Lied

Cellists love Schubert for the wonderful things he gives them in the String Quintet, but he wrote nothing for solo cello. Anne Gastinel gives a charming apologia for this programme of transcriptions, in the form of a letter to Schubert, but the best justification lies in the appropriateness of the material and the standard of performance. The Arpeggione Sonata, indeed, sounds better on the cello than on any other conventional instrument, and the fact that some passages lie uncomfortably high is no problem for someone with Gastinel’s technique.

This isn't the first disc to couple a transcription of Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata for cello with transcriptions of Schubert's lieder for cello – Mischa Maisky released a disc with a strikingly similar program a decade ago. But that's alright: it's still a great idea and while Maisky's disc was superb, so is this one by cellist Anne Gastinel. Maisky's technique may be more polished in Schubert's achingly beautiful Arpeggione Sonata, but Gastinel's technique is almost as strong and possibly more incisive. Maisky's tone may be warmer in Schubert's supremely lyrical lieder, but Gastinel's tone is nearly as warm and perhaps deeper.

With Myrthen, baritone Christian Gerhaher opens Chapter 2 of his life project: a complete recording of the lieder of Robert Schumann. Since Dietrich Fischer-Dieskaus epoch-making recording of the 1970s, no singer has devoted himself more thoroughly to the lied output of Robert Schumann than Christian Gerhaher. Lauded as the greatest lied singer of our time, he launched his complete recording of Schumanns lieder with the album Frage, released in autumn 2018. It marks the fulfilment of a long-cherished dream and, he emphasises, probably the most important project of my life. The Neue Zurcher Zeitung spoke of consummate vocal artistry. Gerhaher has opened a new door in lied interpretation.

Most rock & roll bands are a tightly wound unit that developed their music through years of playing in garages and clubs around their hometown. Steely Dan never subscribed to that aesthetic. As the vehicle for the songwriting of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, Steely Dan defied all rock & roll conventions…

“Our countries have moved further apart. Most people are so immersed in their own life experience that they don’t even try to understand the culture of other societies … but by comparing these two works people can see the double picture – how Europeans feel about love, pleasure, and death, and how the Chinese feel about the same things.” Long Yu. Centuries-old Chinese poetry is brought vividly to life in a new recording from Long Yu and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. Their second album for Deutsche Grammophon, The Song of the Earth, is set for international release on 13 August 2021. The world premiere recording of the contemporary The Song of the Earth by Ye Xiaogang is presented alongside Gustav Mahler’s classic symphony. Ye’s ambitious new work expresses the grandeur and beauty of the original Tang Dynasty poems that Mahler set in German translation, fusing a contemporary style with centuries’ worth of traditions from both east and west. Long Yu, who commissioned Ye’s work, conducts the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in this fascinating meeting of histories and cultures.

This Edition presents the “Magnificent Seven” and the “encore” in optimum technical quality. In the mid-Fifties of the last century, with the Cold War freezing relations between East and West, the English record label Decca decided to record a series of Russian operas with the Belgrade National Opera. Belgrade in the Yugoslavia of those days under Josip Tito was more open to “the West” than the Warsaw Pact countries gathered under the wing of the Soviet Union. The deal had been struck by former Decca manager and successful promoter of east European folklore in the USA, record executive Gerald Severn.