DCD34165-CD

Nacht und Träume: Schubert Lieder

This selection of songs could carry the subtitle ‘Women in Love’. ‘L’Education sentimentale’, perhaps. Ailish Tynan and Iain Burnside have assembled a portrait gallery: a whole bevy of Schubert’s women pursuing different sorts of love, nurturing different Biedermeier dreams.

Goethe’s Gretchen finds an intriguing counterpart in Schiller’s Amalia. Ellen gazes out over Loch Katrine, while Serafina looks down affectionately at her fortepiano. A young nun welcomes her destiny as the bride of Christ. This, the first volume in Burnside’s carefully crafted voyage of Schubert song, sees Ailish at the height of her powers, in music that has been her ‘life’s dream’ to record.

"She has the kind of voice one associates with Despina in Cosi fan tutte...It goes without saying that Iain Burnside's accompaniments are ideal, detailed in the modern manner but never obtruding, and in all respects the disc shows two dedicated artists who have given a lot of thought to every aspect of these marvellous pieces. Where I have doubts is in that edge which Tynan's voice sometimes takes on"

"a superb disc"

"Tynan’s bright, bell-like sound and flexible control is amply matched by Burnside’s imaginative mastery at the keyboard, and what is billed as a first volume in a series benefits from fine recorded sound"

"Iain Burnside is, as always, excellent and the recording is good"

"This first issue in Iain Burnside's meticulously crafted foray of Schubert song is nothing short of captivating, with delight after delight following each other in quick succession, and his support of Ailish Tynan's interpretations, which are full of sensibility, ardour and vocal nuance, is insightful and sensitively gentle."

MUSIC & VISION

"Tynan brings her own soft-edged sense of rueful poetry to Schwanengesang, the meditative Todesmusik and dark-crystal purity of Nacht und Träume. But it’s not all doom and gloom: the smiling Die Forelle is delightfully animated, and Ständchen dispatched with becoming buoyancy. Burnside provides more than solid support throughout in a partnership of obvious subtlety and sophistication."

Producer: Paul Baxter
Recording venue(s): St Mary’s Parish Church, Haddington, East Lothian
Recording dates: 4-6 January 2015
Physical format: Jewel case with cardboard outer sleeve
Number of discs: 1
Number of tracks: 17
Total playing time: 1:02:51
Release date: 13 November 2015
Album ID: DCD34165

You may also like ...

Rachmaninov: Songs (3 CDs)

Medtner: Songs (2CDs)

Insomnia: a nocturnal voyage in song

Duet: Schumann – Mendelssohn – Cornelius

Subscribe