Recorded in Perugia between 2023 and 2025, a major new set of Schumann’s song output for mixed voices – vocal duets, trios and quartets – by a fine team of Italian singers, and led by the pianist Filippo Farinelli.
In recording previous, adventurous surveys of the songs and chamber music by Ravel, Berg, Dallapiccola, Hindemith and others, the pianist Filippo Farinelli has demonstrated his deep knowledge of and affinity for a wide range of chamber music. As he does here, he has gathered together a carefully selected cast of singers in order to present both rarities and established masterpieces within the catalogues of these composers, shedding new light on their evolution as creative thinkers and musicians.
The solo song output of Robert Schumann is well established among the peaks of the rich heritage of German Lieder. But alongside cycles such as Dichterliebe and Frauen-liebe und -leben, Schumann often returned to the combination of mixed voices, and these cycles are much less familiar to most listeners. Many of them catch the composer at his most genial and Biedermeier in tone, such as the female Duets Op.43 and the Mädchenlieder Op.103.
The Spanisches Liederspiel Op.74 and the Spanische Liebeslieder Op.138 are strikingly under-rated precursor to Hugo Wolf’s Spanisches Liederbuch, in which a group of singers take turns their individual turns (in solo or duet) to outline ‘sketches of Spain’ from a German perspective (and from one who had never been there), full of charm and grace. The Op.79 Liederalbum für die Jugend likewise reminds us of Schumann’s genius for song-melody at its most artless, a vocal counterpart to piano cycles such as Kinderszenen. The poet Emanuel Geibel had adapted many of the ‘Spanish’ texts, and Schumann’s Op.29 trio of songs based on texts by Geibel catch the authentic spirit of the German wanderer. Here and elsewhere throughout the set we find Schumann’s affinity for the world of fantasy and fairy tale. Lieder collectors will find this new set an essential acquisition, but anyone new to Schumann’s song writing will find much to delight them.
- Robert Schumann (1810-1856) devoted himself to composing Lieder at different periods of his life, especially in the 1840s, the so-called Liederjahr, and in his later years, starting in 1849. Alongside Lieder for solo voice and piano, he composed numerous duets and some Lieder for three and four voices, either in homogeneous collections, or by including a few songs for several voices in collections of solo Lieder.
- This highly valuable 4-CD set of new recordings contains the complete songs for multiple voice and piano, on poems by Geibel, Heine and Rückert, but also a substantial part of folk songs, drawn from the rich German culture of folk literature and poetry.
- Sung by Elisabetta Lombardi (mezzo-soprano), Elisabetta Pallucchi (contralto), Valentina Valente (soprano), (Mark Milhofer tenor) and Mauro Borgioni (baritone), accompanied on the piano by Filippo Farinelli, the indefatigable champion of important song projects of lesser known repertoire.
