A WREATH OF SONGS – Schumann’s MYRTHEN with soprano Camilla Tilling, baritone Christian Gerhaher, and pianist Gerold Huber

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Robert Schumann wrote close to 140 songs, of which 26 are comprised in Myrthen, a grouping of lyric miniatures partially chronicling his marriage to Clara Wieck.

Myrthen, the German word for a wreath of evergreens and white flowers is also the title of the recently released SONY CLASSICAL CD that features the perfect trio for this music: the soprano Camilla Tilling, the baritone Christian Gerhaher, and the pianist Gerold Huber.

Camilla Tilling’s lyric soprano is ravishingly beautiful and ideally suited to several of the best known and most beloved amongst the 26 songs in the recording, among them Widmung, Die Nussbaum, Lied der Suleika and Die Lotusbluhme. Ever spinning a seamless legato line, her singing embodies emotional vulnerability and intellectual acuity.

Christian Gerhaher contributes his bright high baritone to the project, excelling in the declamatory, narrative and dramatic songs contained in the four books that make up Myrthen. His voice is tenor-like in  timbre in the upper range, darker as it descxends the scale, his diction impeccable, his approach to this music always sober and elegant

Gerold Huber is the unfailingly sensitive accompanist throughout.

The engineering, the copious annotations and translations by Gerhaher himself raise the bar for any similar future endeavors.

Bravo to all those involved in this labor of love!

Rafael de Acha      http://www.RafaelMusicNotes.com

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”