Sibylla Rubens (soprano)
Uta Hielscher (piano)


This fifth disc in the Naxos series of the complete Schumann Lieder features one of the key works of the entire 19th century song repertoire, Frauenliebe und -leben (AWoman’s Love and Life).

Written during the summer of 1840, at a time when Schumann and his wife-to-be Clara Wieck were fighting her father in court over their right to marry, these bitter-sweet, passionate yet intimate settings embody a nineteenth-century patriarchal conception of love and marriage, when a woman was expected to be submissive and deferential.

For all the sexist overtones, however, the sincerity of feeling expressed in these songs is never in doubt and Frauenliebe und -leben continues to number among Schumann’s most popular works.

“Sibylla Rubens [is] an artist of whom more and more should be heard.”
MusicWeb International on a previous lieder disc