Julian Prégardien HANS ZENDER Schuberts Winterreise

The tenor Julian Prégardien joins ALPHA for several recording projects that will showcase every facet of his talent, notably lieder and oratorio. His first album on the label is devoted to one of the greatest masterpieces in the history of music, Winterreise, but in a version with orchestra composed by Hans Zender in 1993.

He scored the work for orchestral forces very different from the ensembles used in the nineteenth century (including, for example, a soprano saxophone, an accordion, a harmonica, a wind machine, a guitar and a very large percussion section). Hans Zender describes his work as a ‘creative transformation’: ‘My own reading of Winterreise does not seek a new expressive interpretation, but systematically takes advantage of the freedoms that performers normally allow themselves in an intuitive way: slowing down or accelerating the tempo, transposition into different keys, emphasising and nuancing colours.’ Following a staged production of this version of the work, Christian Merlin wrote in Le Figaro in 2018: ‘A spellbinding Winterreise . . . The tenor Julian Prégardien, at once an exceptional singer and a committed actor, gives an incendiary performance combining vocal expressiveness, loving attention to the words and theatrical presence with sensitivity and intelligence in equal measure.’

Susanne Elmark / Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester / Robert Reimer ARIER - Ch'il bel Sogno

Susanne Elmark completed her training at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen in 1994, and gave her debut concert in 1996. Her teachers were Susanne Eken and Ingrid Bjoner, and she has studied widh Josef Protschka. Susanne Elmark has given numerous recitals in Denmark and Germany, and has performed as a soloist in The Messiah, Mozart's Requiem, Bach's B Minor Mass and Carmina Burana, and she is a patticularly frequent guest with the Danish Radio Concert Ordhestra. She has sung Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi in a production on Danish television. Other roles have included Gilda in Rigoletto at the Braunschweig Opera, the Queen of the Night at the Deutsche Oper and Zerlina with the Royal Opera in Copenhagen. She has had several engagements widh Danish orchestras and appears frequently on recordings. (Naxos Records)