Schubert Helmchen

Franz Schubert - Complete Works for Violin and Piano Vol. 1
Julia Fischer, violin / Martin Helmchen, piano
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 263 MB | Full Artwork: 78 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Pentatone # PTC 5186 347 | Country/Year: Netherlands 2009
Genre: Classical | Style: Viennese School

"…It goes without saying that both protagonists here have more than the requisite technical fire power to cope with the demands - fortunately they use it with taste and restraint so that it never threatens to transform itself into a performance of proto-Brahms.The sound as well is of the same high standard as the playing and in every possible way, this issue cannot be faulted. Highly recommended and this listener is eagerly awaiting volume 2!" ~sa-cd.net

The German soprano Juliane Banse has sung the Lieder of Brahms, Schubert, Wolf, Ullmann, Strauss, Schumann, Loewe and Berg, earning a reputation for both the quality of her interpretations and the warmth of her timbre. She and her regular partner Martin Helmchen, who has just joined Alpha, have chosen to record Paul Hindemith’s song cycle Das Marienleben, composed in 1923 and revised by the composer in 1948. A bewitching, sometimes disturbing cycle whose texts, taken from the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke, retrace the life of the Virgin Mary. Fifteen poems, fifteen episodes tinged with mysticism and lyricism. They proved to be the ideal inspiration for Hindemith, whose compositional style here draws on both the power of Wagner’s operas and the subtle nuances of Debussy.