Gerstenberg

These lively, idiomatic and sometimes witty performances show CPE Bach’s harpsichord songs, early precursors of the Romantic Lied, to be far more than museum pieces, from the Three Different Attempts at a Single Song for Hexameters through to a Fantasy in C minor with Hamlet’s Monologue.

In the autumn of 2005 Hyperion released their complete Schubert song edition, some 18 years after they started recording. The composition of these songs spanned the same number of years. Between Lebenstraum … gesang in c”, a fragment dating from 1810 when he was thirteen and Der Taubenpost written a few weeks before his death late in 1828, Schubert set over 700 texts, mostly solo songs but also part songs and for ensemble. Almost all were with piano accompaniment. Everything that has survived is included