Composer: Alban Berg, Jean-Luc Darbellay, Gustav Mahler
Performer: Lisa Tatin, Ensemble Orion
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Claves
Catalogue: 50-3024
Release: 2022
Size: 236 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Berg: Sieben frühe Lieder
01. I. Nacht
02. II. Schilflied
03. III. Die Nachtigall
04. IV. Traumgekrönt
05. V. Im Zimmer
06. VI. Liebesode
07. VII. Sommertage
Darbellay: Sept poèmes romands pour soprano et trio à cordes
08. I. Le voile
09. II. Offrande
10. III. Un arbre
11. IV. L’eau
12. V. La graine
13. VI. La mer
14. VII. Sud
Mahler: Kindertotenlieder
15. I. Nun will die Sonn‘ so hell aufgehn
16. II. Nun seh‘ ich wohl, warum so dunkle Flammen
17. III. Wenn Dein Mütterlein tritt zur Tür herein
18. IV. Oft denk‘ ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen
19. V. In diesem Wetter, in diesem Braus
The idea that music begins where language ends goes back to literary Romanticism. In 1835, Joseph von Eichendorff was tracking the “song in all things” with his dowsing rod (“Wünschelrüte” in German, as is entitled one of his most famous poems), searching for the “magic word” that would be capable of transforming the world into song. Only a language that itself becomes music can speak about what it must otherwise keep silent. Thus the credo of romantic poetry.
But if language itself becomes music, what is music then to become? In the musical genre of the Lied, in which words and music are twinned, in which meaning and sound support, ensnare and sometimes infiltrate each other, the composers themselves answer this question. Every art song is basically a meditation on the relationship between music and language.
This is particularly true of the three Lieder cycles on this album. The song settings by Gustav Mahler, Alban Berg and Jean-Luc Darbellay all revolve around an absence revealed by the language – and to which music provides an acoustic presence. Covering a period of eight decades, the three composers approach the fateful intertwining of love, loss and memory, finding a suitable musical language. The three Mahler, Berg and Darbellay song cycles presented by the Ensemble Orion are arrangements for soprano and string quartet or trio. This is the first recording of the works in a chamber music setting.