Schubert Schwanengesang

When Tobias Haslinger published Franz Schubert's Schwanengesang, D 957 in 1829, he combined two sets of Lieder on texts by Ludwig Rellstab and Heinrich Heine, with Schubert's final song, Die Taubenpost, a setting of a poem by Johann Gabriel Seidl. This established the standard order for most performances of Schwanengesang, though for this 2015 BIS release, baritone James Rutherford and pianist Eugene Asti have included Herbst, D 945, a song composed in 1828 that is sometimes inserted in recitals.

Roderick Williams writes: “Although only twelve years separate the composition of Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte and Schubert’s Schwanengesang, the ethos and sound world of the two works are markedly different. Pairing them on the concert platform seemed an obvious choice on one hand, but I was reminded not to try to perform Beethoven in the way I perform Schubert. For one thing, the former still has the ring of the late classical, while the latter explores the darkness of the early romantic. For this reason, we decided to record the two works in slightly different soundscapes. In An die ferne Geliebte, the inventiveness of Beethoven is best expressed in the piano writing, while the vocal part is deliberately simple, strophic (the music is repeated for each stanza), and folk-like. …the sixth song states that these songs are offered ‘ohne Kunstgepräng’…"

Published shortly after Franz Schubert's death in 1828, Schwanengesang is a collection of 14 lieder on seven texts by Ludwig Rellstab, six by Heinrich Heine, and one by Johann Gabriel Seidl, whose poem became Die Taubenpost, claimed to be Schubert's final song. Unlike most performances of Schwanengesang, which follow the published edition, baritone Florian Boesch's rearranged version on Onyx lacks Die Taubenpost, which was not included in Schubert's fair copy of the cycle. Instead, Boesch adds five songs on Sturm und Drang poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, making this recording somewhat controversial among purists.

The encounter between French baritone Thomas Dolié and Quebec pianist Olivier Godin gave rise to a magnificent collaboration around Franz Schubert's Schwanengesang cycle. First given in recital at the Bourgie Hall in Montreal in 2016 and then recorded in the same hall a year later.