Boech - Martineau - Schubert Florian Boesch and Malcolm Martineau

• 1Der Fischer, D. 22502:52
• 2Der König in Thule, D. 36702:44
• 3Der Zwerg, D. 77105:11
• 4Im Frühling, D. 88204:26
• 5Nachtviolen, D. 75202:53
• 6An den Mond, D. 25902:41
• 7An mein Herz, D. 86002:57
• 8Frühlingsglaube, D. 68602:49
• 9Heidenröslein, D. 25701:45
• 10Die Vögel, D. 69101:05
• 11Fischerweise, D. 88102:56
• 12Geheimes, D. 71901:31
• 13Lachen und Weinen, D. 77701:54
• 14Erster Verlust, D. 22601:43
• 15An die Musik, D. 747 (version b)02:09
• 16Du bist die Ruh, D. 77603:49
• 17Gruppe aus dem Tartarus, D. 58303:12
• 18Der Gott und die Bajadere, D. 25408:52
• 19Der Tod und das Mädchen, D. 53102:36
• 20Abendstern, D. 80602:20
• 21Die Liebe hat gelogen, D. 75102:38
• 22Am Tage aller Seelen, D. 343 (Litanei auf das Fest aller Seelen)04:41
• 23Schwanengesang, D. 74402:37
• 24Der Sieg, D. 80503:31
• Total Runtime01:13:52

Info for Boech - Martineau - Schubert

Florian Boesch and Malcolm Martineau have recorded the three great Schubert song cycles for ONYX, and have earned a formidable reputation as a partnership that delivers, in recital and in the studio, some of the most thought-provoking and challenging interpretations of Schubert Lieder of our time. ‘Inspired and quite unforgettable’, said Gramophone of their Winterreise, while The Sunday Times commented, ‘Never, in my experience, has Winterreise sounded bleaker than in this magnificently sombre and vivid account’, and The Guardian called it ‘unquestionably superb’. The BBC Music Magazine described Die schöne Müllerin as ‘one of the most challenging and provocative new recordings of this cycle – and one of the best performed and recorded’.

Schubert Lieder recital: Es war ein König in Thule is sung by Gretchen in her room, after her first chance meeting with Faust outside the cathedral. The words of the ballad that come unbidden to her mind, after she has refused his offer to escort her home, speak volumes about her unconscious desire and unfaltering faithfulness, and Schubert’s square D minor melody, with its unchanging rhythm, expresses like no other setting the innocent girl’s trancelike state. Although Claudius, the poet of Der Tod und das Mädchen, presents Death as a consoling friend, its skeletal form terrifies the girl; Schubert, with a stroke of genius, announces Death’s comforting presence by a shift from the minor to F and C major, keys which continue until the end of the stanza. Lachen und Weinen bore no title in the first edition of Rückert’s poem – Schubert took the first line as his title and created a song that typifies the bitter- sweet nature of his melodies. The message of Goethe’s Der Gott und die Bajadere tallies with his humanistic philosophy: pariahs of society should not be despised. There’s something hypnotic about Schubert’s setting, especially the contrasting melodies for the trochaic and dactylic sections of each verse. Litanei auf das Fest aller Seelen, composed soon after the death of Schubert’s mother in August 1816, celebrates November 2nd, when Catholics seek through prayer and almsgiving to alleviate the suffering of souls in purgatory. An die Musik breathes a feeling of reverence that begins with the downward leap of a sixth between ‘holde’ and ‘Kunst’. The design is simplicity itself: all references to life’s reverses are set in the lower part of the stave, while at the mention of a better world the voice soars aloft, supported on the rising bass line. …

Florian Boesch, baritone
Malcolm Martineau, piano

Recorded 21–25 May 2015 at All Saints, Finchley, London
Engineered by Andrew Mellor
Produced by Andrew Mellor

Florian Boesch
has appeared with the Vienna Chamber Opera and in a number of Mozart operas, singing Figaro, Count Almaviva, Don Giovanni, Leporello, Guglielmo and Papageno at the Klagenfurt Stadttheater, the Vienna Volksoper, Opernhaus Zürich, Wuppertal Theater, Staatstheater Stuttgart and the Bolshoy Theatre in Moscow. He has been heard at the festivals of Bregenz and Salzburg, where he appeared in Handel’s Radamisto, in Der Rosenkavalier and in Le nozze di Figaro under Nikolaus Harnoncourt. He is also a frequent guest on the concert platform, with a repertoire that ranges from Bach to Wolf and Mahler. Engagements have taken him to the Vienna Musikverein, the Vienna and Berlin Konzerthaus, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Styriarte Festival, the Haydn Festival Eisenstadt, the Edinburgh Festival, and to Milan, Tokyo, Los Angeles and New York.

As an acclaimed singer of Lieder he has appeared at the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Cologne Philharmonic, the Brussels Palais des Beaux-Arts, and in Birmingham. He has sung Schubert’s Winterreise in New York City, Tokyo, Leeds, Vienna and Graz, and given recitals at the Edinburgh International Festival and the Wigmore Hall in London, as well as in the BBC Radio 3 lunchtime recitals series.

Booklet for Boech - Martineau - Schubert