Name: Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin par Christoph Prégardien
Brand: Christoph Prégardien
SKU: 886443560918
Price: 9.9 USD
Availability: OnlineOnly
Rating: 5 (140 reviews)

ALBUM

German tenor Christoph Prégardien has recorded Schubert's seminal song cycle Die Schöne Mullerin before, with Andreas Staier for Deutsche Harmonia Mundi in 1991. One immediate difference in this recording for Challenge Classics is that Michael Gees serves as accompanist and plays a modern piano rather than a period fortepiano, as did Staier. Moreover, this SACD recording of Die Schöne Mullerin and the early digital DHM are worlds apart; the sound on the DHM is distant, recessed and rather clattery, whereas the Challenge Classics recording is a huge improvement. Prégardien's voice is attractively centered, and Gees' piano is captured in a warm perspective that cloaks and envelops the singer. It's a great sound; as Prégardien's voice soars, the piano rolls through both right and left channels as waves in a babbling brook, echoing the very sentiments expressed in Wilhelm Müller's pre-Romantic texts. Prégardien's interpretation is much the same as it was Staier, though one could argue in the Challenge Classics recording he achieves a greater emotional projection, not to mention a more lightweight delivery in the tenor range; in the DHM recording he had more of a tendency to borrow from the baritone range in order to gain more heft.

That's not to throw the DHM, still available in August 2008, under the bus; it remains a very good performance, particularly in the domain of versions with a period instrument keyboard. However, this version is clearly superlative; Prégardien has grown with this work in the intervening time and it shows. This is a sensitive reading of Die Schöne Mullerin demonstrating complete integration with the material, in addition to embracing a generally more mainstream kind of performance idiom than the earlier recording. Challenge Classics' Die Schöne Mullerin with Christoph Prégardien and Michael Gees is a recording worthy of taking pride of place on the shelf alongside such "classic" versions as those by Richard Crooks, Aksel Schiøtz, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and is in considerably better recorded sound than any of them.

Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin

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1. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 1, Das Wandern. "Das Wandern ist des Müllers Lust"

2. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 2, Wohin?. "Ich hört ein Bächlein rauschen"

3. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 3, Halt!. "Eine Mühle seh ich blinken"

4. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 4, Danksagung an den Bach. "War es also gemeint"

5. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 5, Am Feierabend. "Hätt ich tausend Arme zu rühren!"

6. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 6, Der Neugierige. "Ich frage keine Blume"

7. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 7, Ungeduld. "Ich schnitt es gern in alle Rinden ein"

8. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 8, Morgengruß. "Guten Morgen, schöne Müllerin!"

9. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 9, Des Müllers Blumen. "Am Bach viel kleine Blumen stehn"

10. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 10, Tränenregen. "Wir saßen so traulich beisammen"

11. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 11, Mein! "Bächlein, laß dein Rauschen sein!"

12. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 12, Pause. "Meine Laute hab ich gehängt an die Wand"

13. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 13, Mit dem grünen Lautenbande. "Schad um das schöne grüne Band"

14. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 14, Der Jäger. "Was sucht denn der Jäger am Mühlbach hier?"

15. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 15, Eifersucht und Stolz. "Wohin so schnell, so kraus und wild, mein lieber Bach?"

16. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 16, Die liebe Farbe. "In Grün will ich mich kleiden"

17. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 17, Die böse Farbe. "Ich möchte ziehn in die Welt hinaus"

18. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 18, Trockne Blumen. "Ihr Blümlein alle"

19. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 19, Der Müller und der Bach. "Wo ein treues Herz in Liebe vergeht"

20. Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, D. 795: No. 20, Des Baches Wiegenlied. "Gute Ruh, gute Ruh!"

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