the German poets, but without doubt alsothe one whose lyrics were most frequently set to music. The album Goethe Project by the German soprano Ute Ziemer and pianistHiroko Imai provides a lasting impression of the diversity of composers who used Goethe's works as the basis for songs. Inaddition to popular composers such as Schumann, Grieg, Schubert, Verdi, Strauss, Wolf or Wagner, there are also barely performedworks by Amy Beach, Johann Xaver Sterkel, Fanny Hensel, Josephine Lang, Anton Webern or Alban Berg. Even to this day, Goethecontinues to fascinate composers as a poet, as shown by the songs dedicated to Ute Ziemer by Enjott Schneider (*1950), DorotheaHofmann (*1961) and Johannes Martin Krnzle (*1962), which were recorded for the first time for this CD.