Schubert Lieder-Christine Schäfer

View record and artist details

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Franz Schubert

Label: Orfeo

Magazine Review Date: 2/1998

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 79

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: C450971A

Tracks:

Composition	Artist Credit
Im Frühling	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
(Die) Blumensprache	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
(Die) Gefangenen Sänger	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
(Der) Schmetterling	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
An den Mond (first version)	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
An den Mond (second version)	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
(Die) Gebüsche	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
(Der) Fluss	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
(Der) Knabe	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
Nacht und Träume	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
Im Abendrot	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
Glaube, Hoffnung und Liebe	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
Vom Mitleiden Mariä	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
Beim Winde	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
(Des) Mädchens Klage (first version)	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
Blanka	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
(Das) Mädchen	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
(Die) Rose	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
(Die) Junge Nonne	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano
Nähe des Geliebten	Franz Schubert, Composer Christine Schäfer, Soprano Franz Schubert, Composer Irwin Gage, Piano

Author: Alan Blyth

Having won last year’s Solo Vocal Gramophone Award with a disc of Schumann Lieder (Hyperion, 8/96), Schafer here presents a recital that might win her another prize. What makes her such a special artist is the candid, plaintive, natural quality of her tone and her simplicity of phrasing. These are combined with clear, unaffected diction, and a sense of vulnerability in the timbre, to evoke the pure spirit of each song. Although she might justly be compared with Elisabeth Schumann or Lucia Popp, she is her own person as any individual artist must be, but so few are today. Some, used to more vibrant, luscious voices, may find Schafer’s tone too narrow or they may be troubled by moments when she is deliberately on the flat side of a note. To me they are part of her vocal personality and perhaps nearer to what was heard in Schubert’s day.
Her attributes as a Schubertian, already disclosed in her contributions to the Hyperion Edition (1/96, 12/96 and 1/97), are confirmed by her discerning choice of songs in this generously filled programme. Whether the pieces are grave or cheerful, Schafer finds the right expression. The simplicity at the start of An den Mond (D296) is succeeded by heightened intensity at just the appropriate moment, in the fifth stanza. In that underrated Schlegel setting, Der Fluss, she adds special urgency to the last line. In better-known songs, such as Nacht und Traume and Im Abendrot, which succeed one another here, the soprano refreshes the familiar through a new draught of feeling, simple yet inward, and that is the epithet that comes most readily to mind in those two melancholic songs, Das Madchen and Die Rose, the one about an unloved girl, the other about a flower speaking of its mortality. Where line and firm tone are of the essence, as in the Bachian Vom Mitleiden Maria (Schlegel again), Schafer provides just that.
She sings Die junge Nonne in a hauntingly new way, within her compass, presenting the girl’s paradox of troubled serenity, the phrase “hole die Braut” underlined, as if some terrible sorrow lies behind the expression. To end she catches the perfect Schubert/Goethe accord of Nahe des Geliebten, where “Ich denke dein” and “Ich bin bei dir” are affirmations of a deep love. Irwin Gage partners his singer with many touches of subtle, finely shaded phrasing. Add a surely balanced recording and Lieder lovers are in for a generous treat.'