Hyperion Schubert Edition Sam

A few minor quibbles apart, this is my idea of a perfectly heavenly record, outstandingly well engineered. The selection is a judicious mix of familiar and unfamiliar. Who Is Sylvia is here, as are the Erlking and Mein from the Mill songs. Special favourites of my own are Die Allmacht and Mayrhofer's Aufloesung, both superb opportunities for a big voice, and the works cover all of Schubert's short career with Deutsch numbers ranging from 113 to 920. I think I would have liked Elizabeth Connell to hit Die Allmacht just a little harder. At the start I thought that Johnson might have been using a little too much pedal, but when I felt that most in the Sailor's Song to the Dioscuri he immediately delighted me with a lively and bouncing accompaniment in the next number Who Is Sylvia. My one real reservation concerns Erlkoenig, sung by Sarah Walker. For me, this is just not a song for a woman. Three of the four parts - father, child and the Erlking himself -- are explicitly male, and I imagine one takes the narrator to be male as well. Even more, for the one and only time on the entire disc I'm not happy with the performers' concept of the song. The tempo is too fast for my liking - the father is galloping rapidly, but any suggestion of panic ought to be reserved for the end. I also like a clean drumming sound in the piano right hand with a good strong accent on each of the four beats, clearly suggesting the hoofbeats of the horse, and too much pedal spoils it for me. What is also lost is the wonderful way the tension should relax without loss of pace before the Erlking's first song, and there is no sinister quality to the Erlking's tone as there needs to be. Fischer-Dieskau and Moore are not supplanted in my affections here.

And that's about it by way of criticisms. A disc featuring Schreier, Lott, Bostridge, Fassbaender, Allen, Baker, Mathis, Rolfe Johnson, Auger, Ameling and Varcoe to name but some can be expected to be a bit of a celebration, and that's exactly what it is. The liner booklet is even more than usually inadequate with no texts. It does not tot up the playing time either, but for me this recital was over almost as soon as it began, so much did it keep me in raptures. Strongly recommended.

This CD does NOT have one.

Erlkonig was written for tenor in G MINOR, but 99% of the recordings out there are in F minor. This one is in F minor, and is being sung by an alto.

This CD is the 3rd CD I bought and ended up with an Erlkonig in the wrong key. Fortunately, I ordered Ian Bostridge's CD and it turned out to have Erlkonig in G minor.

Most of the other tracks I'm pretty sure are in their original keys, so it's too bad the whole series is tainted in my eyes.

Maybe I'm a limited market, but that's who I am.

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