Customer Reviews

Brahms: 21 Lieder

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This husband/wife duo will make Brahms's music penetrate your soul in this recording. I first heard this recording through a friend and immediately went out to purchase my own copy. Be forewarned that this music is not light and peppy--it is best heard in a serene melancholy state (or it will put you there fast!), but how beautifully Brahms harmonized all those bottled-up feelings of despair, loneliness, and unrequited love that we all experience. I highly recommend this CD as well as Anne Sofie Von Otter's heart-felt one, but don't take my word for it--buy it and be your own judge.

I first became aware in the mid-Eighties of a Japanese lieder singer who kept winning urgent praise from reviewers. It was hard to believe in the cult--how could an Asian mezzo do more than skillfully imitate German style? But this 1987 Brahms recital, which finds Mitsuko Shirai in gorgeous voice, confounds all doubt. She is not just a convincing stylist, she has made these 21 lieder her own--each one sounds as if she is deeply move and wants us to join intimately in her emotion. Her prevailing style is serene rather than dramatic.

Almost all of Brahms's most popular songs are here, inclduing the Lullabye, but not Von ewiger Liebe or the two songs with viola. Interspersing some lesser known songs adds variety; even so, an entire hour of Brahms lieder can be cloying. He rarely veers away from simple melodies and strophic form. I listen eight or so at a time. Hartmut Holl, then married to Shirai, provides accompaniments in perfect accord with her. What a shame that more Americans didn't venture to the Capricico label to discover such a consummate artist.