Florian Boesch, Malcolm Martineau – Schumann: Dichterliebe & Kerner Lieder (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Florian Boesch, Malcolm Martineau – Schumann: Dichterliebe & Kerner Lieder (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:03:26 minutes | 2,09 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Linn Records

Fourteen years ago, the baritone Florian Boesch released a disc devoted to Schumann’s settings of the poet Heinrich Heine. It included the nine songs of the Op 24 Liederkreis, but omitted the best known of all Schumann’s cycles, the 16 songs to Heine texts that make up his Dichterliebe. Partnered as before by the ever meticulous Malcolm Martineau, Boesch has now remedied that omission with a new recording of that pinnacle of the German lied tradition.

It’s a typically considered performance, in which Boesch’s stealthy, velvety tone and unfailing attention to words are used to superb effect. Whether darkening his timbre for the seventh number, Ich Grolle Nicht, or hollowing it out for the funereal lament of the 13th, Ich Hab’ im Traum Geweinet, he finds the perfect sound world to match up the expressive weight of each song.

Just occasionally he overdoes things, whether by choosing a tempo that seems fractionally too slow for the meaning of the music or the text, or by modulating his tone a bit too intensely, so that the song acquires a kind of gothic creepiness. By and large, though, this is as fine a recorded performance of Dichterliebe as any released in recent years.

Baritone Florian Boesch has an entirely distinctive art song style that is not to all tastes, but it absolutely demands attention, and it has perhaps never been elaborated as successfully as it is in this recording of Schumann’s Dichterliebe, Op. 48, and 12 Gedichte von Justinus Kerner, Op. 35. Boesch’s way with Dichterliebe is heavily text-centered, almost conversational, seeming ready to shade off into speech at any time. He can apply extreme quietness to a song when he feels it is necessary to bring out its meaning, and his tempos vary from moderate to extremely slow. Sample No. 10, “Hör’ ich das Liedchen klingen,” and especially No. 13, “Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet,” where he lets some roughness intrude, for an idea of what one is getting into. Another strong draw here is the presence of the 12 Gedichte, Op. 35, otherwise known as the Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner, one of the least often performed among Schumann’s groups of songs. It is not really a song cycle; the poems of Justinus Kerner (who also essentially discovered botulism) are not related to one another and did not have a specified ordering, although Boesch arranges them to make a cycle-like entity. This doesn’t entirely work because they’re too varied for that, but in this lies precisely their interest. Accompanist Malcolm Martineau faithfully follows Boesch through his adventurous treatments, and a final attraction is the work of the Linn label’s engineers, working in the converted-farmhouse Crear Studio. It captures the intimate approach that is Boesch’s hallmark, and one feels that Schumann would have found the ambiance familiar. A major interpretation of the well-worn Dichterliebe.
– James Manheim

Tracklist:
1-01. Florian Boesch – Dichterliebe, Op. 48: No. 1, Im wunderschönen Monat Mai (01:31)
1-02. Florian Boesch – Dichterliebe, Op. 48: No. 2, Aus meinen Tränen spriessen (01:02)
1-03. Florian Boesch – Dichterliebe, Op. 48: No. 3, Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Son (00:41)
1-04. Florian Boesch – Dichterliebe, Op. 48: No. 4, Wenn ich in deine Augen seh’ (01:50)
1-05. Florian Boesch – Dichterliebe, Op. 48: No. 5, Ich will meine Seele tauchen (00:56)
1-06. Florian Boesch – Dichterliebe, Op. 48: No. 6, Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome (02:18)
1-07. Florian Boesch – Dichterliebe, Op. 48: No. 7, Ich grolle nicht (01:29)
1-08. Florian Boesch – Dichterliebe, Op. 48: No. 8, Und wüssten’s die Blumen, die kleinen (01:12)
1-09. Florian Boesch – Dichterliebe, Op. 48: No. 9, Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen (01:39)
1-10. Florian Boesch – Dichterliebe, Op. 48: No. 10, Hör’ ich das Liedchen klingen (02:50)
1-11. Florian Boesch – Dichterliebe, Op. 48: No. 11, Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen (01:06)
1-12. Florian Boesch – Dichterliebe, Op. 48: No. 12, Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen (02:42)
1-13. Florian Boesch – Dichterliebe, Op. 48: No. 13, Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet (02:17)
1-14. Florian Boesch – Dichterliebe, Op. 48: No. 14, Allnächtlich im Traume (01:27)
1-15. Florian Boesch – Dichterliebe, Op. 48: No. 15, Aus alten Märchen winkt es (02:59)
1-16. Florian Boesch – Dichterliebe, Op. 48: No. 16, Die alten, bösen Lieder (05:50)
1-17. Florian Boesch – Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner, Op. 35: No. 1, Stirb’, Lieb’ und Freud’ (05:12)
1-18. Florian Boesch – Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner, Op. 35: No. 2, Wanderlied (03:19)
1-19. Florian Boesch – Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner, Op. 35: No. 3, Lust der Sturmnacht (01:28)
1-20. Florian Boesch – Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner, Op. 35: No. 4, Stille Liebe (02:36)
1-21. Florian Boesch – Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner, Op. 35: No. 5, Wanderung (01:21)
1-22. Florian Boesch – Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner, Op. 35: No. 6, Sehnsucht nach der Waldgegend (02:26)
1-23. Florian Boesch – Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner, Op. 35: No. 7, Auf das Trinkglas eines verstorbenen Freundes (03:36)
1-24. Florian Boesch – Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner, Op. 35: No. 8, Frage (01:08)
1-25. Florian Boesch – Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner, Op. 35: No. 9, Erstes Grün (02:05)
1-26. Florian Boesch – Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner, Op. 35: No. 10, Stille Tränen (03:07)
1-27. Florian Boesch – Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner, Op. 35: No. 11, Wer machte dich so krank? (02:36)
1-28. Florian Boesch – Zwölf Gedichte von Justinus Kerner, Op. 35: No. 12, Alte Laute (02:27)

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