GRIEG: Six Poems by Henrik Ibsen, Op. 25; Six lieder, Op. 48; A Girl of the Hill Spirits, Op. 67; Melodies of the Heart, Op. 5; Princess – Katarina Karneus, mezzo-soprano/ Julius Drake, piano – Hyperion CDA67670, 67:54 ***** [Distr. by Harmonia mundi]:
Edvard Grieg is not often though of when considering vocal music, but he should be. A composer of over 180 songs and 60 choral works, he knew his way around the human voice very well. It was one of his songs, the third from his Op. 5 Melodies of the Heart, “I love you”, that helped to spread his worldwide fame, even to the point of many years later being recorded in a version by Frank Sinatra!
Grieg also was very much concerned that a composer’s first loyalty be to the intentions of the poet he is setting, to enhance and magnify the message and emotions contained therein. In this he was perhaps little unique among the romantic composers, who easily saw themselves as not only purveyors of poetry, but used the poems as touchstones to illustrate their own feelings about the text, not always just the expression that lay in the texts themselves.
On this CD we have four cycles and one individual song sung to perfection by Stockholm singer-soprano Katarina Karneus, including what many consider his masterpiece, the Op. 67 A Girl of the Hill Spirits, one of the jewels of the romantic lieder tradition. She brings to this music exactly those qualities that Tchaikovsky saw in Madame Grieg’s own singing of these works, the “many and precious” qualities evidenced by the soprano, who had a hauntingly simple and childlike voice. This is the key to objective and simple singing of these sometimes musically-complex pieces, and represents a fine start to what I hope will be the first volume that these forces give us. Julius Drake is the sensitive and very-attuned Greigian here, while Hyperion’s sound and presentation remains an industry model. Superb!
— Steven Ritter
Brahms Violin Concerto – Isaac Stern, Paul Paray – Forgotten Records
Another in the series of historic recordings from Forgotten Records, Paul Paray and Isaac Stern
