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Schumann: Frauenliebe und Leben, Liederkreis / Fassbaender


Release Date: 02/25/2010 
Label:  Deutsche Grammophon   Catalog #: 415519   Spars Code: DDD 
Composer:  Robert Schumann
Performer:  Irwin Gage,  Brigitte Fassbaender
Number of Discs: 1 
Recorded in: Stereo 
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Notes and Editorial Reviews

Fassbaender catches all the wonder, passion and heartbreak of these Heine settings, with Gage at his probing best.

Fassbaender's many Lieder records for EMIElectrola have not been made available here except occasionally as imports, so this issue from DG is most welcome in reminding us of her special qualities in this field. In recitals at the Wigmore Hall last year she sang both cycles represented here, showing us her peculiarly potent gifts as an interpreter; these derive from her total identification with the emotions of a song expressed as much through the words as the music. In that she resembles other modern interpreters such as Baker and Fischer-Dieskau, and it is with Baker's second, more dramatic reading of Read more Frauenliebe on HMV that Fassbaender's has to be compared, rather than her earlier, more passive and spontaneous Saga recording. Both artists, but perhaps Fassbaender, even more than her colleague, extract the maximum feeling from the cycle"Susser Freund" taken very slowly and the last song being rightly the heart of the matter. This, and the lower keys, give the interpretation a dark, brooding character that some may find too sombre. If so, they need to turn to the more girlish but equally tender performances by Seefried and Popp.

I was surprised to see no other account of Op. 24 in either the LP or CD catalogue, but those by Fischer-Dieskau are implanted indelibly in my mind. Fassbaender need not fear the memory. She catches all the wonder, passion and heartbreak of these Heine settings, with Gage (a little heavy and mannered in Frauenliebe) at his probing best. Fassbaender's vibrancy and her ability to make you listen to her story is heard just as vitally in the two other groups of Heine settings on this wellfilled record. Abends am Strand, with its vivid picture of life on the ocean wave, is particularly worthy of revival, especially in such a vivid rendering; so is the Mein Wagen rollet langsam, a quirkily attractive piece. The third song of Tragodie was written as a mezzo/tenor duet, but works well enough with only one line voiced. The sound is excellent.

-- Gramophone [2/1986]
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Works on This Recording

1.
Frauenliebe und Leben, Op. 42 by Robert Schumann
Performer:  Irwin Gage (Piano), Brigitte Fassbaender (Mezzo Soprano)
Period: Romantic 
Written: 1840; Germany 
2.
Liederkreis, Op. 24 by Robert Schumann
Performer:  Irwin Gage (Piano), Brigitte Fassbaender (Mezzo Soprano)
Period: Romantic 
Written: 1840; Germany 

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