Schumann: Songs of Love and Loss Sarah Connolly

• Robert Schumann: Minnespiel, Op. 101
• 1 Minnespiel, Op. 101: No. 4. Mein schoner Stern! 02:44
• Robert Schumann: Gedichte der Konigin Maria Stuart, Op. 135
• 2 I. Abschied von Frankreich (Farewell to France) 01:52
• 3 II. Nach der Geburt ihres Sohnes (After the birth of her son) 01:35
• 4 III. An die Konigin Elisabeth (To the Queen Elizabeth) 01:32
• 5 IV. Abschied von der Welt (Farewell to this World) 02:59
• 6 V. Gebet (Prayer) 01:41
• Robert Schumann: 6 Gedichte und Requiem, Op. 90
• 7 Requiem, Op. 90, No. 7 04:07
• Robert Schumann: Liederkreis, Op. 39
• 8 No. 1. In der Fremde (In Foreign Parts) 02:06
• 9 No. 2. Intermezzo 01:43
• 10 No. 3. Waldesgesprach (Colloquy in the Forest) 02:18
• 11 No. 4. Die Stille (Quietness) 01:33
• 12 No. 5. Mondnacht (Moonlit Night) 03:58
• 13 No. 6. Schone Fremde (Fair Foreign Land) 01:19
• 14 No. 7. Auf einer Burg (On a Fortress) 02:40
• 15 No. 8. In der Fremde (In Foreign Parts) 01:21
• 16 No. 9. Wehmut (Melancholy) 02:41
• 17 No. 10. Zwielicht (Twilight) 02:52
• 18 No. 11. Im Walde (In the Forest) 01:16
• 19 No. 12. Fruhlingsnacht (Spring Night) 01:32
• Robert Schumann: Frauenliebe und -leben, Op. 42
• 20 No. 1. Seit ich ihn gesehen (Since I first saw him) 02:29
• 21 No. 2. Er, der Herrlichste von allen (He, the noblest of all) 03:57
• 22 No. 3. Ich kann's nicht fassen, nicht glauben (I can't understand it, I don't believe it) 01:35
• 23 No. 4. Du Ring an meinem Finger (You, ring on my finger) 02:56
• 24 No. 5. Helft mir, ihr Schwestern (Help me, o sisters) 02:07
• 25 No. 6. Susser Freund, du blickest mich verwundert an (Sweet friend, you gaze) 04:56
• 26 No. 7. An meinem Herzen, an meiner Brust (At my heart, at my breast) 01:35
• 27 No. 8. Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan (Now you have hurt me for the first time) 04:14
• Total Runtime 01:05:38

Info for Schumann: Songs of Love and Loss

The British mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly, twice nominated for a Grammy, here performs a collection of songs by Robert Schumann, which combines two song cycles from the extremely prolific song year 1840 with several songs from the composer’s last years. She is accompanied by Eugene Asti.

Sarah Connolly fell in love with Schumann’s songs in her youth. She has sung them since her early days as a performer and in the booklet she and Eugene Asti write, ‘at the heart of Schumann’s music on this recording lie a profound melancholy and a personal and completely honest, open-hearted empathy for the poetry, which is totally disarming. All the stories and situations depicted in these songs were so much a part of the composer’s own life experience that we just cannot help but be touched and moved by them. Perhaps it is for these reasons that our love for Schumann is especially great, and we feel privileged to be able to share this extraordinary music with you’.

It is often claimed that Schumann’s late songs, which include the first seven on this Album, show a composer in decline – a charge that is refuted by such wonderful Lieder as the Wilhelm Meister settings and ‘Nachtlied’ (Goethe), ‘Der Einsiedler’ (Eichendorff), ‘Aufträge’ (L’Egru), ‘Mein schöner Stern!’ (Rückert), ‘Requiem’ (Dreves), the Lenau settings of Op. 90 and the Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart, all of which are as fine as anything Schumann wrote in 1840, his great ‘song’ year.

The album’s key work is the rarely recorded Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart, songs on five poems attributed to Mary, Queen of Scots. They were his last Lieder and the most austere that Schumann ever wrote. He composed the set in 1852 during a period of deep depression and offered the work as a Christmas present to his wife, Clara. It is also matched here by ‘Requiem’, setting a translation by Leberecht Blücher Dreves of an old sacred Latin text. This requiem, from Op. 90, was one of four that Schumann composed in the last years of his creative life, and it seems likely that the proliferation of such settings around 1850 had symbolic import – ‘requiems, after all, are written for oneself’, as Schumann once confided to a friend.

“the intimate restraint of Connolly's singing frequently suggests the sad analysis of emotion from a retrospective or nostalgic viewpoint...[Liederkreis] is superbly done - an unnerving voyage through a soured Romantic landscape, awash with intimations of the horrors that lurk unsuspected in the corners of the psyche.” The Guardian

Sarah Connolly
Sarah Connolly CBE, is one of the foremost British mezzo sopranos. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Music where she studied piano and singing. She has been nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award, a TMA Award, two Grammy Awards and won an Edison, Gramophone and South Bank Awards. On the operatic stage, highlights include The Composer at The Metropolitan Opera, New York, Dido at La Scala and Giulio Cesare at Glyndebourne. Her concert and recital programmes have also taken her around the world including the Carnegie Hall, Dresden Staatskapelle and The Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. Sarah Connolly was made a Commander of the British Empire in the 2010 New Year Honours. Sarah lives in the Cotswolds with her husband and daughter.

Eugene Asti
Eugene Asti studied at the Mannes College of Music, New York with Jeannette Haien where he earned his BMus and MA. Eugene now teaches at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and is Vocal Accompaniment Coordinator at Trinity College of Music. He regularly gives masterclasses both in the UK and abroad.

Much in demand as an accompanist, he has performed with many great artists including Dame Felicity Lott, Dame Margaret Price, Sir Willard White and Angelika Kirschschlager in places such as the Wigmore Hall, the Barbican, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Kölner Philharmonie, the Megaron in Athens, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Symphony Hall in Birmingham and both Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall in New York.

He also works regularly with many of the leading young recitalists of today including Sarah Connolly, Sophie Daneman, Susanna Andersson, Alison Buchanan, Rebecca Evans, Susan Gritton, Sophie Karthäuser, Stephan Loges and James Rutherford.

Booklet for Schumann: Songs of Love and Loss