SCHUMANN: Myrthen, Op. 25; Poems by Mary Stuart, Op. 135 – Nathalie Stutzmann, contralto/ Michel Dalberto, piano – Warner Classics 2564 69659-1, 62:07 ****:
Nathalie Stutzmann is becoming somewhat of a Schumann expert these days. In fact, I count more CDs of his music than by any other performer in her catalog, many on RCA, but now evidently under new management at Warner. The repertory here consists of music composed at the beginning and the end of his career.
Myrthen is a cycle whose 26 songs were written as a wedding gift for bride Clara in 1840, and Schumann wrote to her that he “wept” when composing it, so full of joy was he at its gestation. The poets set are eclectic and varied, though many (perhaps the majority) of them have not attained lasting success when presented apart from the cycle, which remains perhaps the best way to hear them in context, and have a certain degree of unity musically if not textually, due to the presence of eight different poets.
Though Schumann was a “spurt” writer, he returned to the song cycle near the end of his career (four years before his death) with a series of five songs based on poems of Mary Stuart, and though they are not high literature or art, Schumann’s splendid set of serious and farewell testaments make this one of the most profound, if one of the simplest and uncomplicated creations of his career. In the same way that Liszt achieved a certain mystical awareness with some of his last piano works, Schumann also concentrates great power and energy into these short pieces.
Stutzmann is superb here as usual, giving the work her undivided attention, and is to be commended for presenting us with such sterling performances of these oft-neglected works. Texts and translations are nowhere to be found—inexcusable and unprofessional of Warner.
— Steven Ritter