Customer Reviews

Jessye Norman - Brahms: Lieder / Barenboim

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Ask someone about Lieder, meaning basically German "art songs"

and he or she will immediately think of Schubert or perhaps

Schumann. Brahms is just not that well known for his songs,

and it's a shame because they are among his best works.

Jessye Norman is famous for her artistry in Lieder; I still

recall hearing her in recital over twenty years ago. This is

a fabulous recording; you will fall in love with most of these

songs on first hearing. As a bonus, the two record set actually

includes full texts and translations. whereas the trend

these days is to omit those and you're lucky if the company

offers them "on line". This is among the most treasured recordings in my

huge collection. Don't miss it!

Acclaimed as she was as a lieder singer, Jessye Norman showed a special affinity for Brahms. She made no less than three complete recitals of his songs, more than any other singer I can remember except Fischer-Dieskau. Not every lied is a mstepiece, and most are either folk-based or imitate folksongs in their simple strophic design. This can make for tiring listening after ten songs or so, but Norman's plush voice is to richly suited to Brahms's romanticism that it's hard to pull away.

Her initial recital on Philips with Geoffrey Parsons (1980) was a greatest hits collection, and Norman was wise not to overlap too many on her later two recitals with Barenboim. She was rather grand on that first disc. Here, she sings with great delicacy and sensitivty. In many ways this is her best Lieder recording, despite the unevenness of the material. Don't expect Mainacht or the famous lullabye or Von ewiger liebe. And I wouldn't advise anyone to tr and listen to this two-fer straight through. That said, Barenboim equals Norman in his artistry, so all told, this release is a treasure.

I have been waiting for years for this two CD set to be released. I have had the recording on vinyl since the 80's and, for whatever reason, DGG did not release it on CD til very recently. For fans of Brahms' songs (there are 52 of them here), for fans of Jessye Norman's magnificent soprano, for fans of Daniel Barenboim's pianism, this is an essential album. To make it even more enticing, the price, online, is quite low.

This is a wonderful album and should be in the collection of everyone who cares about Lieder. I use to study how she works her magic with a song, and it is worth digging into a single piece to see how she does it.