Schubert: Romantic Poets, Vol. 3 (2008)

Exploring The Schubert Songs -- Romantic Poets

In his short life, Franz Schubert (1797 -- 1828) perfected the genre of art song. The budget-priced Naxos label is performing a service to lovers of music by its ongoing cycle of the over 700 Schubert lieder. The series is arranged by the poets who inspired Schubert and the recordings are based upon the new Barenreiter edition of the scores. (David Zinman's recordings of the Beethoven symphonies some years ago were also based upon a new edition from Barenreiter.) The German pianist Ulrich Eisenlohr is the director of this Schubert cycle. Eisenlohr chooses the singers for the recordings, accompanies them on the piano, and writes informative liner notes.

This CD, the 26th in the series overall, is the third devoted to miscellaneous German romantic poets set by Schubert. The disk includes 14 songs performed by soprano Sibylla Rubens together with Eisenlohr on the piano. Rubens is in the midst of a distinguished career as performer and recording artist, with many CDs of Bach cantatas, Mozart, Haydn, Schumann, Wolf, and Schubert, among others, to her credit.

Of the 14 songs on this album, the most familiar is "The Shepherd on the Rock", D. 965, a late and beautiful work which features a part for clarinet, performed here by Nilolaus Friedrich. (Only one other Schubert song for solo voice and piano includes a third instrument.) "The Shepherd on the Rock" is based upon an amalgamation of three texts by two poets and covers a series of moods from longing through sadness through transcendent hope at the end of the piece. It is Schubert at his finest and will reward getting to know on this CD.

The remaining works on this CD are less-frequently heard. The themes of the songs are deep personal religious experience and human love -- sometimes fused together. The songs include six settings of poems by the German poet Novalis (1772 -- 1801) set by Schubert around 1820. Schubert set five Novalis poems called "Spiritual songs", D. 658 -- D662, and may have intended them as a brief song-cycle. The songs are written in a clear, accessible, and melodic style of surprising simplicity. Novalis's poems are a mixture of Christian mysticism and human eroticism. Schubert himself may have shared this combination, and he captures it beautifully in these relatively infrequently performed songs. The sixth Novalis setting, "Night Hymn", D. 660, is a brooding meditation on death. Schubert was the only major composer of art song to set poems by Novalis.

The remainder of the CD consists of two settings each of poems by Friederich von Schlegel and his brother August Wilhelm von Schlegel. The two settings of Friederich are particularly good, especially the rare work "Mary's Compassion", D.632, which has a surprisingly baroque, contrapuntal sound, almost a song of "passion" music.

The remaining songs are by obscure poets. There are two excellent settings of poems by Aloys Wilhelm Schreiber, including a short lyric "the message of flowers" D. 622 and a long thorough-composed work, "To the Moon on a Summer Night", D. 622. An excitably romantic setting of a poem called "Delphine's song" D.857/1 by Christian von Schutz rounds out the CD.

This CD and its companions in the Naxos series are excellent resources for those who wish to explore Schubert's songs in depth. The songs are well-performed and the low price of the CDs makes them accessible. The recent volumes in the series, such as this CD, do not include texts or translations. The German texts are available on Naxos's website, but the translations do not appear to be posted. There is an extensive website devoted to texts and translations of art song, and it proved highly valuable in listening to this CD.

Robin Friedman