Robert Franz (Franz was his middle name; he dropped Knauth) was hailed as the savior of the German lied as it went into decline in the 1840s, under competition from the waltz and other new urban dances. He had his admirers, including Liszt, who transcribed many of his songs for piano and helped Franz during an old age marked by ill health. The generous selection of songs offered here by Irish tenor Robin Tritschler and accompanist Graham Johnson suggests that Franz is worth a revival, although his songs remain within a ...
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Robert Franz (Franz was his middle name; he dropped Knauth) was hailed as the savior of the German lied as it went into decline in the 1840s, under competition from the waltz and other new urban dances. He had his admirers, including Liszt, who transcribed many of his songs for piano and helped Franz during an old age marked by ill health. The generous selection of songs offered here by Irish tenor Robin Tritschler and accompanist Graham Johnson suggests that Franz is worth a revival, although his songs remain within a rather narrow set of parameters. The program contains 47 songs, most of them between a minute and two minutes long, and Franz favored strophic poems of two or three stanzas. To judge from the selection here, his favorite poet was Heinrich Heine, whose seemingly artless, slightly melancholy, but often subtle and humorous verses fit Franz's style perfectly (or vice versa). Schubert set Heine's poems, too, and it is to Franz's credit that his settings have a different flavor even as they...
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Add this copy of Franz: Songs [Robin Tritschler; Graham Johnson] to cart. $33.26, new condition, Sold by Revaluation Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Exeter, DEVON, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2017 by Hyperion.
Robert Franz (1815 -- 1892) was a composer of lieder whose songs are too little known today. I was fortunate to have a music appreciation teacher who introduced his students both to lieder and to Robert Franz, and a love of both has stayed with me. I wanted to revist Franz's songs when I found a new set of song transcripions by the American composer Lowell Liebermann, "Four Etudes on Songs of Robert Franz for Piano", Op. 91. These beautiful, idiomatic transcriptions by a contemporary American master might help introduce music lovers to Franz. I am trying to learn to play the first etude in the set, "The Lotus Flower".
This 2017 CD, "Songs by Robert Franz" by the lyrically gifted Irish tenor Robin Tritschler and the scholar-pianist Graham Johnson constitutes an ideal way to hear Franz. Graham Johnson has spearheaded the recording of the complete lieder of many famous composers, including Schubert and Brahms. In addition to the beautiful music, singing, and pianism, Johnson's CDs feature extensive liner notes with texts and translations of each song together with commentary. Unlike the situation with Schubert and Brahms, this CD will not be part of a complete set. It does include, however, 47 of Franz's 279 songs, and there is much to be grateful for in that.
Franz was a miniaturist who devoted himself almost entirely to song composition. His songs generally are short without a note wasted and with piano and voice closely intertwined. As Johnson stresses in his notes, the music is passionate, romantic, but also restrained. Johnson suggests that Franz was an enigmatic composer who somehow was never fully able to let go. Still, he wrote some beautiful, highly pesonal and individualized songs.
Franz was gifted in his choice of poets and poetry to set. The songs on this CD are arranged by poet with the heart of the album given over to twenty-five settings of poems by Heine. Many of Franz's settings were also set by Robert Schumann, among others, including the famous "In the wondrous month of May," Franz's settings are beautiful in their own right, and the listener's appreciation is enhanced by Johnson's commentary. The CD includes settings of ten additional poets, including Goethe, Robert Burns, Eichendorff, and Morike.
Franz set two poems titled "The Lotus Flower" and both are included on this CD. Franz's setting of Heine's poem is his opus 25 no. 1 and emphasizes the flower's reclusive character and the painfulness of the search for love. Franz's opus 1 no. 3 sets "The Lotus Flower" by Emanuel Geibel (1815 -- 1884). Johnson describes this song as a "subtle and dreamy masterpiece." The Geibel setting was transcribed by Liebermann in his "Four Etudes" and is the work I am learning to play. This recording enhanced my love of both the song and of Liebermann's transcription and spurred me to pursue my efforts in learning the Liebermann.
Lovers of lieder will enjoy this CD. I was glad to revisit Robert Franz and, in particular, to draw inspiration and understanding for music I am learning.
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