Robert and Clara Schumann Lieder

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Description of Robert and Clara Schumann Lieder

The program's core are the Twelve Kerner Songs, heard relatively rarely and only fairly recently identified as a unit. Schumann called them a "row" rather than a cycle of songs: they tell no continuous story and were conceived for different voices. The first songs he wrote after his marriage to Clara, they are quite different from those into which he poured his longing and love during their embattled courtship. Perhaps it was the sober awakening to his duties as a family man, perhaps the transformation of ardent anticipation into practical reality, that gives these songs an introspective, foreboding melancholy, a poignant, wistful sadness, only rarely broken by manly assertiveness. The last two songs, uttered by one incurably, fatally sick in body and soul, uncannily presage Schumann's own fate. Set to the same melody, they fade away in hopeless, heartbreaking despair.

The performance is marvelous. Wolfgang Holzmair's voice has lost its former dryness and become warm, velvety, and expressive. He identifies completely with every nuance of words and music, though he sometimes exaggerates dynamic contrasts. Imogen Cooper is a splendid pianist and ideal partner, providing unfailing support and making her introductions and postludes a perfect framework for mood, atmosphere, and character. --Edith Eisler

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