Portraits Dorothea Röschmann & Malcolm Martineau

• Franz Schubert (1797–1828)
• 1Heiß mich nicht reden, D. 877/203:54
• 2So lasst mich scheinen, D. 877/303:13
• 3Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, D. 877/403:00
• 4Kennst du das Land, D. 32104:37
• 5Der König in Thule, D. 36703:22
• 6Gretchen am Spinnrade, D. 11803:47
• 7Gretchens Bitte, D. 56406:35
• Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
• 8Abschied von Frankreich01:40
• 9Nach der Geburt ihres Sohnes01:24
• 10An die Königin Elisabeth01:55
• 11Abschied von der Welt02:47
• 12Gebet01:45
• Richard Strauss (1864–1949)
• 13Die Nacht, Op. 10, No. 302:49
• 14Morgen, Op. 27, No. 403:47
• 15Schlechtes Wetter, Op. 69, No. 502:20
• 16Befreit, Op. 39, No. 404:55
• Hugo Wolf (1860–1903)
• 17Mignon I - Heiß mich nicht reden03:06
• 18Mignon II - Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt01:56
• 19Mignon III - So lasst mich scheinen03:08
• 20Kennst du das Land?06:29
• Total Runtime01:06:29

Info for Portraits

Dorothea Röschmann releases her new recital album including well known songs by Schubert, Schumann, Strauss and Wolf. She is accompanied by Malcolm Martineau who is recognized as one of the leading accompanists of his generation.

'The idea for this program of female portraits took seed a long time ago, when I was studying in London with the wonderful teacher, Vera Rozsa. I used to make frequent pilgrimages to the extraordinary National Portrait Gallery where one is surrounded by the most imposing portraits of British personalities and royalty, such as the Tudors and Queen Elizabeth I, as well as countless figures from British history – poets, physicians and so on - all concentrated and condensed within the confines of the building.

A portrait represents a very intense encounter with a person and you believe you know them better after having studied the picture for some time. It can only give you a glimpse of the personality, but also creates an impression of how the person wanted to be portrayed. In songs, a portrait is the musical interpretation of a fictionalized person from literature (Gretchen, Mignon), or real life (Mary Stuart), but the process of character portrayal and trying to get deeper and deeper through different layers, has to happen musically. As a portrait, it can only attempt to portray a snapshot of all the emotions of the character but the longer you live with a song, the more you find in it, as in all music.

This fascination with character interpretation in song and in opera, led to my desire to put together a programme with portraits that reflect the finely shaded nuances of the figures presented here. In the same way, female characters such as Mignon and Gretchen, created by Goethe, and Mary, Queen of Scots, have stimulated the imagination of poets, composers and artists alike. We have included songs by Richard Strauss as every one of them can be regarded as a miniature mood portrait.

The original Schubert setting of ‘Gretchens Bitte’ is only a fragment of Goethe’s poem so we have chosen Benjamin Britten’s ‘complete’ version as it gives a more comprehensive characterization of Gretchen.' Dorothea Röschmann.

“this recital...represents the finest singing I have encountered from her...Röschmann's slightly mottled soprano may not have an ideally wide coloristic range, but it's remarkable how much variety of tone and timbre she brings to this programme. These are considered interpretations, living out of the spirit of the texts and the music with outstanding insight and precision.” (BBC Music Magazine)

“Her soprano has taken on a darker sound of late...Röschmann is highly skilled in Lieder and her partnership with Malcolm Martineau has delivered a recital that gets beneath the music's skin.” {Gramophone Magazine)

Dorothea Röschmann, soprano
Malcolm Martineau, piano

Dorothea Röschmann
Born in Flensburg, Germany, Dorothea Röschmann made a critically acclaimed début at the 1995 Salzburg Festival as Susanna with Harnoncourt and has returned to the Festival many times to sing Donna Elvira, Countess Almaviva, Ilia, Servilia, Nannetta, Pamina and Vitellia, with conductors such as Abbado, Harding, Mackerras and von Dohnányi. In the 2014 festival she sang in Fierrabras with Ingo Metzmacher.

At the Metropolitan Opera she has sung Susanna, Pamina, Elvira and Ilia with Levine and, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden her roles have included Pamina and Fiordiligi with Sir Colin Davis and Countess Almaviva with Sir Antonio Pappano. At La Scala, Milan she has sung the Countess and has also sung Donna Elvira with the company at the Bolshoi with Barenboim. At the Vienna Staatsoper she has appeared as the Countess and Susanna also as Marschallin with Sir Simon Rattle. At the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich she has sung Zerlina, Susanna, Ännchen, Marzelline, Anne Trulove and Rodelinda. She is also closely associated with the Deutsche Staatsoper, Berlin, where her roles include Ännchen with Mehta; Nannetta with Abbado; Eva, Elsa, Pamina, Fiordiligi, Susanna, Zerlina, Micäela, Donna Elvira and the Countess with Barenboim. She has also appeared at La Monnaie, Brussels as Norina and at the Bastille, Paris as the Countess and as Pamina.

In the 2013/14 season she sang the title role in Theodora at Carnegie Hall, Vier letzte lieder with Daniel Barenboim / Berliner Staatskapelle and Zubin Mehta / Palau de les Arts. Countess Rosina Almaviva in Wiener Staatsoper’s Le nozze di Figaro tour to Oman. Faustszenen with Daniel Harding / Berlin Philharmonic, and The Fairy Queen with Harnoncourt / Concentus Musicus Wien at the Salzburg Festival.

This season’s highlights include a European tour of Mahler’s 4th Symphony with Mariss Jansons / Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Vier letzte lieder with Daniel Harding / Filarmonica della Scala and Yannick Nézet-Séguin / Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Berg Sieben frühe lieder with Marc Albrecht / Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin. Agathe (Der Freuschütz) at the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, Die Schöpfung with Daniel Harding / Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dido in Dido and Aeneas at Carnegie Hall with Les Violons du Roy and a U.S recital tour with Mitsuko Uchida.

Her many recital appearances include New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Het Concertgebouw, Vienna’s Konzerthaus and venues in Antwerp, Lisbon, Madrid, Cologne, Brussels, Oslo and at the Edinburgh, Munich, and Schwarzenberg Festivals. In 2013 she sang with Daniel Barenboim at the Schiller Theater in Berlin and with Mitsuko Uchida at the Lucerne Festival.

Her recordings include Countess Almaviva with Harnoncourt; Pamina and Nannetta with Abbado; Puccini's 'Suor Angelica' with Pappano; Strauss’ ‘Four Last Songs’ with Nézet-Séguin; Brahms’ ‘Requiem’ with Rattle (winner of a Grammy and Gramophone Award); Mahler’s Symphony No.4 with Harding; Handel's 'Neun Deutsche Arien' with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin; 'Messiah' with McCreesh; Pergolesi’s ‘Stabat Mater’ with David Daniels and Fabio Biondi and a disc of Schumann songs with Ian Bostridge and Graham Johnson. This season Sony Classical released Dorothea’s debut recital CD, ‘Portraits’.

Booklet for Portraits