Dichterliebe (A poet's Love ) By Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann Dichterliebe's song "Song" (Poet's Love), Op. 48, completed in 1840, composed 16 poems for Heinrich Heine for solo voice and piano. Today, it is considered one of the best examples of German art songs, and it is also a challenge for any tenor or baritone who wishes to make his mark on this genre. Some recent recordings show multiple ways to use this masterpiece. The 30-year-old German baritone Samuel Hasselhorn is the one who owns the new Dichterliebe (GWK record). Accompanied by Boris Kusnezow, he made a beautiful and intense recording.

Another recent attempt by Dichterliebe came from Öberg Recordings, where the Swedish baritone Karl-Magnus Fredriksson was accompanied by Stefan Klingele. A weird mistake is that the company ops the song cycle on each individual track and on each sales platform. 40 is marked as 48. Fortunately, the lack of professionalism was not reflected in the performance, and the performance was extremely active.

Like the normal practice of German art songs, Schumann did not specify the vocal range of Dichterliebe, and the alto and baritone versions have long been available. The first performance in 1844 was the baritone, but many outstanding tenors dominated the work, such as Fritz Wunderlich’s recordings with Hubert Giesen in the 1960s .

In recent decades, classical music has had a tendency to rethink the entire business, blurring the lines between classical music and other genres and driving greater accessibility and popularity. This is also in part about removing dust and cobwebs the same way from the workpiece and giving it a new breath of life. Some of these revitalization experiments are scary and some are exhilarating, but I think if this kind of music can survive many generations to come, then they are all very important. Not surprisingly, classics like Dichterliebe have attracted the attention of such projects.

A related phenomenon in the 21st century is the fusion of cultures outside Western Europe with classical classics, such as what the composer and conductor Christian Jost and the Holenstein Ensemble did with Dichterliebe in the new record "Deutsche Grammophon" . Tenor Peter Lodahl and pianist Daniel Heide are just this kind of rethinking guest artists, inspired by everything from East Asian music to the golden age of Hollywood.