Recording
Title: Baker, BBC Legends
Performer: Janet Baker, Geoffrey Parsons
Year: 1968
Length: 25 minutes
Review
Another set of lieder by Schumann, in what is a set of four records of Schumann lieder in a row on this list. In this case we have not the usual baritone singing it but a mezzo-soprano.
This gives an interesting variety to the lieder, the voice is not one you typically associate with German lieder, but Janet is expressive enough to really make it work. However, there are problems with the recording... a live recording has some of the same problems of live concerts.
In this case you can hear people coughing merrily through it, those people who take the wrong path to the sanatorium and end up in concert halls. They are everywhere, and they annoy me. Other than that it is a great recording.
Final Grade
8/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
Frauenliebe und -leben (A Woman's Love and Life) is a cycle of poems by Adelbert von Chamisso, written in 1830. They describe the course of a woman's love for her man, from her point of view, from first meeting through marriage to his death, and after. Selections were set to music as a song-cycle by masters of German Lied, namely Carl Loewe, Franz Paul Lachner and Robert Schumann. The setting by Schumann (his opus 42) is nowadays the most widely-known.
Janet Baker sings three songs from Frauenliebe und -leben with Barenboim on the piano:
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