Teldec Das Alte Werk
Erscheinungsdatum 1999
Spieldauer 65' 19''

Komponisten:
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827)
Nikolaus von Krufft (1779 - 1818)
Franz Paul Lachner (1803 - 1890)
 

 Christoph Prégardien, Tenor
Andreas Staier, Hammerklavier
(Krufft, Beethoven: Salvatore Lagrassa, 1815 "Wiener Schule", Edwin Beunck Collection; Lachner: Christopher Clarke, Donzy le National, Frankreich 1996, nach Conrad Graf, Wien 1826)

Aufnahme: DeutschlandRadio Köln, Juli 1998
Katalognummer: 3984-21473 - 2, 1 CD

Inhalt

Nikolaus von Krufft

01. Der Abend
02. Bey einer Rose
03. Lebenslied
04. Serenade
05. Des Mädchens Klage
06. Fliess hinab, mein stilles Leben

Franz Paul Lachner

Ludwig van Beethoven

17. An die ferne Geliebte, Op. 98
I Auf dem Hügel sitz ich spähend
II Wo die Berge so blau
III Leichte Segler in den Höhen
IV Diese Wolken in den Höhen
V Es kehret der Maien, es blühet die Au
VI Nimm sie hin denn, diese Lieder

18. Wonne der Wehmut
19. Neue Liebe, neues Leben

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Gramophone, October 1999

Nobody who wants something out-of-the-ordinary and of exceptional quality to enliven their listening should ignore the songs by Nikolaus von Krufft included here. He died at the age of 39 having exhausted himself spending his days as an adviser to Metternich and his evenings studying and writing music. If the six songs Pregardien and Staier offer here are anything to go by, he didn't waste his leisure time. Play Fliess hinab, mein stilles Leben to any unsuspecting listener and he or she might well attribute it to Schubert, given the rippling, ostinato accompaniment, the dark tonality, shifting harmony and fastidious setting of Lafontaine's verse. Hardly less arresting is the first song, Der Abend, a Schiller setting of peculiar depth of expression and dramatic purpose, while the next song also calls to mind the master, an ingenious word-setting in a varied strophic form. With tenor and player as discerning, involved interpreters, these are six tracks to cherish and hear again and again.

Lachner, best known for his recitatives to Cherubini's Medee, proves a pleasing enough but not so revelatory composer, more conventional in his methods. His settings of two of Heine's poems used in Schumann's Dichterliebe show his limitations, but 'Die Meerfrau' in the cycle Sangerfahrt is an exception, almost suggesting the Schubert of Der Zwerg in its ballad-like story and evocation of a Lorelei-like water nymph. Again the performances are exemplary in style and feeling.

Moving to familiar territory, the pair tackle Beethoven's single, oft-recorded song-cycle. With the ardent, natural version by Genz still in mind, is there room for yet another? The answer is emphatically 'yes' when it's as convincing in terms of tempo, phrasing and verbal acuity as this one and employs a fortepiano, so intelligently played by Staier. This is a wholly valid view of the work, lovingly shaped and executed in that particularly plaintive tone of the tenor's. The Goethe settings, two of Beethoven's greatest pieces for voice and keyboard, complete one's pleasure in this absorbing recital.

AB