Schubert: Der Wanderer Roderick Williams & Iain Burnside

• 1 Willkommen und Abschied, D. 767 03:43
• 2 Der Wanderer, D. 489 04:55
• 3 Rastlose Liebe, Op. 5, No. 1, D. 138 01:24
• 4 Der Wanderer an den Mond, Op. 80, No. 1, D. 870 02:17
• 5 Wandrers Nachtlied II, Op. 96, No. 3, D. 768 02:08
• 6 Aus Heliopolis II, D. 754 02:18
• 7 No. 1. Liebesbotschaft 03:00
• 8 No. 2. Kriegers Ahnung 04:56
• 9 No. 3. Frühlingssehnsucht 03:49
• 10 No. 4. Ständchen 03:47
• 11 No. 5. Aufenthalt 02:50
• 12 No. 6. In der Ferne 06:11
• 13 No. 7. Abschied 04:36
• 14 Der Schiffer, Op. 21, No. 2, D. 536 02:00
• 15 Der Schiffer, D. 694 03:36
• 16 An eine Quelle, D. 530 02:01
• 17 Am Strome, Op. 8, No. 4, D. 539 02:38
• 18 Auf der Donau, Op. 21, No. 1, D. 553 03:01
• 19 Auf dem Wasser zu singen, Op. 72, D. 774 03:40
• 20 Der Pilgrim, D. 794 04:29
• 21 Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren, Op. 65, No. 1, D. 360 03:02
• 22 Der Musensohn, Op. 92, No. 1, D. 764 02:09
• Total Runtime 01:12:30

Info for Schubert: Der Wanderer

Following the critical acclaim for Iain Burnside’s partnership with soprano Ailish Tynan in the first volume of Burnside’s Schubert song series on Delphian, this second volume sees him partnered by another friend and long-term collaborator, baritone Roderick Williams. Their lovingly designed programme takes its tone from the strand of journeying and farewell that threads through Schubert’s song output. Burnside’s pianism is as masterful and vivid as ever, while Roderick Williams, fresh from his triumph at the 2016 Royal Philharmonic Society Awards, combines drama and intellect and shows the qualities that continue to endear him both to critics and to audiences.

„It’s always a good sign when a pianist is named as the editorial force behind a lieder recital, giving the enterprise both objective distance and intellectual rigour. Graham Johnson’s Schubert cycle on Hyperion is a benchmark of this rule, each singer chosen to reflect the character of the group of songs performed. Now the vastly knowledgeable Iain Burnside has begun a similar odyssey on the exquisite Scottish label, Delphian.

I must have somehow missed the first volume with soprano Ailish Tynan, but the second is a cracker. The Welsh baritone Roderick Williams, winner of this year’s Royal Philharmonic Society award, lit up my summer with his performance as Eugene Onegin at Garsington Opera, perhaps the darkest and most Freudian portrayal I have yet seen.

As a recitalist, Williams is, if anything, even more subtle, letting the colours of each song emerge from the interplay of theme and text. Apart from a central group of seven Rellstab songs, the album is an interplay of disconnected works, early and late, the surprise never ending. Most have a focus of loss. Exile and expatriation, the lament of Der Wanderer, have seldom sounded so personal as in Williams’s intimate evocation. I particularly like the way he drops to the lowest note without warning or discernible effort, as if the depths of despond are this close to us all.

The symbiosis of singer and pianist is evident throughout, nowhere more so than in the desperate appeal of Ständchen, where mutual anticipation alternates with appropriate deference. Williams who is 50, is not a newcomer. But I don’t think I have enjoyed a baritone Schubert album more since… oh, since Bryn Terfel’s debut on DG, and Williams will bear many returns for relistening.“ (Norman Lebrecht, Musical Toronto)

Roderick Williams, baritone
Iain Burnside, piano

Roderick Williams
encompasses a wide repertoire, from baroque to contemporary music, in the opera house, on the concert platform and in recital. He enjoys relationships with all the major UK opera houses and is particularly associated with the baritone roles of Mozart. He has also sung world premières of operas by, among others, David Sawer, Sally Beamish, Michael van der Aa, Robert Saxton and Alexander Knaifel.

Roderick Williams sings concert repertoire with all the BBC orchestras, and many other ensembles including the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Philharmonia, London Sinfonietta, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hallé, Britten Sinfonia, Bournemouth Symphony, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment. He has worked with the Berlin Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie- Orchester Berlin, Russian National Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome and Bach Collegium Japan, Tonkünstler Orchester, Cincinnati Symphony, Music of the Baroque Chicago, Virginia Arts Festival, San Francisco Symphony, Utah Symphony, amongst others. His many festival appearances include the BBC Proms (including the Last Night in 2014), Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Aldeburgh and Melbourne.

He is an accomplished recital artist who can be heard at venues and festivals including Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, LSO St Luke’s, the Perth Concert Hall, Oxford Lieder Festival, London Song Festival and the Musikverein, Vienna.

Roderick Williams is also a composer and has had works premièred at the Wigmore and Barbican Halls, the Purcell Room and live on national radio. In April 2016 he was Artistic Director of Leeds Lieder and in May 2016 won the RPS Singer award. His numerous recordings include two of Albion Records’ earlier albums: ALB001 The Sky shall be our Roof and ALBCD002 Kissing her Hair.

Iain Burnside
is an acclaimed vocal accompanist. Artists with whom he has collaborated include Dame Margaret Price, Susan Chilcott, Galina Gorchakova, Ailish Tynan, Susan Bickley, Ann Murray, John Mark Ainsley, Roderick Williams and Bryn Terfel. His recordings straddle an exuberantly eclectic repertoire ranging from Beethoven to Judith Weir with a special place reserved for the highways and byways of English Song, as much praised CDs of Britten, Finzi, Ireland, Butterworth, Gurney, Parry and Vaughan Williams have all proved. Delphian has just released Burnside’s complete Rachmaninov songs with seven outstanding Russian artists. He also enjoys a close association with Rosenblatt Recitals, both on stage and in the studio, in collaboration with Opus Arte.

He is a Sony Award-winning broadcaster and a master programmer, curating various festivals and recital series. In association with London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Burnside has written a number of highly individual theatre pieces, performed at the Barbican Centre, Milton Court and the Cheltenham Festival. A Soldier and a Maker, based on the life of Ivor Gurney, has been commissioned as a radio play as part of the BBC’s World War One season. In demand as teacher and animateur, Burnside also works at the Royal Opera House and the National Opera Studio. He is International Visiting Artist at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin.

Booklet for Schubert: Der Wanderer