Description
SKU/Barcode: 881488503326
Wolfgang Brunner, pianist and director of the Salzburger Hofmusik, put together this Friends of Schubert collection of music by a circle of composers from the Carthinia province of Austria who actively promoted the greatness of Schubert's music after his death. He chose a variety of historic instruments and a variety of recording venues (maybe unavoidably as these were recorded over an eight-year period), which makes for some intonation problems and an overall uneven sound quality for the album. Nevertheless, it's a decent sampling of music that would probably never be heard otherwise outside of its homeland. Albert Tonitz is best represented, with works ranging from chamber to vocal music. His La Romanesca for cello and piano is not a very inventive realization of a dance by sixteenth century composer Claude Gervais, but Brunner and Peter Sigl play it on well-matched instruments, going from delicate elegance to ferocious tenacity. Similarly, Consolation, a song without words for flute, has an almost continuous Alberti bass accompaniment. Tonitz's Paraphrase on Carinthian folk songs is like any number of nineteenth century fantasies for keyboard, more frequently based on opera themes, except that his has the carefree animation of l ndlers and Viennese swirling waltzes instead of virtuoso ostentation. Johann Eduard Kreiner's Sechs Deutsche are very reminiscent of Schubert's many dances for piano: animated but not overly energetic, optimistic but not too lighthearted. And H ttenbrenner's brief elegy shows that composer's admiration not only for Schubert, but also for Beethoven in the way it modulates and changes mood efficiently and subtly. It's in the vocal works that the influence of Schubert is felt most. Tonitz had an ear for melody, not only in the way his music flows, but also in the way he used character to give it life. In Weiter gieh ich, immer weiter and Des Geistes Nachtlied he tries to make the piano part more of a scenic backdrop for the lyrics. Tonitz's songs and Ihr blauen Augen by Josef Tomashoviz for male vocal quartet are steeped in the tradition of German part singing that goes back to Sch tz. On n'en meurt plus and the two romances by Graf Ferdinand Eggar, all for soprano and piano, are unusal in that they use the original French poetry rather than German translations. The culture of Carinthia is usually thought of as solid middle class, but these songs show these composers reaching for a more cosmopolitan art and audience. They are sung wonderfully by Verena Krause. She has a flexible voice with good vibrato, and she knows how to find the personality in these songs. Bass Werner Bind also stands out, with a depth to his voice like that of a Russian bass, that stands as a firm foundation for the quartets. The final two selections on the album are the song Se solen sjunker -- credited to Isak Albert Berg, who may or may not have written it -- and the Andante of Schubert's Piano Trio in E flat major, D. 929, that uses the song as its theme. Even though the performance here of the trio movement isn't deeply expressive, its juxtaposition with the song conveys the extent of Schubert's skill at taking a simple tune and transforming it into a much more emotionally complex and satisfying work.
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