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Greek antiquity prompted a significant number of songs from Schubert, ranking second only in number to his settings of texts by Goethe. Appropriately enough for such a larger-than-life folklore, ballads are conspicuously absent among the Grecian songs, their tales of heroic valour, poetic nostalgia and love prompting the kind of forlorn, dark-hued introspection that is the signature element of the composer’s Lieder.
But they also prompt moments of elemental drama and passages of high passion, albeit always meticulously controlled if, occasionally, a touch too manicured. They draw from Goerne performances of a precisely pitched theatricality that make much of the immediacy of the moment. The two selections from Heliopolis telescope intimate, personal dramas and larger public spectacle to bewitching effect, Goerne’s lightly burnished baritone liquescently surging and seething against the pointed accompaniment of Ingo Metzmacher.
Goerne, who describes Schubert as “the starting point of absolutely everything” in the accompanying 17-minute DVD film on the making of the disc, makes much of the music’s subterranean ebb and flow between ecstasy and despair, alternately caressing and biting deep into the texts for added effect.
Schiller’s wistful eulogy to Die Götter Griechenlands finds him adroitly navigating the music’s shifting tonal ambiguities to set the scene for what follows. Echoes of the longed for but now irretrievably lost imbue even the most effusive sentiments on display, the driving recitative and muscular melody of An die Leier a twilit view of fading history, the classical fervour of Fragment aus dem Aischylos lent a becoming romantic gloss.
Emotional ballast is provided by the wistful expression of homesickness, Das Heimweh, the beguilingly still and hushed Wandrers Nachtlied (in which Schubert rises sublimely to the concentrated atmosphere of Goethe’s poem), Frühlingsglaube with its charming modal simplicity, and the brittle leavetaking of the familiar Abschied.
Throughout, Goerne and Metzmacher suffuse these songs with a dark, yearning poetry to discreetly powerful and wholly persuasive effect. --Michael Quinn
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Customer Reviews
I did feel moved to compare some of these performances with those on the Graham Johnson series, and it made for some really interesting listening. Goerne's tempi are often slower, and the recorded sound is much fuller and warmer; what his disc must perforce lack is the variety offered by being able to listen to a wide range of singers. In the end, though, it is the piano playing that really set this apart for me; too often I find Graham Johnson's accompaniments too clinical for my taste, and Ingo Metzmacher offers a more expressive approach which I find more satisfying to listen to.
To put it bluntly, I shall be looking out the other discs in this series as soon as I can, and you would do well to start with this one.
I'm no specialist, but as a lover of Schubert lieder, I recognized as old favorites about a third of the songs presented here, and about an equal number were completely new, including the paired Heliopolis songs, D. 753 and D. 754, that give the album its title. I am an on-again, off-again fan of Goerne's smooth, creamy delivery, and having heard him now in over a hundred lieder since the series began, I find it harder to find much variety. Yet I must hasten to add that this is singing of a very accomplished order -- it's not as if Goerne has to worry about close rivals except for a veteran like Thomas Hampson. I wish he weren't so eternally serious, to the point of grimness, in this repertoire. Schubert has lightness as one of his main characteristics, but Goerne is never carefree, even when Schubert is. The cursed Orestes is meat for him, or any song that's tragic, gloomy, declamatory, or lamenting.
In short, Goerne likes to stay on the dark side, and as a result, his Schubert can grow wearisome. Take his intense artistry a few songs at a time, and you find an exceptional singer enjoying the fruits of his maturity.
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