Est 1923

Schumann Lieder

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Robert Schumann

Label: DG

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 70

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: 439 943-2GH

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
(5) Lieder, Movement: No. 1, Märzveilchen Robert Schumann, Composer
Andreas Schmidt, Baritone
Robert Schumann, Composer
Rudolf Jansen, Piano
(5) Lieder, Movement: No. 2, Muttertraum Robert Schumann, Composer
Andreas Schmidt, Baritone
Robert Schumann, Composer
Rudolf Jansen, Piano
(5) Lieder, Movement: No. 3, Der Soldat Robert Schumann, Composer
Andreas Schmidt, Baritone
Robert Schumann, Composer
Rudolf Jansen, Piano
(5) Lieder, Movement: No. 4, Der Spielmann Robert Schumann, Composer
Andreas Schmidt, Baritone
Robert Schumann, Composer
Rudolf Jansen, Piano
Schumann is certainly flavour of the day where Lieder are concerned. This version of Op. 39 is, on my reckoning, the eighteenth now in the catalogue and even the total of the less well-known Op. 35 is taken to seven by this new version. Before I had reminded myself that Hampson had recorded Op. 35, I immediately thought Schmidt's voice and manner recalled that of his coeval. With the Hampson CD as a direct comparison, the affinities became almost uncanny. Both baritones have an enviably smooth tone and legato, place their words immaculately on the voice, and have a sure understanding of phrasing all these graceful songs. Yet, in each case a certain sameness, a complacency if you like, is symptomatic of a refusal to take risks, which makes Schmidt's account, like Hampson's, bland. An unkind verdict given the command of idiom and language shown throughout? Perhaps not: if you next listen to Fischer-Dieskau, recorded live at the Salzburg Festival in 1959.
It may seem unkind to mention Fischer-Dieskau so frequently in relation to other baritones in Lieder, but if you then move to Op. 39 you hear from the senior singer the frisson of excitement before the mysteries of wood, fable and love, so specifically enacted by Eichendorff and as set to music by Schumann. He must remain the choice, side by side with the most recent rival version, from Fassbaender and Leonskaja, which brings a still greater sense of involvement even if the journey can be bumpy.
Schmidt is favoured by having Jansen's highly imaginative playing in support, not least in the Op. 40 Andersen settings. There he and Schmidt bring before us so keenly mother, soldier and minstrel with the baritone coming alive here in a manner not always demonstrated elsewhere. Excellent as is Jansen's playing, he is sometimes given undue prominence in relation to the voice—try ''Wanderlied'', the third song of Op. 35, where the piano definitely takes precedence. Anyone collecting Schmidt's growing number of Lieder discs for DG need not be troubled by my reservations—and why should they be when so much is so convincingly done? Others may like to make similar comparisons to mine before making up their mind.AB

Schumann Lieder

(5) Lieder, Movement: No. 1, Märzveilchen

(5) Lieder, Movement: No. 2, Muttertraum

(5) Lieder, Movement: No. 3, Der Soldat

(5) Lieder, Movement: No. 4, Der Spielmann

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