Schubert: Lieder, Vol. 1

Most of the time I prefer to hear Schubert sung by the likes of Janet Baker and Kathleen Battle. Very few male voices really capture the intimacy of Schubert's lieders with ease and grace - they sound too contrived, too unbalanced with their pianissimos, or just plain loud and inappropriate. The only ones I've really liked are those by the early Fischer Dieskau and Fritz Wunderlich in his younger days before opera hardened his voice. These interpretations by Bostridge are astounding. They rank among the very best ever recorded.

Beautiful songs delicately sung and accompanied. Drake's piano matches perfectly with the Bostridge's very musical phrases. I particularly like Im Fruhling, a little gem.

Wonderful songs beautifully sung. Wunderbar!

‘Beloved art, I thank you for this.’ That’s Schubert’s friend Schober apostrophising Music, and Schubert’s lovely setting is given to us here in a typically poised and beautiful performance. Poise and beauty are two major characteristics of Bostridge’s singing, but it is possible to find that this kind of cultivation and artiness involve some cost to the overall effect. Myself, I don’t buy that view. Just two songs on their own here – Wandrers Nachtlied II and Nacht und Traeume - for me prove otherwise. In both the quality of Bostridge’s quiet sustained tone is something to die for, and this kind of beauty is obviously cultivated, but all the better for that.Before we forget, there are two artists here, and whether by a fluke or by intent it is Julius Drake who makes the major impact in the first and last of the 22 songs. To start with, this is without exception the best ‘Trout’ I have ever heard. Bostridge is excellent, darkening his voice slightly in the second stanza and achieving the right note of frustrated outrage in the third. However it is the piano part, just slightly faster than usual, that scores the points with its exquisite suggestion of the trout’s darting movement. In Erlkoenig at the end Drake pulls off a magnificent piece of piano playing. There is more to Erlkoenig than that as I shall suggest, but one way or the other Drake is the star of this final act.There is one respect in which I have to associate myself with the critics of this recital, and it is that Bostridge could sometimes have used a bit more volume. Most of the time this issue does not bother me, but in Auf dem Wasser and Der Musensohn it does. Because Bostridge is understated, Drake (the perfect partner) has to reduce his own tone in parallel, and this is definitely to the detriment of the heavenly piano parts in both those songs. In Auf dem Wasser the glint that had thrilled me in the Trout is ‘soft-pedalled’, and in Der Musensohn I had the feeling again that Drake was having to pull his punches. Bostridge can, of course, produce the tone and volume when required, but this is Schubert and not Verdi. Forte is fairly infrequent, and what is far more valuable and memorable is Bostridge’s really sublime pianissimo.I have quite deliberately avoided any reference to Fischer-Dieskau’s Schubert because ‘perfect’ ‘ideal’ etc though he may be his is not the only way of doing these songs, and in any case a baritone voice does not make a natural comparison. Nevertheless I have to mention his Erlkoenig, and I have to say again what I said above, namely that these performances involve two artists. In his most famous performance of this amazing masterpiece Fischer-Dieskau is partnered by Gerald Moore, and in a recent review I had a bit to say in praise of Moore’s handling of that awful piece of pianistic torture. In fact Drake is better technically. I have a definite feeling that he is showing off, and if so he has every right to. This is how those frightful drumming octaves can be played, and Drake’s rhythm is more even than Moore’s. However he is nowhere near as good, in my opinion at least. For me, Drake’s tempo is just that crucial little bit too fast, and the sense of four marked beats to the bar, depicting of course the galloping horse, does not come across so well. Also he seems not to have left himself enough speed ‘in hand’, so to say, to make an accelerando near the end as the father, now panicking, puts on a spurt to reach the inn. Moore is a bit indistinct here, but so what? The sense of the passage is realised magnificently, and between that perfectly judged start and the dramatic conclusion Moore has given us a really spine-tingling and poised (yes, poise has its uses) descent into the Erlking’s first song. I shall not try to adjudicate between Bostridge and Fischer-Dieskau here: this is really a case where each listener has to decide individually. My own vote goes to Fischer-Dieskau because he makes only a token attempt at spookiness in the Erlking’s three contributions. Bostridge offers more, and if that is how you like it there is an interesting setting of the poem by Loewe which majors in creepiness but loses the galloping rhythm that Schubert never lets us forget. For me, Goethe’s Erlking makes pretty speeches and so Schubert’s Erlking sings pretty tunes.As an overall impression, this is a marvellous recital, full of drama and intelligence, depthlessly expressive in song after song, and ravishing the ear with some truly wonderful vocal tone. This is a composer whose creative musical gift was infinite, and indeed I believe the greatest that any man ever had. I could have parted with a lot of the drama if I had had to, provided I got the music put across. I have not had to make this theoretical choice, so as Schubert and Schober have offered their thanks to Music itself it only leaves my duty as being to thank them and their worthy interpreters. The 1996 recording, I should also say, is excellent and there is a pleasant and sympathetic liner commentary on the songs by Richard Wigmore.

Ian Bostridtge is arguably the finest tenor singing Schubert lieder today. Of special note on this disc are his performance of Erlkönig, the most chilling I've ever heard. His presentation of Litany for All Souls Day is incomparably beautiful.

These are some of the best known songs by the greatest songwriter of all time, and Bostridge brings his usual beautiful tone and phrasing to each one of them. For a new listener to classical songs wanting an overview of Schubert's 500 or more "lieder" (famous romantic poems set to original music), Bostridge's warm phrasing, his soft but accurate German, and the fine playing of accompanist Julius Drake, will make this recital perfect.At this level of artistry, it is almost silly to indulge in any nitpicking, but listeners who are already familiar with recitals by the German masters may find some of these tenor interpretations just too lyrical. Take the two grim Gothic fantasies as the clearest example: "Der Zwerg" depicts a beautiful young queen being slowly strangled and dumped into the sea by a twisted and deformed court jester who has been driven mad by jealousy for her affections. "Erlkonig" tells of a man racing through the forest on horseback unaware that the soul of the young son in his arms is being stolen away by the phantom Forest King. These are hideous images, and I am not completely convinced that Bostridge (for all his staggering talent and discipline) has yet developed the subtle dramatic judgement that they demand - the great Fischer-Dieskau has confirmed that in this regard the lied is infinitely more demanding than opera.Thus in Der Zwerg, the sustained beauty of Bostridge's singing gives us few cues that we are listening to anything radically different from the ruminations on love, art nature and loss that make up the bulk of the album. And yet in Erlkonig (a specially demanding piece that requires the singer to represent a narrator and three different characters), he overshoots in the opposite direction - he gives a performance of chilling power and dramatic range, but only at the expense of the subtlety and the overarching unity of style and voice that should set even the most dramatic art-song apart from opera. (The singer of a narrative song is required to be a story-teller, not an actor).These quibbles needed explaining, but they will be of minor importance to anyone but a Teutonic purist. Bostridge's glorious bel canto voice, already one of the brightest lights in Britain's music industry, may at present be less than perfectly matched to the classical German art-song. However, few exponents of the lied have reached musical maturity before middle age, and Bostridge (whose cover photo incidentally bears a striking resemblance to the great French baritone, Gerard Souzay) has many years in which to develop this highly specialised art. More to the point, this is a fine album in its own right, and one that will sound better to most British and American ears than the gruffer and more clipped renditions of the great German baritones.

ボストリッジ さんの魔王が好きで購入しました。これは私の落ち度ですが、某動画サイトにあげられていたものより若い時のもので、声や歌い方が違ったのが些か残念でした。

テレビで「魔王」歌っているのを見て引き込まれ、購入しました。ボストリッチの歌声、表現がシューベルトの歌曲の魅力を素直に引き出していると思います。ピアノの伴奏も自然で素晴らしく、洗練された作品になっていると思います。ほかの作品も聞いてみたいと思いました。

歌いたい曲が入っていたので、試聴して購入した。癖のない声でいい。

シューベルトの芸術と、ボストリッジの天賦の才は　マッチする　と思わせられた一枚。澄んだ小川のせせらぎのようなきらめきを見せるシューベルトの楽曲と理知的で深淵で繊細で複雑な表情を持つ唄声が故に感性の繊細なヒダを優しく撫でてくれるかのようで、得も言われぬ感動がある。ドレイクのピアノ伴奏も息が合っていて、程よい存在感でボストリッジを引き立てる。ボストリッジ入門としても、シューベルトの歌曲集としても是非お薦めしたい一枚。

シューベルトの歌曲が好きです。フィッシャーデーィスカウみたいな感じではないところがとても聴きやすいです。