Christopher Maltman, baritone
Alastair Miles, bass
Roger Vignoles, piano
Hyperion’s Strauss Lieder series is fast becoming a worthy successor to the seminal Schubert and Schumann Lieder sets on the label. This fourth volume features a veteran of these recordings, the great British bass-baritone Christopher Maltman.
Contrary to a commonly held perception of Strauss as a Lieder composer, what most of the songs in the present volume show is that he was not shy of addressing serious themes. Settings of Rückert, Dehmel, Goethe and others are tinged with a dark regret which is enhanced by their bass tessitura. Strauss the opera composer is evident in the epic scale of the lieder written post-Salome. Roger Vignoles provides his famous extensive booklet notes, with commentary about each individual song and scholarly discourse on the poetry.
“This fourth volume of songs in the Hyperion series matches Strauss's masterpieces to weaker offerings, all given equal shrift by the pianist Roger Vignoles and his singers. Maltman has the lion's share, his molasses-rich lower range and walnut-polished upper melting into the ethereal Am Ufer and finding gruff humour in Das Lied des Steinklopfers. Alastair Miles's robust, sensitive bass excels in Im Spätboot, perfectly capturing the eerie, dark atmosphere of Strauss's weary boat passenger.”
The Times, 14th February 2009 ****
“Maltman and Vignoles strike the right note of hard-won simplicity for Goethe's 'Gefunden' and Heine's 'Mit deinen blauen Augen'. Miles then signs in with the wonderful night-boat meditation of Op. 56 No. 4, underlining the need for a true bass with the last low D flat. ...his imposing timbre fits the operatic scope of the three Rückert settings.”
BBC Music Magazine, May 2009 ****
