557567 bk Schubert US 7/15/08 12:38 PM Page 8 Rainer Trost DEUTSCHE Rainer Trost studied in Munich with Adalbert Kraus. When he was 26, his international career as a SCHUBERT-LIED-EDITION • 28 Mozart tenor began in earnest, singing Ferrando in Paris, Amsterdam and Hamburg. Invitations followed to leading opera houses, with an increasing focus on Vienna, Salzburg and Munich. New productions in Salzburg and Munich and numerous concert and repertoire performances established him among the leading Mozart tenors of his generation. His current Mozart repertoire encompasses the rôles of Tamino, Ferrando, Belmonte, Don Ottavio, Idamante, and Tito. His busy schedule includes Mozart in Vienna and Munich, Alfonso (Cagliari), Fenton (Munich, Vienna), SCHUBERT Flamand (Paris, Amsterdam), Tamino (Tokyo, Munich, Athens, San Diego, Dresden), David in Die Meistersinger (Toulouse), Dionysus in The Bassarids, Der Graf von Luxemburg (Vienna), Jaquino (Valencia), Don Giovanni (Valladolid, Trieste), Tito (Leipzig), Leukippos (Amsterdam), Schubert’s Friends, Vol. 3 Trojahn’s La Grande Maggia and Belmonte (Dresden), Wiener Blut (Seefestspiele Mörbisch), Dionysos and Arbace (Munich), Walther (La Scala) and Schumann’s Der rose Pilgerfahrt in the Frauenkirche Dresden. Rainer Trost, Tenor • Ulrich Eisenlohr, Piano Ulrich Eisenlohr The pianist Ulrich Eisenlohr is the artistic leader of the Naxos Deutsche Schubert Lied Edition. He studied piano with Rolf Hartmann at the conservatory of music in Heidelberg/Mannheim and Lieder under Konrad Richter at Stuttgart. Specialising in the areas of song accompaniment and chamber music, he began an extensive concert career with numerous instrumental and vocal partners in Europe, America and Japan, with appearances at the Vienna Musikverein and Konzerthaus, the Berlin Festival Weeks, the Kulturzentrum Gasteig in Munich, the Schleswig- Holstein Music Festival, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Edinburgh Festival, the Frankfurt Festival, the International Beethoven Festival Bonn and the Ludwigsburg Festival, the European Photo: Wolfgang Detering Music Festival Stuttgart among many others. His Lieder partners include Hans Peter Blochwitz, Christian Elsner, Matthias Görne, Dietrich Henschel, Wolfgang Holzmair, Christoph Pregardien, Roman Trekel, Rainer Trost, Iris Vermillion, Michael Volle and Ruth Ziesak among others. Ulrich Eisenlohr has also appeared in numerous broadcast productions, live concert recordings and television tapings as well as recordings for leading record companies, of which several have been awarded major prizes, such as the German Record Critics’ Quarterly Award, a Grand Prix International from the Académie du Disque Lyrique in Paris and the Classical Internet Award. The conception and recording of all Schubert songs is by now an important focus of his artistic work. Ulrich Eisenlohr has been a lecturer at the conservatories of music in Frankfurt and Karlsruhe and has conducted master-classes in Lied and chamber music in Europe and Japan, with singers such as Ruth Ziesak, Jard van Nes and Rudolf Piernay. He has served as accompanist for master-classes with Hans Hotter, Christa Ludwig, Elsa Cavelti, Daniel Ferro (Juilliard School, New York) and Geoffrey Parsons. Since 1982 he has taught a Lieder class at the Mannheim Conservatory of Music. A co-production with DRS 8.557567 8 557567 bk Schubert US 7/15/08 12:38 PM Page 2 Franz Peter cantabile passages of the queen, in the eerie unison lodgings and the confiscation of his papers… It is also passages with the voice (Da trirr der Zwerg zur reported that his friends Schubert, from the Rossau, and SCHUBERT Königin / The dwarf goes towards the queen, drauf the law student Steinsberg, joined in the affray and (1797-1828) alsobald verghene ihr die Sinnen / and straightaway attacked the authorised official with verbal insults and loses her senses) and finally through the enormously swearing”. In the course of the so-called ‘Karlsbad Settings of poems by Schubert’s friends, Vol. 3 dramatic phrases of the bass-theme in its low register Resolutions’ surveillance, censorship and spying were (Doch musst zum frühen Grab du nun erblassen / You also the order of the day in Austria-Hungary. Senn had must turn pale before your early grave, Der Zwerg aroused suspicion and his lodgings were searched. As a 1 Fischerweise, D. 881 (Schlechta) 2:58 schaut an die Frai vom Tod befangen / The dwarf looks result of these events he was sent to prison for fourteen at the lady, trapped by death) which is incontrovertibly months and then banished to the Tyrol. His career was 2 Des Sängers Habe, D. 832 (Schlechta) 2:53 similar to the ‘fate’ motto-theme from Beethoven’s destroyed and Schubert never saw him again. Fifth Symphony. Drollery, a demonic nature and erotic The song Selige Welt (D. 743) (Blessed World) 3 Totengräber-Weise, D. 869 (Schlechta) 5:44 obsession find here a compelling musical form. with its feeling of “courage through despair” might The poem and composition of Abschied (Lebe perhaps give an impression, through Schubert’s music, wohl!...”) (D. 578) (Farewell to a Friend) are both a of Senn’s impetuous intransigence and absolute love of farewell and a ‘thank you’, and are addressed to freedom. With this work Schubert probably wanted to Mayrhofer-Lieder Schubert’s close friend Franz von Schober, in whose give a public declaration of solidarity with his banished 4 Geheimnis, D. 491 2:29 house Schubert lived for some time as a guest. Schober friend. By contrast, Schwanengesang (D. 744) (Swan had to leave Vienna in order to care for Austrian Song) is lyrical, infinitely tender and in a constant state 5 Einsamkeit, D. 620 17:38 soldiers wounded in France. In its sombre direct of flux between major and minor. It is at once expressiveness, this simple song is completely melancholy and comforting and is written in Schubert’s 6 Nach einem Gewitter, D. 561 2:23 convincing. dactylic “rhythm of death”. The touching epilogue, on On the subject of the already-mentioned Johann the universal symbolism of death, is also possibly a 7 Abschied, D. 475 4:23 Senn case could be read the following police statement metaphor for the enforced silence of his exiled friend. in Vienna in March 1820: “Report… on the obstinate 8 Der zürnenden Diana, D. 707 4:55 and slanderous behaviour of the suspect Johann Senn Ulrich Eisenlohr 9 which took place in the student fraternity building… on Nachtstück, Op. 36, No. 2, D. 672 4:37 the occasion of the search carried out by order on his English version by David Stevens 0 Herrn Josef Spaun, Assessor in Linz, D. 749 (Collin) 4:48 ! Der Jüngling auf dem Hügel, D. 702 (Heinrich Hüttenbrenner) 5:05 @ Der Zwerg, Op. 22, No. 1, D. 771 (Collin) 5:11 # Abschied, D. 578 (Schubert) 2:31 $ Selige Welt, D. 743 (Senn) 0:59 % Schwanengesang, D. 744 (Senn) 2:48 8.557567 2 7 8.557567 557567 bk Schubert US 7/15/08 12:38 PM Page 6 “Based on a pilgrim’s song”. Unfortunately the song is of styles alternating between the great heroic opera THE DEUTSCHE SCHUBERT-LIED-EDITION not well-known, a fact to which Schubert himself style of Gluck and the Italian bravura aria after Rossini, referred. Actually, echoes of pilgrims’ music can be full of faux-dramatic exaggeration. The success of the In 1816 Franz Schubert, together with his circle of friends, decided to publish a collection of all the songs which heard in the slow solemn motion and in the dropping undertaking was such that Spaun wrote to Vienna in a he had so far written. Joseph Spaun, whom Schubert had known since his school days, tried his (and Schubert’s) thirds and horn-like fifths, so typical of wind music. letter claiming that they should not keep the latest news luck in a letter to the then unquestioned Master of the German language, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Otherwise the music is imbued with a calm and moving from him - “the faithful distant one” – so the complaint A selection of German songs will constitute the beginning of this edition; it will consist of eight volumes. The sadness at the departure of a loved one. was rebutted with a counter-complaint. first two (the first of which, as an example, you will find in our letter) contains poems written by your Excellency, In complete contrast the song Der zürnenden Diana The song Der Jüngling auf dem Hügel (D. 702) the third, poetry by Schiller, the fourth and fifth, works by Klopstock, the sixth by Mathison, Hölty, Salis etc., the (D. 707) (To the angry Diana) has an enormously (The Youth on the Hill) by Heinrich Hüttenbrenner one seventh and eighth contain songs by Ossian, whose works are quite exceptional. difficult piano part and, in its wide-ranging, almost could call less successful on account of its melodic The Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition follows the composer’s original concept. All Schubert’s Lieder, over 700 endless and highly expressive vocal lines, makes great paucity, with the opening section underpinned by the songs, will be grouped according to the poets who inspired him, or according to the circle of writers, demands on the singer. So the work goes right to the simplest of accompanying chords as well as the less contemporaries, members of certain literary movements and so on, whose works Schubert chose to set to music. edge of “wanting too much”, above all in the long than convincing final phrase on the words da las er in Fragments and alternative settings, providing their length and quality make them worth recording, and works for second section (Den Sterbenden wird noch dein Bild den Sternen/der Hoffnung hohe Schrift (…then he read two or more voices with piano accompaniment will also make up a part of the edition. erfreuen / The image of you will give me pleasure, even in those stars a message of hope).