Christoph Prégardien’s Brahms

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Naxos Classics has just released a nicely engineered Brahms: Complete Songs, Vol. 1, (8574268) which includes over two dozen songs from opus numbers 32, 43, 86 and 105.

At the age of 65, and after a long and distinguished career as a tenor who primarily specialized in concert and oratorio, Christoph Prégardien, now singing as a baritone, continues to cultivate the German Song repertory.

Choosing lower keys does not magically turn a tenor into a baritone, timbre above all else dictates the vocal classification of a singer, but the range of a song and, even more importantly, tessitura – the area in which the music lies – determines what the singer should be doing.

In the case of Prégardien, the lower keys chosen by him for Wie Melodien zieht es mir, Klage,  Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer, Klage, Auf dem Kirchhofe, Feldeinsamkeit, Auf dem Kirchhofe, and Wie bist du, meine Königin each and every one of these songs short in length and lyric in mood, serve him well, making few demands on endurance and instead calling for delicacy of utterance and sensitivity, both qualities hallmarks of the tenor’s singing.

Prégardien is equally impressive in the narrative songs, like Verrat, where he mines the words as only the past master he is, extracting every ounce of meaning from the dramatic tale.

We hope that Prégardien will continue to collaborate with Ulrich Eisenlohr, a very fine accompanying pianist. It is also hoped that will continue to provide song translations and program notes in the future.

Rafael de Acha      ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

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.”