Vier

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, as both of the previous albums by L.A. based Prog-Rock outfit Perfect Beings were mature in sound and execution with highly original compositions, but third outing, Vier, leaves this listener completely floored – and willing to affirm that a review of the best album of 2018 just might have been written in 2017. Complete Exaggeration? Let’s take a few steps back and tackle this monster from the start.

It's the late Vier ernste Gesänge, Op. 121, that get the big print on the cover of this release by the awe-inspiring baritone Matthias Goerne, but actually the music on the album falls into a neat early-middle-late classification scheme. The group of middle-period settings of poetry by Heinrich Heine doesn't even get graphics on the cover, but these are fascinating. Brahms wrote a lot of songs, but you couldn't do better than the selection and performances here for a cornerstone collection item. Beyond the sheer beauty of Goerne's voice is an ability to shift gears to match how Brahms' style evolved. If you want to hear his real slashing, operatic high notes, check out the Lieder und Gesänge, Op. 32, settings of poems by the minor poets Georg Friedrich Daumer and Karl August Graf von Platen. These rather overwrought texts add up to a kind of slimmed-down Winterreise, and they catch the spirit of the still-young Brahms with his strong passions, elegantly controlled. The Heine settings, which come from several different sets of lieder, are not that often heard and are in some ways the most compelling of the group here.

Spunky wave pops from early ‘80s Germany, portraying the sound of the country’s first proper youth movement via bullets by Andreas Dorau, Conrad Schnitzler, Der Plan, Palais Schaumburg, Xao Seffcheque, Die Partei, Asmus Tietchens, Holger Hiller, Populäre Mechanik.

Joseph Eybler (Joseph Leopold Edler von Eybler to give you the full name) belongs to that unfortunate group of composers who were popular and musically influential while alive but have vanished from the spotlight to become mere historical footnotes. Although Eybler showed early promise as a pianist, he began studying law. However, the family’s fortune was lost when their home burned and it was necessary to abandon law studies and earn his way as a musician. He studied under Albrechtsberger (teacher to Beethoven and Hummel) and Joseph Haydn, to whom he was distantly related. Through Haydn, Eybler met Mozart, who offered further musical instruction. Mozart was so impressed with Eybler’s skills that Eybler assisted with coaching the singers in, and later conducting performances of Cosi fan tutte. Mozart’s widow, Constanze selected Eybler to complete the Requiem after her husband’s death. Speculation continues to surround Eybler’s contribution to the Requiem.