The Ballad Singer

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BEETHOVEN / BRAHMS / LOEWE / SULLIVAN / WOLF / etc
The Ballad Singer
Gerald Finley (baritone) Julius Drake (piano)

[ Hyperion / CD ]

Release Date: Friday 10 June 2011

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This release from the multi-award-winning partnership of Gerald Finley and Julius Drake features a literary and musical form which inspired the greatest voices of German Romanticism. The foremost poets and composers of the age saw the ballad as a direct link to the folk-minstrels of the past. Frequently ghoulish and sensational in character, ballads satisfied the popular taste for the Gothic. This disc contains some of the greatest examples of the form, including Schubert's Erlkönig, as well as some fascinating and lesser-known works. The disc also includes selections from the ever-popular English ballad tradition.

Gerald Finley's unrivalled gift for characterization and story-telling, honed both on the stages of opera houses around the world and through his extraordinary Lieder recordings, makes him the ideal performer of these works. This is a genuinely entertaining and original disc.

"Drake's playing has successfully suited the varied repertoire. Finley has enthralled with his interpretations and delighted with his singing purely as singing, combining the two aspects expertly."
(International Record Review)

'Finley, who has one of those exquisite voices that could make poetry of the telephone directory, vividly characterises the words without recourse to the exaggerated enunciation … Drake uses all the colouristic forces he can command with wit (The Flea), bravura (Erlkönig and Wolf's spellbinding Der Feurreiter) and imagination (Loewe's Die wandelnde Glocke). As these pages have said before, it's a great partnership' (Gramophone)

'A new idea for the anthology disc: here is Gerald Finley, in his vocal prime, as balladeer-telling tales of misadventure and gothic horror … Finley is a fine tale-teller. In Loewe, he sounds as though he's singing just for you, the listener, so rapt and intense is his communication' (BBC Music Magazine)

Tracks:

anon.:
O where hae ye been, Lord Randall, my son?
traditional, arr. Cyril Scott

Beethoven:
Mephistos Flohlied, Op. 75, 3

Brahms:
Es war ein Markgraf überm Rhein (No. 29 from Deutsche Volkslieder, WoO 33)

Emanuel:
Alone in the desert, alone, I'm alone

Loewe, C:
Edward, Op. 1 No. 1 (Herder)
Die wandelnde Glocke, Op. 20 No..3

Mahler:
Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen (Des Knaben Wunderhorn)

Porter, C:
The Tale of the Oyster

Schubert:
Erlkönig, D328

Schumann:
Die Löwenbraut, Op. 31 No. 1
Der Schatzgräber, Op. 45 No. 1

Stanford:
La Belle Dame sans merci (John Keats) (1877)

Sullivan, A:
The Lost Chord

Wolf, H:
Der Feuerreiter (No. 44 from Mörike-Lieder)