Part Songs for Mixed Voices 1

Product Description The Naxos Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition: Schubert set the poetry of over 115 writers to music. The Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition presents all Schubert' Lieder, over 700 songs, grouped according to the poets who inspired him. Thanks to Barenreiter' Ne Review This is Volume I of what will be a three-disc collection of Schubert's songs for multiple soloists with piano accompaniment. Naxos has assembled a cast of bright, youthful, expressive voices and a first-rate pianist to bring the music off and, so far, the results are delightful. They also supply informative notes, though you'll have to go on line to get English translations. This first volume begins with a celebration of good fellowship and ends with a toast to the convivial joys of the dance. In between, Schubert's incredible gift for song makes music (and some pretty intense music at that) out of poetic testaments to faith, nature, and mortality. `Die Hochzeitsbraten' (The Marriage Roast), a quasi-operatic marital farce that was actually staged in the 1820s, is included to supply 11 minutes of comedic ballast. Some of the songs could lose a stanza or two (or, in a couple of cases, three), but all are worth getting to know. One story worth repeating deals with `Gebet', Friederich de la Motte-Fouque's prayer for the wisdom and courage to deal with whatever comes in life. In the autumn of 1824, Schubert was engaged as a tutor to the daughters of Count Esterhazy. At breakfast one morning, the Countess handed Schubert a copy of Fouque's poem, which she especially liked, and asked for a song. That evening, the Esterhazy family was gathered around the keyboard singing the musical version. "Some people come into our lives, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never the same", Schubert once said. I hope he knew he was describing himself. -- American Record Guide, Philip Greenfield, November 2009