Huber Thomet

Though the catch-all title 'Melancholie' is slightly misleading, Christian Gerhaher's enterprisingly planned programme provides a conspectus of Schumann's art as a Lieder composer. With his bright, burnished high baritone, expressive diction and alert, unexaggerated response to mood and nuance, Gerhaher confirms his credentials as one of the most probing Lieder singers of the younger generation. While it is virtually impossible for a single voice to do equal justice to all 12 songs of the Liederkreis, he succeeds better than most.

Eschewing the eccentricities and exaggerations of some of his contemporaries, Gerhaher wonderfully exhibits the verities of Schubert interpretation in this well-planned and absorbing programme. Everything he does evolves from the song in hand and so accords with all that is needed in performing some of the composer's greatest Lieder.

Franz Liszt's Via Crucis (Stations of the Cross), composed in 1878, dates from the end of his career, when the formerly flamboyant composer joined a monastic order and spent part of his time living a spartan life in a small apartment near Rome. The work combines extreme spareness with the chromatic experimentation characteristic of the composer's late years, with simple melodies subjected Bachian part-writing that veers into expressive chromatic depths. The work shows off the powers of a small choir and has been recorded many times, but this German release, featuring the West German Radio Chorus of Cologne under Rupert Huber, is a standout for several reasons.

Franz Liszt's Via Crucis (Stations of the Cross), composed in 1878, dates from the end of his career, when the formerly flamboyant composer joined a monastic order and spent part of his time living a spartan life in a small apartment near Rome. The work combines extreme spareness with the chromatic experimentation characteristic of the composer's late years, with simple melodies subjected Bachian part-writing that veers into expressive chromatic depths. The work shows off the powers of a small choir and has been recorded many times, but this German release, featuring the West German Radio Chorus of Cologne under Rupert Huber, is a standout for several reasons.