An interesting feature of baritone
Matthias Goerne
's cycle of three Lieder recordings for the
Deutsche Grammophon
label is that all three have had different accompanists, all on the young side:
Jan Lisiecki
for
Goerne
's album of
Beethoven
songs,
Seong-Jin Cho
Strauss
, and now
Daniil Trifonov
in this ambitious recital of works by
Berg
,
Schumann
Wolf
Shostakovich
, and
Brahms
. All have been well matched to the repertory involved, but
Trifonov
turns out to be an exceptional accompanist, seizing control of the proceedings with
's dreamlike songs that push listeners into the realm of deeper thoughts.
makes the claim that his program here is "metaphysical" rather than "historical." This is apparently because three of the cycles on the program deal with death, or four if one counts the coffin-oriented finale of
's
Dichterliebe, Op. 48
. Yet the program is not lugbrious; it has more of a sense of wrestling with metaphysical issues, and the cycles by
and
on texts by
Michelangelo
have a great soberness. The transition from the
, with its somewhat disturbed atmosphere, to the
Dichterliebe
has an uncanny naturalness, almost inevitability, as if the poet were seeking love as an answer to questions of existential despair. This is, in short, a program that is heavy in the very best way.
has never sounded better, and the lively, always shifting interaction between singer and pianist here makes one hope that
will join forces again. They were rewarded with considerable commercial success here, so it could happen. ~ James Manheim