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Schumann: Dichterliebe & other Heine setting (CD)
Winner of 2009 Best Solo Vocal Album category of the Classic FM Gramophone Awards
Nominated for the Critics' Award in the 2009 Classical BRITs
Nominated in the Juno Awards 2009 Classical Album of the Year: Vocal or Choral Performance.
"One of Alex Ross’ Ten Best Classical-Music Recordings of 2008: The New Yorker, 11 December 2008
Editor's Choice: Gramophone, November 2008
"Gerald Finley is both intelligent and gripping, and sings with a tone that has never sounded more luxurious" 5 out of 5 Stars, Classic FM magazine
“…overwhelmingly powerful” 5 out of 5 stars, The Guardian
“Gerald Finley's burnished baritone is one of the most beautiful voices to have recorded the cycle” The Telegraph
Performers:
-
Gerald Finley (baritone)
-
Julius Drake (piano)
Recording details: October 2007, All Saints,
Durham Road, East Finchley, London, United Kingdom
Release date: September 2008
Total duration: 69 minutes 5 seconds
Label: Hyperion CDA67676
TRACKS:
Romanzen und Balladen IV, Op 64
1 No 3a: Tragödie I 'Entflieh' mit mir und sei mein Weib' [1:26]
2 No 3b: Tragödie II 'Es fiel ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht' [2:10]
Romanzen und Balladen II, Op 49
3 No 1: Die beiden Grenadiere 'Nach Frankreich zogen zwei Grenadier'' [3:54]
Romanzen und Balladen I, Op 45
4 No 3: Abends am Strand 'Wir saßen am Fischerhause' [3:25]
Romanzen und Balladen II, Op 49
5 No 2: Die feindlichen Brüder 'Oben auf des Berges Spitze' [2:27]
Romanzen und Balladen III, Op 53
6 No 3a: Der arme Peter I 'Der Hans und die Grete tanzen herum' [1:13]
7 No 3b: Der arme Peter II 'In meiner Brust' [1:22]
8 No 3c: Der arme Peter III 'Der arme Peter wankt vorbei' [2:19]
9 Belsatzar, Op 57 'Die Mitternacht zog näher schon' [4:56]
Myrthen, Op 25
10 No 07: Die Lotosblume [1:52]
11 No 21: Was will die einsame Träne? [2:06]
12 No 24: Du bist wie eine Blume [1:57]
Vier Gesänge, Op 142
13 No 2: Lehn' deine Wang' an meine Wang' [0:46]
Fünf Lieder und Gesänge, Op 127
14 No 3: Es leuchtet meine Liebe [1:52]
15 No 2: Dein Angesicht so lieb und schön [2:20]
Vier Gesänge, Op 142
16 No 4: Mein Wagen rollet langsam [3:20]
Dichterliebe, Op 48
17 No 01: Im wunderschönen Monat Mai [1:45]
18 No 02: Aus meinen Tränen spriessen [1:01]
19 No 03: Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne [0:38]
20 No 04: Wenn ich in deine Augen seh' [2:01]
21 No 05: Ich will meine Seele tauchen [0:57]
22 No 06: Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome [2:39]
23 No 07: Ich grolle nicht [1:41]
24 No 08: Und wüssten's die Blumen, die kleinen [1:15]
25 No 09: Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen [1:33]
26 No 10: Hör' ich das Liedchen klingen [2:19]
27 No 11: Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen [1:08]
28 No 12: Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen [2:52]
29 No 13: Ich hab' im Traum geweinet [2:26]
30 No 14: Allnächtlich im Traume [1:37]
31 No 15: Aus alten Märchen [2:45]
32 No 16: Die alten, bösen Lieder [5:03]
From the Hyperion website
http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/al.asp?al=CDA67676&f=Gerald%20Finley
Why another Dichterliebe recording? Because Gerald Finley has simply one of the greatest voices of his generation, and is an artist at the peak of his powers. He brings to this noble song cycle the supreme technical ability and penetrating musical understanding that characterize all his performances, whether on the concert platform, in the recording studio or on the great opera stages of the world. This is his fourth disc with collaborator Julius Drake, and the partnership has proved to be a uniquely rewarding one.
This fine recital also includes many of Schumann’s other Heine settings. The extremes of elation and despair in Heine’s poetry stimulated Schumann to write some of his most poignant and unforgettable songs. This is truly a disc to treasure.
Click on photo below to read an interview about this CD in Classic FM Magazine, October 2008
What the critics say
Warwick Thompson, Metro, 7 August 2008
http://www.metro.co.uk/metrolife/music/article.html?in_article_id=255153&in_page_id=25&in_a_source=
Grotesquerie, beauty, irony, sentimentality and overwhelming passion mingle to breathtaking effect in Canadian bass-baritone Gerald Finley's all-Schumann disc Dichterliebe & Other Heine Settings (Hyperion).
Finley is an unforgettable communicator on a grand scale, as anyone who has seen him at one of his frequent Royal Opera appearances knows. But on this disc, he proves himself equally memorable in the more intimate arena of the Lieder recital. That his voice is luxuriously warm, even and smooth almost goes without saying.
What sets him apart here is his uncanny ability to conjure up a state of mind or an atmosphere that is instantly recognisable in purely auditory terms. In the amorous song cycle Dichterliebe, he begins with breathless hope and longing, travels through despair, and ends on a note of ironic acceptance of loss. In the song Die Beiden Grenadiere (The Two Grenadiers) he suggests a note of complex bitterness in the tale of a simple soldier who dreams of violence and glory. His in-the-moment honesty is matched note-for-note by pianist Julius Drake, who partners him with a superb sense of drama and detail. It's a recital which can stand comparison with the greatest Schumann recordings.
Warwick Thompson, Classic FM Magazine, October 2008
Rating: Five out of Five stars
In 1840, his 'year of song', Schumann was involved in a distressing court case to marry his beloved Clara, and he poured out his hopes and fears in his many Lieder. On this disc of settings of poems by German Romantic Heinrich Heine - which includes the song -cycle Dichterliebe ('The Poet's Love') - acclaimed baritone Gerald Finley is both intelligent and gripping, and sings with a tone that has never sounded more luxurious. With in-the-moment honesty, he brings passion, longing, terror, love and bitterness to his interpretations, without ever losing sight of his overall emotional journey. Accompanist Julius Drake partners him with a superb sense of drama and detail.
Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 5 September 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/sep/05/classicalmusicandopera1
Rating: Five out of Five stars
Gerald Finley follows a series of outstanding albums of American and English song - Ives, Barber, Stanford - with his first foray on disc into the German Lied, and the results are just as impressive. There may be three-quarters of a century's great interpretations of Dichterliebe already available on disc, but Finley's stands up well against the best of them, including the series spanning a whole career from Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who set the benchmark where baritone versions of this song-cycle are concerned. Finley is a much less knowing, more direct performer than Fischer-Dieskau, concentrating less on precise verbal nuance (though his German diction is wonderfully clear) than on more generalised expressive contours, but the effect is still overwhelmingly powerful. Alongside this greatest of all Schumann's song cycles, Finley lines up another 16 settings of the poetry of Heine, and brings them all to life equally vividly, whether it is the over-the-top dramatics of the ballads Die Feindlichen Brüder and Die Beiden Grenadiere, or the tragic triptych of Der Arme Peter.
Richard Wigmore, The Telegraph, 6 September 2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/arts/2008/09/06/bmclasscds106.xml
The best of the new releases
Doubts as to whether the world needs yet another Dichterliebe are allayed by a performance that probes the extremes of Schumann's evocation of remembered, blighted love.
Gerald Finley's burnished baritone is one of the most beautiful voices to have recorded the cycle. And with his discerning pianist, Julius Drake, he veers between aching nostalgia (the opening songs are already saturated with a sense of loss), numb desolation and taunting, even savage, irony.
Finley complements the cycle with more Heine settings, including four songs that Schumann discarded from Dichterliebe. He brings his dramatic flair and range of colour to the biblical ballad Belsatzar and the mock-medieval minstrelsy of Die feindlichen Brüder.
Elsewhere he is acutely responsive to Schumann's unique vein of confiding inwardness, whether in the haunted Dein Angesicht (one of the Dichterliebe rejects) or in two exquisite love songs to Clara, Die Lotosblume and Du bist wie eine Blume. A glorious Schumann recital from a singer and pianist in true, symbiotic partnership.
Hugo Shirley, Mucicalcriticism.com, 30 August 2008
http://www.musicalcriticism.com/recordings/cd-finley-dichterliebe-0808.shtml
Rating: Four out of Five stars
As their previous collaborations for Hyperion have shown (extremely well received recordings of Ives and Barber songs), baritone Gerald Finley and pianist Julius Drake constitute something of a dream team. And this new recording of Dichterliebe, coupled with a selection of Schumann's other Heine settings, represents a master class of nuanced Lieder performance, Finley's intelligent and minutely detailed singing matched by Drake's infinitely responsive accompaniment.
Although the main selling point of the disc is the song cycle, Finley also gives us just shy of forty minutes of other Heine songs and for me this is where the attributes that served him and Drake so well in their albums of American song bring the most totally convincing results. Finley's heroic tone and impassioned delivery are perfectly suited to the opening of 'Tragödie' and although some might raise an eyebrow at the slow initial tempo set for 'Die beiden Grenadiere', the performance culminates in rousing climax, emphasising the wonderful juxtaposition of the Marseillaise and Heine's ambivalent verse.
The three parts of 'Der arme Peter' are beautifully done, Finley captures well the required artlessness against Drake's skipping accompaniment in the first, the simple yearning of the second and the various characterisations of the third. The ballade, 'Belsatzar', is no less successful, the drama built up with great skill and Finley's voice in suitably imperious form, his characterisation is such that you almost expect him to burst into demonic laughter after proudly declaring 'Ich bin der König von Babylon!'
The remaining songs, before we get to Dichterliebe, are three of the Heine settings included in Myrthen - a beautifully delicate and gloriously sung account of 'Die Lotusblume' and no less fine accounts of 'Was will die einsame Träne?' and 'Du bist wie eine Blume' – and four songs jettisoned from the cycle just prior to publication ('Lehn' deine Wang' an meine Wang', 'Es leuchtet meine Liebe', 'Dein Angesicht so lieb und schön' and 'Mein Wagen rollet langsam'.) It's a clever piece of programming that makes one realise how different the cycle might have ended up and Finley again turns in excellent performances, impassioned in the first two, touchingly introspective in the second pair.
So, on to Dichterliebe itself, and while all the qualities of the first part of the disc are still there in abundance, there were times in the cycle when I just wished for a bit more fantasy, some more Romantic Schwung. It's telling that in the narrative ballades earlier on the disc Finley was so outstanding but occasionally in the first-person songs of Dichterliebe I failed to believe that the performers were really experiencing the deep feelings of 'the most confessional of composers', as Richard Wigmore describes Schumann in his liner note. Somehow, 'Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen' just didn't send a tingle down the spine like it should, 'Allnächtlich im Traume' was rather too straight-faced, and 'Ich grolle nicht', its 'nicht zu schnell' interpreted cautiously as seems now to be the rule, sounded rather lacking in passion, despite Finley's high G (the baritone choosing a lower version of the cycle). For all the four-square stoicism of his accompanist, I couldn't help wishing for a bit of the good, honest emotion of Fritz Wunderlich's classic DG recording.
It seems churlish, though, to complain about performances that pack in so much in the way of interpretative insight and Schumann's cycle, while undoubtedly the product of a man in love, is still the product of a highly intellectual musician; as such, a more cerebral approach brings definite rewards. Among the myriad details and inflections are the exquisite and impossibly hushed 'Ich liebe dich' in 'Wenn ich in deine Auge seh'', a lovely floated sotto voce in the final verse of 'Allnächtlich im Traume', and a wonderful snarl at 'Zerrissen mir das Herz' in 'Und wüßten's die Blumen'.
It is also worth pointing out that vocally Finley need not suffer comparisons from any previous interpreters. His baritone is rich, smooth and suave, imposing as he conjures up the cathedral in 'Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome' or angry as he spits out the words of 'Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen'. Finley's way with 'Die alten bösen Lieder' is similarly impressive although I felt the slowish tempo here, and Drake's restrained way with accompaniment, robbed the song of some of its power, despite a wonderfully dreamy and poetic rendition of the postlude. In the end, though, Finley succeeds in creating a character more strong-willed and forceful than we're used to in this work; a grown-up, slightly more world-weary poet who, on repeated listenings, proves himself every bit as worthy of our sympathy.
Finley's many admirers will find, once again, so much to marvel at in terms of supremely intelligent, sensitive and technically superb singing. And although his way with Dichterliebe might lack straight-forward ardour, there's still an awful lot to enjoy and admire in it. Hyperion's sound is unobtrusively excellent
Richard Nicholson, classicalsource.com
http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_cd_review.php?id=6242
My starting-point for this review is the question asked in the promotional material for this release: “Why another Dichterliebe recording?” The current catalogue offers a range of interpretations of varying ages undertaken predominantly by baritones but also by some tenors, the occasional soprano and even a countertenor. There is a questionable assumption that every emerging male Lieder singer should before long give us his “Dichterliebe”, just as every budding symphonic conductor needs to record Beethoven symphonies. As a result the field is diluted with many versions of no great character. In favour of flooding it even further it can be said that such a towering masterpiece can always sustain further exploration. Any work of significance in the song literature, seen through the prism of a particular vocal personality, particularly a strong, intelligent one, yields new secrets.
In any generation few singers take supreme rank both as opera singers and concert artists. Gerald Finley is one. His career has been characterised by enterprising exploration of the repertoire and it is no surprise that he has now arrived at this work.
I turned first, then, to “Dichterliebe”. This is not an interpretation that begins with a vision of the unalloyed freshness of spring: the tempo for the opening song is slow, the ethos lethargic. The poet is looking back on a lost relationship but one whose flowering season he can still envisage. The all-consuming power of love is re-created decisively in the third song and better times recalled in the fifth. Finley’s lyric baritone is incisive without being bulky. He can deploy reserves without the tone becoming uneven. As a vehicle for communicating character and drama the voice always retains a foundation of elegance and musicianship. That is not to say that he plays down the intensity of resentment felt by the central character in ‘Ich grolle nicht’ or in the final phrases of the succeeding song “Sie hat ja selbst zerrissen, zerrissen mir das Herz”; indeed it is razor-sharp in each case.
The baritone’s vocal scope is well demonstrated in ‘Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome’. He summons up dark, resonant tone to create the awesome surroundings of Cologne cathedral. Then, in a procedure reminiscent of a contemporary film director, the long shot tightens to a close-up of the Madonna, awakening memories of the beloved. The perspective becomes intimate, the tone mellifluous, and the vocal surface velvety. This much is fairly standard among interpreters but the last third of the song finds Finley at his most imaginative: the lyricism fades, the tone firms up austerely all the way to the last words. The pianist follows a similar pattern, his imitation of clanging cathedral bells forming a frame as prelude and postlude but withdrawing into the background while the singer expounds.
Performers of this cycle have to cope with several pairs of opposites. One is its mixture of sombre and garish colours. The latter is exemplified by the cacophony of amateur musicians that the pianist must imitate in ‘Es ist ein Flöten und Geigen’. Julius Drake does so graphically; interestingly the piano takes over in the end as the main expressive instrument as the singer’s voice weakens. In the following song, ‘Hör ich das Liedchen singen’, despite the overwhelming declaration of misery in the text, it is again the piano with its uneven notes in the postlude which conveys the depth of the poet’s suffering.
Then there is the co-existence of sincerity and parody. The comic imitation of folk-music in ‘Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen’ is immediately followed by the direct appeal of ‘Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen’, the effect of which is made even more heart-breaking by Finley’s withdrawal to pianissimo and his hesitation before delivering the last couplet.
The last four songs have the common thread of dreams. The arid ‘Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet’ is followed here by some sublime soft singing in the last stanza of ‘Allnächtlich im Traume’. This suggests one reservation. Finley does sometimes appear to try too hard to get the German words across; in this case the sibilants are too conspicuous. No qualifications about the land of forgetfulness that he conjures up in ‘Aus alten Märchen’, while the vocal part of the final song ends by returning to the fatigue foreshadowed by the opening of the cycle.
Ironically, “Dichterliebe” is placed at the end of this recorded programme, despite having the lion’s share of the promotion. Heine’s poetry is the common feature; the ‘fillers’ are other settings by Schumann of this poet, though not the obvious Opus 24 “Liederkreis”. We are not kept waiting impatiently for the main course, however, for the brightest goods are in the shop window. The opening two selections from ‘Tragödie’ are two sharply contrasted poems (the third of the sequence is missing, as it is a duet for male and female singers). In the first the beloved is invited to elope, with all misgivings swept aside in a supremely self-confident surge of machismo. Finley’s vocal skills are displayed: rhythmic verve, comfort across a wide range, contrasted colour for the central section and crisp enunciation. Then, in the setting of the second poem, a wholly unsuccessful elopement is described; here his tone acquires a mournful, drooping quality. The two performers make absolute logic of the word-setting: while the singer leaves the final words of each stanza hanging inconclusively, it is left to the pianist to complete the musical structure in a way which powerfully reinforces the desolation.
There follows ‘Die beiden Grenadiere’, not one of the ten individual songs chosen for comparative review in the late Alan Blyth’s valuable “Song on Record”, despite its popularity; he describes it as a “slightly paltry piece”. Finley and Drake give it every chance to redeem its reputation in a reading that delves deep to discover its possibilities. The opening tempo is daringly slow and Finley drags out his notes to depict the exhaustion of the retreating soldiers. Then the blow of discovering their emperor’s fate is built up gradually but relentlessly in the second pair of verses. The clash between patriotic feelings and family responsibility is theatrically conveyed, while I know no recording which makes as much of the climax as this, accompaniment seconding singer in exhilaration verging on transfiguration, with the onomatopoeic effects (“Kanonengebrüll”, “wiehernder Rosse Getrabe” and “klirren”) not neglected.
A number of ballads provide the opportunity for dramatic enactment by both artists. “Belsatzar” receives a gripping performance. Schumann’s setting is again cinematic, with the opening couplets representing an establishing shot of the palace, after which the camera takes us into the banqueting hall, with greater immediacy of sound, before focusing on Belshazzar. Finley enacts the role of the slobbering, blasphemous monarch with vivid verbal colour: “Ich bin der König von Babylon” he sneers. Both artists play their part in creating the changing moods of anarchic orgy, growing tension and paralysed fear.
Quite different from this straight, macabre narrative is the tripartite sequence of “Der arme Peter”. Heine has provided a sardonic account of the jilted young man’s pained observation of the beloved’s wedding, his solitary anguish and his renunciation of life. The second poem finds Finley progressing vividly through varying degrees of darkness and despair, including a visit to an uncommonly low tessitura but Schumann has wittily set the poems to conventional musical forms, ending with a funeral march, and throughout the trio of songs Finley and Drake invite us to laugh with them at the absurdity of the character’s self-dramatisation.
The straightforward love songs from “Myrthen” display Finley’s vocal refinement; words and sound balanced in the serenity of ‘Die Lotosblume’, high notes powerful but not abrasive in ‘Was will die einsame Träne’ and ‘Du bist wie eine Blume’ softly sung but without ostentatious recourse to head voice.
The four settings originally intended for a 20-song “Dichterliebe” are given absolutely full value by Finley and Drake. By showing the similarities between them as reserves and the sixteen members of the first team, they indicate the extent to which they duplicate features of the latter: the laconic style and inconclusive ending of ‘Lehn’ deine Wang’ an meine Wang’, the morbid flavour of ‘Dein Angesicht’ and the importance of the piano as a carrier of meaning in ‘Es leuchtet meine Liebe’. I feel a sense of loss only about the absence from the cycle of ‘Mein Wagen rollet langsam’, a truly great song with its complex postlude, in which Drake holds the listener in tantalising suspense.
There is an understandable suspicion about each new recording of a commonly-recorded work: might the performers have succumbed to the temptation to deliver a distinctive interpretation and establish a unique selling point? Might they have been propelled in the direction of exaggeration, perhaps in extremes of dynamic, of tempo or of emphasis? The engineers too may have used their own resources to make the recording stand out in a crowded field. Fortunately the recording of these songs gives no cause for complaint: voice and piano are clearly focused and in ideal balance. As for the musicians, they offer stimulating, possibly unique couplings for the cycle and provided strong competition for my preferred version for baritone, that of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Christoph Eschenbach. I doubt if they are finished with Schumann.
Texts and translations are supplied in the booklet, as well as a thoughtful note by Richard Wigmore.
Hilary Finch,BBC Music Magazine, September 2008
Performance 4 stars
Recording 4 stars
Gerald Finley's Dichterliebe is one of the slowest and saddest on disc. From the very start, the fingers of Julius Drake seem to be waking both Finley's baritone and the music itself from a long distant dream. The performers' flexibility of tempo and pacing throughout emphasises what is, quite literally, the trauma of a songcycle sung from the standpoint of loss, where even the sap of spring is sensed through a haze of tears.
This is a performance of a heavy and irreparably broken heart – and, as such, it’s deeply considered and minutely prepared articulation and phrasing can tend to make it seem, especially on the repeated hearings of a recording, just a little over-calculated. The words lie more easily along the line in the recording by Christian Gerhaler (RCA 82876 58995 2); though the true balance of dramatic projection and introspection, of dream and reality is to be found supremely in Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's 1965 recording with Jörg Demus.
Finley's performance gives huge pleasure and insight, though, particularly in the context of a generous compilation of other Heine settings by Schumann, including the four songs originally intended for Dichterliebe but excised by Schumann just before publication.
Finley brings a delightful whimsicality to the vignette of faces glimpsed through the stagecoach in "Mein Wagen rollet langsam". He also includes three tenderly sung Myrthen from Schumann's wedding present to Clara. And the keen sense of scale and pacing in both performers makes for compelling narrative in the longer "Die beiden Grenadiere" and the spooky tale of "Belsatzar".
CD of the Week
Hugh Canning, Sunday Times, 14 September 2008
Apart from the Op 24 Liederkreis, Finley's first album of German lieder collects all of Schumann's settings of Heinrich Heine, including four songs intended for Dichtertiebe, but published later as Opp 127 and 142. The Canadian baritone is a little younger, at 48, than Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was when he recorded his comprehensive Schumann song survey for Deutsche Grammophon (1975-77), but, vocally, he is in his prime. He brings eloquence to the text and maturity to his interpretations, but with a still youthful-sounding voice. Darker and more "bassy" of tone than Dieskau, he is especially impressive in the sardonic and bitter songs: Die beiden Grensdiere (The Two Grenadiers), Ich grolle nicht (I Bear No Grudge), Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen - about the wedding of the poet's beloved to another man - and the concluding Die alten, bösen Lieder (The bad old songs), in which the operatic cutting edge of his baritone, soaring gloriously at the top, brings dividends. Finley is a gripping narrator, too, in the tale of Belshazzar's feast (Belsatzar), and can refine his voice to the most arresting of internalised confidences in the love songs to Clare Wieck (most of the music here dates from Schumann's annus mirabilis of songwriting, l84O). Die Lotosblume, Du bist wie eine Blume, Dein Angesicht so lieb und schön and the doleful songs from Dichterliebe are delivered on a thread of tone, yet Finley, aided by his sensitive and forthright pianist, Julius Drake, never sounds mannered. Let's hope he goes on to record the Heine and Eichendorff Liederkreise as a sequel to this outstanding disc.
David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Inquirer, 24 October 2008 [Extract]
Gerald Finley
"Schumann: Dichterliebe and Other Heine Settings" (Hyperion)
And "Romanzo di Central Park: Songs by Charles Ives" (Hyperion)
Although Montreal-born baritone Gerald Finley has only in recent years ascended to the operatic first string with his portrayal of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in John Adams' "Doctor Atomic" (which he's now singing at the Metropolitan Opera), he's a seasoned recitalist who has, of late, launched a solo recording career on the Hyperion label.
The Schumann disc aims for a fascinating cross-section of the composer's song output, the centerpiece of which is his best song cycle, "Dichterliebe." Leading up to it, though, are songs conceived for but rejected from the cycle, illustrating anew how skillfully Schumann achieved a tight emotional arc in the final version. The disc also shows that the composer could aim for lower, more popular taste.
The singing is lovely and well-schooled, but lacking that extra degree of identification heard in Finley's latest disc of Charles Ives songs…
Editor’s Choice
Richard Wigmore, Gramophone, November 2008
A gripping Dichterliebe:
Gerald Finley seems to be sweeping the field in song now
In close collusion with the ever-sentient Julius Drake, Gerald Finley gives one of the most beautifully sung and intensely experienced performances on disc of Schumann's cycle of rapture, disillusion and tender regret. This is a Dichterliebe firmly in the past tense, the poet-lover achingly resigned from the outset. Finley sings the second song, "Aus meinen Tränen", as if in a trance, and lingers luxuriantly, even masochistically, over the remembered "Ich liebe dich" in "Wenn ich' in deine Augen seh"'. Yet here and elsewhere some dangerously slow tempi are vindicated by the acuity of his verbal and musical responses. Where most singers, including Christopher Maltman in his fine performance with Graham Johnson (Hyperion, 5/01), end "Im Rhein" in wistful tenderness, Finley infuses his final words with a wry bitterness. The disenchantment of "Ich grolle nicht" (where Drake evokes Cologne Cathedral with a hieratic depth of sonority) is already glimpsed. In the cycle's latter stages Finley veers between numb reverie and acerbic - and authentically Heine-esque - self-dramatisation. The birds' assuaging response in "Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen" is magical, barely breathed, the mounting trauma of the funereal dream-song "Ich hab' im Traum geweinet" chillingly conveyed, the dissolving vision of the penultimate "Aus alten Marchen" relived with ineffable sadness. Adding a cutting edge to his warm, mahogany baritone, Finley imbues the final song with savage irony, before the rueful, healing close. Throughout, Drake's playing is a model of clarity and acutely observed detail (he is more attentive than most to bass-lines), epitomised in his fluid, exquisitely voiced epilogue.
Singer and pianist are just as compelling in the other Heine settings here. Finley is eerily insinuating in "Mein Wagen rollet langsam" - one of four Dichterliebe discards - where Schumann's music is in danger of sounding too ingenuous for Heine's sinister verses; and he and Drake throw themselves into "Lehn' deine Wang'" with an impulsive ardour I've never heard equalled. Finley times and colours the biblical ballad "Belsatzar" with the art of a master dramatist, gives an uncommonly - and effectively - introspective reading of "Die beiden Grenadiere" (even the opening is hushed and anxious), and spins a rapt, dulcet line in the two "flower songs", "Die Lotosblume" and "Du bist wie eine Blume". The church acoustic is more resonant than I find ideal for Lieder, though that hardly detracts from a glorious Schumann recital.
Stephen Francis Vasta, Opera News, March 2009 , vol 73 , no.9
These songs sound remarkably fresh here, simply because they're done so well. In both the Dichterliebe and sixteen individual songs — four of which were originally intended for the cycle — Gerald Finley sings with a technical assurance that allows him to open out his warm lyric baritone into plangently expressive tone, or to sustain hushed intimacy in a vibrant piano. He's canny enough to turn his comparatively restricted low range to advantage, projecting an enveloping warmth in "Der arme Peter wankt vorbei," adding a touch of a snarl at appropriate points in "Belsatzar" and elsewhere. Finley's solid musicianship, too, makes for some nice effects. His firm rhythmic grounding in the tricky a cappella lines of "Ich hab' in Traum geweinet" carries them smoothly into the final, accompanied strophe; he finds the dancing lilt in "Der Hans und die Grete tanzen herum" and the easy swing in "Der Lotosblume."
Whether by instinct or by informed coaching, Finley has acquired the useful tactic, for a lied singer, of timing and weighting his enunciation for expressive purposes — the precisely gauged tenuto on "hinein" in "Du bist wie eine Blume" is just one instance — without fetishizing exaggerated details such as closed vowels in the manner of some recitalists. Everything tells within the framework of a basically straightforward, virile delivery. He's also aware of when the piano part carries the music's forward impetus — in "Es leuchtet meine Liebe," for example — so that he can allow his phrases to expand and breathe against it.
Amid the general excellence, small errors of judgment stand out. Finley colors the odd note or two by straightening the tone: sometimes, as in "Es fiel ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht," it works, and sometimes, as in "Der arme Peter," it's merely distracting. The occasional forte that is shouty (the fourth and fifth couplets of "Belsalzar") or forced ("Lehn' deine Wang' an meine Wang") suggests that the singer's louder tones aren't always part of the same dynamic continuum as his firmly bound piano. There's a miscalculation of tone at the start of "Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome," where Finley, invoking Cologne Cathedral, tries to sound imposing but comes off as merely ominous.
Julius Drake provides solid, articulate pianism and rhythmically buoyant support. He projects the softer dynamics, as does Finley, without losing substance; his tone can also ring out impressively, not just at peak moments but effectively in sparser textures, as in the searching introduction to "Mein Wagen rollet langsam." In the long postludes of the Dichterliebe numbers, Drake conveys their emotional import, whether reaffirming or complementing the singer's point of view, with purpose and clarity.
A Laska, Opernglas, March 2009
Translated by Petra Habeth
As a Mozart and concert singer Gerald Finley has made himself a name over the last years – not least by his regular collaboration with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and John Eliot Gardiner. As a Lied singer he has hardly appeared in this country [Germany]. Now the Canadian Baritone has presented a Schumann/Heine-CD with a diverse programme (the range varies from the huge ballads in the “Armen Peter” trilogy and excerpts from the “Myrthen”, to “Dichterliebe”) and convinces straightaway.
From the first song this singer fascinates with diction that is concise and at the same time natural, never mannered or over-articulated and at no point indicating a non-native tongue. Also, vocally Finley has a lot to offer: a velvet tone, from bassy depths up to high G (“Ich grolle nicht”), a seamless, thoroughly trained timbre as well as the ability for dynamic shading in all placings of the voice.
The artist has got at his command a strong forte as well as tender, more lyrical passages, and where creatively necessarily he does not shrink from pale piano colours. Concerning interpretation, Finley is not a highbrow Lied producer as with Elizabeth Schwarzkopf or Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, but a thoroughbred musician who, especially in the ballads but also in parts of the Dichterliebe, likes the opera singer to shine through.
With Julius Drake, the Baritone has found an excellent, technically flawless accompanist, whose colourful piano playing harmonises optimally with the interpretations of the singer without pushing himself overmuch into the foreground. In short: a remarkable Lieder-CD.
Gramophone magazine November 2009
Gramophone Award 2009 in Best Solo Vocal category
Gerald Finley might well be considering moving into the Dorchester Hotel’s ballroom, so often does he mount its stage to pick up his latest Gramophone Award! This is a bass-baritone at the height of his powers, fully inhabiting whatever repertoire he happens to be exploring. Richard Wigmore reviewed Finley’s disc of Dichterliebe and assorted other Heine settings last November: “One of the most beautifully sung and intensely experienced performances on disc of Schumann’s cycle of rapture, disillusion and tender regret,” he wrote, going on to praise it in terms as glowing as the recording itself.
Interview Gerald Finley
Julius Drake and I have a wonderful partnership and hold similar views about Dichterliebe. I’ve known the work since I was a very young singer. It was my first song-cycle ever; I performed it for my farewell to Ottawa at 19! It’s all about raw emotions, so a young singer feels an immediate affinity. But all these years later, I felt I could bring a perspective on those emotions that now have a depth of colour and experience. Also, Julius and I both wanted to explore the silences in Dichterliebe; its clarity is in rhythm and melody and silence. Nikolaus Harnoncourt once taught me that silence in music, especially Schumann, is almost as powerful as the notes. And just as there is rubato in music, we can find rubato in the silence – a punctuation for what has gone previously but also contemplation for what can then be, not least for Schumann himself. There’s a breath-catching, an anticipation. So we stretched and explored and experimented with that.