Lieder by Hugo Wolf
Dietrich Henschel (baritone)
Royal Flemish Philharmonic, Philippe Herreweghe
Henschel hasn't always been at his best with Wolf but he is here, always with a firm vocal line creating a clear path through the thickets of chromatic accompaniment, always with deeply felt...
Lieder by Hugo Wolf
Dietrich Henschel (baritone)
Royal Flemish Philharmonic, Philippe Herreweghe
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Henschel hasn't always been at his best with Wolf but he is here, always with a firm vocal line creating a clear path through the thickets of chromatic accompaniment, always with deeply felt...
About
CD & DVD
Although Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) does not enjoy the present-day fame of his contemporary and friend Gustav Mahler, he graced art music with songs of an unusually concentrated intensity which are second to none. Wolf’s most poignant lieder were inspired by poet-priest Eduard Mörike, whose lifelong struggle with the (moral) turmoil caused by an early love affair appealed to similar sexual traumas in Wolf.
On this new production, acclaimed baritone Dietrich Henschel performs Wolf’s Mörike songs with the Royal Flemish Philharmonic conducted by Philippe Herreweghe, but he also stars in a film (included on DVD) which dramatizes the content of the songs, exploring the thin line between erotic and mystic love but ultimately depicting a tormented soul’s quest for redemption and release. Both the poems Wolf chose and the music he set to them conjure up a Wagnerian universe which has been situated, by film director Clara Pons, in the late summer lushness of Upper Austria, in a celebration of sensuality but also a premonition of pending decay...
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Awards and reviews
April 2014
Henschel hasn't always been at his best with Wolf but he is here, always with a firm vocal line creating a clear path through the thickets of chromatic accompaniment, always with deeply felt attention to the words and any number of moments when you could swear he is channelling Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (no bad thing).
