Mark Padmore / Kristian Bezuidenhout SCHUMANN Dichterliebe - Liederkreis op. 24

Mark Padmore (b.1961) started his musical activities as a clarinetist and singer. During the early 1980s he sang with The Sixteen and the Hilliard Ensemble. With the Hilliards he can be heard on ‘Perotinus’, an ECM album that has meanwhile achieved legendary status. In the 1990s he worked as a soloist with William Christie, Philippe Herreweghe and John Eliot Gardiner, and was much sought after as the Evangelist in the Passions of Johann Sebastian Bach. In 2002 he appeared for the first time in a lieder recital, singing Schubert’s ‘Die Schöne Müllerin’. His accompanist, Roger Vignoles, encouraged him to concentrate on the lied repertoire, and as a result, Padmore now spends a large amount of his time on the recital podium. He performs with seasoned accompanists: Julius Drake, Graham Johnson and Malcolm Martineau, and has also forged performing relationships with famous pianists: Imogen Cooper, Till Fellner and Paul Lewis. The latter accompanied him in very successful recordings of Schubert’s great song-cycles, ‘Die Winterreise’ and ‘Die Schöne Müllerin’.
For his most recent recital tour Padmore opted for a collaboration with fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout, an artist who was invited by Harmonia Mundi to record Mozart’s complete solo piano music. Padmore dedicated his tour to the poet Heinrich Heine, who was a fount of inspiration for Franz Schubert. Robert Schumann visited Vienna in 1838, ten years after Schubert’s death, and became acquainted with the older composer’s Ninth Symphony and the song cycles ‘Winterreise’, ‘Müllerin’ and ‘Schwanengesang’. Despite the fact that Schumann initially looked down on the Lied phenomenon, but in 1840, just married to Clara, in his new role as family man felt obliged to provide a more substantial income. Considering the popularity of the lied genre with the middle class in those days, publishing songs was a logical way to bolster his wages. Schumann’s preference for Heinrich Heine was no coincidence. Heine’s ‘Das Buch der Lieder’, published in 1820, enjoyed an immense popularity and inspired nineteenth-century composers to write no less than 8000 songs. On this CD five of those are placed between Schumann’s opp. 24 and 48. They were selected from the volume ‘Sängerfahrt’ by Franz Paul Lachner (1803-1890). During the last two years of Schubert’s life Lachner befriended Schubert, who was six years his senior. Lachner’s music pays homage to Schubert, and some of his settings employ texts that were also set by Schubert and Schumann. On this recital they are ‘Im Mai’, the opening song of ‘Dichterliebe’ (‘Im wunderschönen Monat Mai’), and ‘Das Fischermädchen’, also known in a setting by Schubert. They are a resounding testimony to the difference between talent and genius. (Siebe Riedstra)