Album Description
First collaboration on record of one of the leading sopranos of our time, Juliane Banse, and the incomparable pianist, András Schiff - an exclusive recording artist for ECM. It is both exquisitely sung and performed by these major artists.
ECM's first ever song recital features two composers whose works are not often heard together on CD, Mozart and Debussy. They provide a fascinating combination of two different worlds of "Liedgesang" - in language as well as in musical style and historicity.
The Debussy melodies are mostly early settings of that most musical of French poets, Verlaine, the composer's most consistent source of inspiration. The recital also includes Mozart's only two ariettes in French.
German-born but Swiss-bred soprano Juliane Banse is still only in her early thirties but is very much a rising star. In Britain she has sung at the BBC Proms and the Edinburgh Festival. She has made around 25 recordings (including Brahms duets with her former teacher Brigitte Fassbaender) but only one previous ECM - Heinz Holliger's opera Schneewittchen, singing the title role of Snow White to great acclaim. The Guardian said "Banse is nothing short of superb."
The Hungarian pianist András Schiff is 50 in December. ECM New Series celebrates with two releases from him this year, this album and a new recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations in the autumn.
Recorded 2001
Personnel:
Juliane Banse (soprano), András Schiff (piano)