Lieder (Songs)

'[Fanny Mendelssohn's] reputation deserves the kind of boost this excellent disc offers. Both Eugene Asti and Susan Gritton get to the heart of these pieces.' (BBC Music Magazine)

'Pleasant, delightful ... an excellent record: enterprising programmes, fresh young artists, fine presentation, typical Hyperion.' (Gramophone)

'Beautiful, direct, simple and memorable new song[s] ... Asti provides the beautifully limpid, balanced accompaniment you imagine Fanny herself might have played.' (International Record Review)

Fanny Mendelssohn, Felix's older sister, has been long and unjustly overlooked as a serious composer, despite a considerable and impressive output comprising numerous piano pieces, duets, trios, choral works, chamber music for different instruments, an overture, an oratorio, several major cantatas - and innumerable songs. She was writing music at a time when it was considered unsuitable for a woman from the upper middle classes to have ambitions as a professional musician. Despite her gifts and desire for recognition, throughout most of her life Fanny respected the prevailing conventions and the wishes of her family, and accepted the prescribed role of a cultivated Berlin lady of her time.

This CD is devoted to nearly 30 of her beautiful songs, most of them appearing on disc for the first time. The poets include Goethe, Heine, Eichendorff, Rückert, Lenau and Geibel, most of whom were known to her personally. This CD has been a 'labour of love' for the two artists, Susan Gritton and Eugene Asti, who have together written the extensive booklet notes.