Episode 255. Art Songs for Holy Week

Episode 255. Art Songs for Holy Week

I return to you with one final episode for the month of March, again focusing on Holy Week. In this case, I present to you art songs on contemplative, Biblical, even Lenten themes. Composers represented include Dvorák, Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann, as well as Wolf and Brahms. The final works of both of these composers are song cycles, Wolf’s Michelangelo-Lieder and Brahms’s Vier ernste Gesänge. Both works are heard in their entirety in performances both celebrated and virtually unknown. Performers include, in order of vocal range, Edith Mathis, Věra Soukupová, Kathleen Ferrier, Pierre Mollet, Benjamin Luxon, Matti Lehtinen, Norman Bailey, Walter Berry, Kim Borg, George London, and Alexander Kipnis. Into the midst of this company enters also the young and extraordinarily gifted tenor Laurence Kilsby, not yet thirty but already displaying all the traits of great vocal artistry. Please enjoy this extra episode in the spirit in which it is given, with gratitude and love for the ongoing support of all of my listeners.

RECORDINGS HEARD IN THIS EPISODE

Hugo Wolf, Eduard Mörike: Karwoche (Mörike-Lieder). Benjamin Luxon, David Willison [1973]

Franz Schubert, Friedrich von Schlegel: Vom mitleiden Mariä, D.632. Edith Mathis, Graham Johnson [1992]

Ludwig Van Beethoven, Christian Fürchtegott Gellert: Busslied, Op. 48/6. Pierre Mollet, Gérard van Blerk [Dutch radio recording 24.V.68]

Antonín Dvorák: Hospodin je muj pastýr [The Lord is my Shepherd] (Biblical Songs, Op. 99/4). Věra Soukupová, Ivan Moravec [1967]

Robert Schumann, anonymous text: Requiem, Op. 90/7. Laurence Kilsby, Ella O’Neill [live Heidelberg 03.III.23]

Hugo Wolf, Michelangelo Buonarotti, trans. Walter Heinrich Robert-Tornow: Michelangelo-Lieder

I. Wohl denk’ ich oft. Matti Lehtinen, Pentti Koskimies [1959]

II. Alles endet, was entstehet. Kim Borg, Erik Werba [1959]

III. Fühlt meine Seele das ersehnte Licht. Alexander Kipnis, Coenraad V. Bos [1933]

Johannes Brahms: Vier ernste Gesänge, Op. 121 (texts from Martin Luther’s German translation of the Bible):

I. Denn es gehet dem Menschen. Walter Berry, Erik Werba [Austrian radio recording 1971]

II. Ich wandte mich und sahe an. Norman Bailey, John Constable [1977]

III. O Tod, wie bitter bist du. Kathleen Ferrier, John Newmark [1950]

IV. Wenn ich mit Menschen- und mit Engelszungen. George London, Leo Taubman [1960]