Customer Reviews

Schubert: Lieder [Box Set]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's surprising that, as I write this, there is only one other review. This set may be the most valuable recording of lieder in the history of recorded music. Containing all of Schubert's songs for male voice (there are many others that DFD didn't record, because they are for higher ranges), this set is brilliant, and has a rare homogeneity. Some may say that it's not quite as good as his recordings from the 1960s, and they may be right. But this set has a unity of vision that spans all 21 CDs, from the songs of Schubert's youth to the three great song cycles.

DFD is certainly the golden voice that has left the greatest imprint on lieder singing, and this set should be in every lieder fan's library. While completists will want to also pick up the Complete Songs on Hyperion (on 37 CDs, includes all the songs for female voices, and for multiple voices), but that set, with different singers, lacks the unity of this landmark. Once you have gotten hooked by Fischer-Dieskau's voice, it's hard to turn back. When you understand this music, and fall in love with his voice, you can then go on and explore his other great lieder recordings, of Mahler, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, and many more.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is my favorite singer. Many would agree. On a personal note, he personally helped me with my Master's Thesis on Busoni's Doktor Faust, back in the 1970s, by which he personally sent me(tho he was busy performing at the Edinburgh Festival at the time!) a lengthy letter stating his opinions and insights on this 20th century masterwork. I am forever grateful and have his letter framed in my office. Now, the Schubert:

I am listening to disc 10 as I write this review. Surely DFD is the most-recorded singer of all time, of any genre! 21 CDs of fabulous music here alone! Surely this wonderful singer bears no comparisons in versatility. There may be warmer or more dramatic voices, but no one sings with more expression then DFD. This is, as others have stated, a recorded document of great historical significance. All lovers of great music and great singing should own this. The price may seem steep at first glance, but count the discs, then count the songs!! And mention should also be made of the redoubtable Gerald Moore, the prince of accompanists. He too is simply amazing! A plus all around. Recorded sound is first-rate. And booklets enclosed, commentaries and complete lyrics are most appreciated.

Thanks to DG for keeping this magnificent collection in print. May it ever remain so.

The sound is glorious, the voice in great shape, and what comes through are the beautiful songs of Schubert in all their glory. This set is a sort of gold standard by which Schubert Lieder performances should be judged. Moore is exquisite, adding just the right weight and texture to the various songs, and Fischer-Dieskau brings his amazing insight into each of the songs. The thought that has gone into even the most minor song is what really sets this apart. And there is a perfection to the recorded sound that helps bring the words and music to life. Nothing stands in the way of the text and music. The set comes with complete translations of all the songs, which is a great bounus, although most of the songs and text are easily found online if you wish to follow the score. And two things for completists - this is not every Schubert song, but every song that's appropriate for a male voice, so there are many songs not included here. And on some of the songs, not every verse is sung. Still, those are minor quibbles with what to me stands as a landmark of Lieder recordings in every sense. Get this if you love Schubert, Fischer-Dieskau or the wonderful piano playing of Gerald Moore. A true education!

Along with Richard Fritz Wunderlich, whose voice was totally different but just as wonderful. Oops! I forgot Richard Tauber, another German phenom.

Dietrich and Elly Ameling are the two best "modern era" Schubert lieder singers. It's very interesting to note that, while superb lieder singers, neither had the incredibly powerful voices necessary to sing high opera with the best of opera singers. It's almost like there's a barrier between being a great lieder singer and a great opera singer --- based on the size of the hall for which the music is intended. The only exceptions I can think of are Fritz and Lotte Lehman, both of whom sang lieder with operatic voices but who were wonderful non the less.

I have both the earlier complete DGG recording on vinyl and this later recording on CD. While Dietrich's voice may have been more bright and fresh on the earlier recordings, I consider it to be more mature and far better on this recording, particularly his dark voice and phrasing. Also, he and Gerald Moore knew each other so well for this recording that they sing and play as one person. As an earlier poster said, one can not understate the importance of Gerald Moore in this collaboration.

Buy this immediately if you like Schubert Lieder. I got my copy of 21 discs for only $75 at Amazon's used website. The box was a little chewed up, but the CDs were in superb condition. It was one of the biggest steals in my record collecting history.

DAY 27.

I have not been outside for nearly a month. The pizza boxes are piling up like a ziggurat. I need a shower. Was it wise to import the entire Dietrich Fischer Diskau survey of Schubert lieder - twenty one CDs and four hundred and sixty three songs - onto my i-Pod and play it on repeat through the hi-fi? It's been a DFD marathon. Praised be that which strengthens us. l've closed the curtains, shutdown the internet and turned off the mobile so I can concentrate on the music. There's no divide between me and DFD.

DAY 28

DFD's sensitivity to iambic pentameter and other meters (be they trochaic, spondaic, anapaestic, dactylic or amphibrachic) blows my mind - literally. Sure, those array of singers on Hyperion have better voices - on the surface at least - and greater characterisation in certain instances Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs - but DFD bores into the texts like a termite. I can't exorcise his plangent tone from my head. And the famous DFD ardency is always there. Every time I listen to him, it's like attending a literature cum philosophy lecture.

DAY 29

I am starting to believe that the French fought very bravely in World War 2. For whatever reason, my i-pod played up today on D 7 - Leichenfantasie. It is one of Schubert's first songs and it goes for 19'16". Anyway, it started to 'loop the loop' and it took me an entire day to notice as I stared up at the ceiling. It is such a masterpiece. With his scrupulous concern for phonetics, DFD brought it to life. It's time to wash my clothes but the DFD carnival stops for no man.

DAY 30

A revelation came to me as i listened to Disc 17: Charlie Sheen would make a great Hamlet. If Mel Gibson could do it, so could Mister Tiger Blood. I had a nightmare last night. A woman was standing by my bed. She was called Boadicea or Dido. She was trying to lure me away with her Schubertian siren-call (Schubert: Lieder (42)) but Dietrich and I knew better. I tied myself to the kitchen table like Odysseus and his sailors and let fly with D 150 Lodas Gespenst (11'48"). That evicted her from the house. Dietrich did not miss a beat.

DAY 31

Surprise, surprise, surprise: last night another spectre stood by my couch (I had fallen asleep listening to DFD sing Die Burgschaft (D 246) - sixteen and a half minutes of heaven. She was some sort of Catwoman with sharp claws but boy could she sing (Schubert: Lieder). But then DFD started to decant further greatness - some say it is the triumph of diction over tonal beauty but I don't care. Those upstart colonials can't make tea or sing lieder.

DAY 32

Yep, the Greeks will repay the debt and reform their economy. Speak of the devil but another apparition has buzzed me. Perhaps I should set up a camcorder like Paranormal Activity 1 and 2 - what great movies they were! Anyway these intruders clearly want me to end this DFD marathon. This latest guy looked bruised and battered as if some tremendous force had passed through him. He was singing of lost love Schubert: Die Schöne Müllerin / 3 Lieder). I cranked up DFD singing those same songs and the huffy twang soon banished this interloper.

DAY 33

Someone keeps beating on my door like those guys in Macbeth on the night of Duncan's murder: bang - bang - bang. It could be the ghost of Richard Capel. No matter. DFD will protect me. I don't need food any more. The water seems to dribble out of my mouth. The great man does not stop: we are back onto Winterreise for the fifty third time. This is the end.

POLICE REPORT: the body of an emaciated student was located this morning. Foul play is suspected. A 21-CD DFD box was taken into custody.

For many years, I have loved the Fischer-Dieskau recordings of Schubert's two best-known song cycles, "Die schone Mullerin" and "Wintereise," but as this 21-CD set reveals, there is so much more to be discovered! Truly a goldmine of some of the most sublime music ever written--and the performances are breathtaking. Fischer-Dieskau and his accompaniest Gerald Moor have made us a gift of incomparable beauty.

.

Of over 600 songs, Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore realized over three-quarters: these are those. Gerald Moore was of course as important to this project as Fischer-Dieskau.

DGG's sound is excellent.

This set is a remarkable document of art.

Combine with The Schubert Song Companion .

.

Fischer-Dieskau and Moore seem ever so attuned to Schubert's music. It all seems so natural; the piano and voice are in perfect accord; there's never any sense of straining...the golden voice croons, soothes and then blasts with equal facility - it all just flows ever so well. I can only thank them for this superb introduction to Schubert's lieder (for me at only about $45!). Now it's onto the Hyperion Schubert edition and other singers renditions as well as Fischer-Dieskau's work with Schumann, Wolf and others.