SCHUMANN Dichterliebe. Liederkreis
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Robert Schumann
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Linn
Magazine Review Date: AW2015
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 80
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CKD474
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Liederkreis |
Robert Schumann, Composer
Anna Tilbrook, Piano James Gilchrist, Tenor Robert Schumann, Composer |
Dichterliebe |
Robert Schumann, Composer
Anna Tilbrook, Piano James Gilchrist, Tenor Robert Schumann, Composer |
(6) Gedichte und Requiem |
Robert Schumann, Composer
Anna Tilbrook, Piano James Gilchrist, Tenor Robert Schumann, Composer |
Author: Richard Fairman
Gilchrist sets the mood from the start, entering the world of the Op 24 Liederkreis with a soft touch and confiding tone. These are lyrical performances, nicely fluent in pace, though the voice can sound shallow when he is singing quietly and sometimes (more troublingly) edgy with a fast vibrato. In the Op 39 Liederkreis Gilchrist’s light tenor is good at painting the moonlit night of ‘Mondnacht’ and the more ominous twilight of ‘Zwielicht’, but there is a bit too much wide-eyed, breathless urgency, for example in the second ‘In der Fremde’. His Dichterliebe is the cycle of a kindly poet, who recounts sweetly the age-old tale of the boy who loves a girl (no bitter lesson being learnt here) and shapes phrases that gently unfurl in the light of a summer morning. In all this he is well supported by the clean-cut, carefully detailed playing of Tilbrook, who modestly leaves any point-making to the singer.
Gilchrist’s sensitive Schumann has its own distinctive flavour. In comparisons with other British tenors, he yields to Ian Bostridge in plangency of tone and ambition of expression. Among present-day singers the leading contender, if counting baritones, has to be Christian Gerhaher, so simple and touching in the Op 39 Liederkreis and Dichterliebe. Those, however, are on different discs. For all three cycles at one go, Gilchrist makes a good-value recommendation.
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