Schumann: The Complete Songs, Vol. 4 (CD Review - Gramophone Magazine, 2000)

At a time when the multinational labels fill their booklets with gushing hype about the artists, Hyperion's documentation puts all to shame: as in his Schubert Lieder Edition, Johnson supplies a 100-page essay, devoting at least a page to each song. He is erudite, readable and witty. Of Clara Schumann's Liebst du um Schönheit, Johnson writes: "The text implies a female singer (although a certain type of man might urge his girlfriend to love a mermaid out of sheer curiosity)"! This text is from Friedrich Rückert's collection Liebesfrühling (Love's Spring), 12 of which Robert and Clara Schumann published jointly as Opus 37: three settings are by Clara, and she may have had a hand in the three rarely heard duets. They are sung sensitively by Doufexis and Widmer, stylish lieder interpreters with fresh young voices, in this fascinating programme based around 18 settings of Rückert.

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