Recording
Title: Schwanengesang/Lieder
Performers: Diestrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gerald Moore
Year: 1972
Length: 51 minutes
Review
We're still with Schubert during his long drawn-out death. Now we get his last songs, which have been appropriately named "Swan Song", not by Schubert of course, these were published posthumously.
We had heard several of these before, right when Schubert first appeared on this list in a recording of his lieder. Interestingly some of his best songs are in this collection, such as Die Taubenpost or Der Doppelgänger, which make the death of Schubert all the worse, as he was just getting better at writing songs.
As always Schubert's songs are not the happiest of affairs, particularly at this point in his life, nonetheless they are each one beautiful. Unlike Die Schone Mullerin or Winterreise these songs do not form a cohesive narrative whole, at least they were never intended to, but this takes nothing away from the great works that they are.
Final Grade
9/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
Taubenpost ("Pigeon post"; the song that is often considered as a last lied that Schubert ever wrote. The song is included into a cycle by the first editor and is almost always included in modern performances too even though the song has no any relationship to others)
Fischer Dieskau, Die Taubenpost:
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