Felicity Lott ~ Wolf - Mörike-Lieder · Goethe-Lieder / Geoffrey Parsons

On this CD:

1. Gedichte von Eduard Mörike (53), for voice & piano An Eine Äosharfe
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

2. Gedichte von Eduard Mörike (53), for voice & piano Er ist's
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

3. Gedichte von Eduard Mörike (53), for voice & piano Gebet
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

4. Gedichte von Eduard Mörike (53), for voice & piano Im Frühling
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

5. Gedichte von Eduard Mörike (53), for voice & piano Agnes
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

6. Gedichte von Eduard Mörike (53), for voice & piano Begegnung
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

7. Gedichte von Joseph v. Eichendorff (20) for voice & piano Heimweh
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

8. Gedichte von Eduard Mörike (53), for voice & piano Der Gärtner
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

9. Gedichte von Eduard Mörike (53), for voice & piano Das verlassene Mägdlein
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

10. Gedichte von Eduard Mörike (53), for voice & piano Erstes Liebeslied eines Mädchens
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

11. Epiphanias ("Die Heiligen drei König'"), song for voice & piano (Goethe Lieder)
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

12. Gedichte von J.W. von Goethe (51), for voice & piano Die Spröde
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

13. Gedichte von J.W. von Goethe (51), for voice & piano Die Bekehrte
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

14. Gedichte von J.W. von Goethe (51), for voice & piano Hochbeglückt in deiner Liebe
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

15. Gedichte von J.W. von Goethe (51), for voice & piano Mignon I
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

16. Gedichte von J.W. von Goethe (51), for voice & piano Mignon II
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

17. Gedichte von J.W. von Goethe (51), for voice & piano Mignon III
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

18. Gedichte von J.W. von Goethe (51), for voice & piano Philine
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

19. Gedichte von J.W. von Goethe (51), for voice & piano Mignon IV
Composed by Hugo Wolf
Performed by Felicity Lott, Geoffrey Parsons

Tracks:

Morike Settings: An eine Aolsharfe
Morike Settings: Er ist's
Morike Settings: Gebet
Morike Settings: Im Fruhling
Morike Settings: Agnes
Morike Settings: Begegnung
Morike Settings: Heimweh
Morike Settings: Der Gartner
Morike Settings: Das verlassene Magdlein
Morike Settings: Erstes Liebeslied eines Madchens
Goethe Settings: Epiphanias
Goethe Settings: Die Sprode
Goethe Settings: Die Bekehrte
Goethe Settings: Hochbegluckt in deiner Liebe
Goethe Settings: Mignon I
Goethe Settings: Mignon II
Goethe Settings: Mignon III
Goethe Settings: Philine
Goethe Settings: Mignon IV

Customer Reviews:

Not a choice recital of these Lieder.......2007-07-02

Someone should have told Felicity Lott to sing German with a German accent. But clearly no one did. Her German is simply dreadfully English, and although she gains something from the phrasing of that excellent accompanist, Geoffrey Parsons, it is not enough to save this recital CD from being uninteresting and uninspiring.

Wolf's Lieder are some of the most exquisite and detailed Lieder ever composed, but one would not guess that from Felicity Lott's singing. Her vocal phrasing is careful but somehow rings falsely; her tone is like a small boat sometimes drifting off course (not pitch-wise, but the centre of the note becomes white, shrill or raw in tone); her interpretation is superficial.

There are some terrific recordings of Wolf Lieder. Rather than this one, I would like to recommend Schwarzkopf, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elly Ameling, Barbara Bonney, von Otter, Olaf Bär, to name the best of them. This recording did not enrapture me, and I just cannot recommend it.

Calm, ethereal singing--something rare in Wolf.......2006-01-05

Hugo Wolf's condensed, crystalline music forces passion under a microscope: the outbursts are tiny but just as intense. The singer's challenge is to match and sustain such pained intensity. Only a few with sweet lyrical voices (Elly Ameling immediately comes to mind) can soften Wolf to the point of making him pretty--it's even rarer to have this approach sound right.

Felicity Lott manages, though, in this 1989 colleciton of Morike and Goethe lieder. Unlike Ameling, who can sound like vapid, Lott's voice is motherly, calm, and reassuring. She wants to ease Wolf's pain, and I want to join her. There is rapture in a song like Im Fruhling (under pressure the voice spreads a little, though), but the prevailing tone is soft-grained. By contrast, Birgitte Fassbaender is aggrieved and conflicted, but there's room for both in Wolf's fractious romantic world. Geoffrey Parsons accompanies beautifully, also on the lyrical side.

Goethe's heaviness drags Wolf down.......2001-03-08

Austrian composer Hugo Wolf set his songs to the lyrics of different German poets. Whilst the songs remain the work of Wolf based on his melody, their success is tempered by Wolf's attempt to reflect the tone of the poet, and Wolf's own evolution as a composer. The collection of settings to the poetry of Eduard Morike reveal Wolf's folk-song influenced style of early German lied, and also what has been called a "symphonic" style, in which the voice delivers the poem in a free melodic rhapsody over an elaborate pianoforte part, built up out of one or more themes, in the manner of a symphonic development. Morike was a clergyman so it's not unexpected that the most successful songs presented here are those that deal with an anaemic expereince like Spring - Er Ist in it's melodrama, and Im Fruling with a stunning progression of melancholy romantic yearnings - and the prayer Gebet, beautiful in it's dramatic formality. The songs of love and romance sound false, though the hysteria of A Maiden's First Love justifies Wolf's own remark that all the other songs were child's play by comparison. It's climb pushes over the edge the Brechtian music hall sound of the uptempo Begegnung and Der Gartner. Even Wolf's lesser attempts have redemptive touches - an occasional discordant phrase, the tragic resonance of Das verlassene Magdlein, or the great end of Heimweh, which demonstrates his genius in the separation of voice and accompaniment. Providing settings for Goethe, considered to be the greatest poet in the German language proved to be more of a challenge. Here Wolf abandons the carefree singing that distinguished his lyrical work with Eichendorff, for a stern sometimes harsh style that is occasionally self-conscious, and more often than not didactic and pathological in character study. The first 4 songs are unmemorable, though the end of Hochbegluckt in deiner Liebe has a strong pianoforte flourish. The remainder are taken from Geothe's novel, Wilheim Meister, about a waif child Mignon and the anti-heroine Philine. As presented here, Geothe's dark themes seem to limit Wolf's imagination. Mignon's 4 songs are for the most part depressive and inaccesible dirges, with only the suggestion of Wolf's romantic reflectiveness. Philine's song has a lighter touch but it's melody is frustratingly simple and an apparent compromise. It's no coincidence that the songs Wolf wrote to Goethe's poems are longer than his other work, an indication that Wolf's talent for expressing the mood of a piece in brevity was unsuited to Goethe's inflated prose. Whilst I am critical of Wolf's choice of collaboration, I find no fault with the vocal performance of soprano Felicity Lott.

Music Track:

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