Schubert: The Final Year

This is the 37th and final volume of the Hyperion Schubert Edition. In his (as always) informative and passionately personal program notes, Graham Johnson, pianist and guiding spirit of the series, bids this monumental undertaking a touching farewell. The 20 songs on this disc, including the cycle Schwanengesang, are among Schubert's last and greatest; most of them are dark, somber, haunted, and--especially in these deeply felt performances--utterly heartbreaking. In Johnson's version of the Three Tenors, the songs' original keys are retained while their character is enhanced by the singers' vocal timbre and style. Schade's bright voice matches the cheerful, optimistic songs outside the cycle, and he blends well with the horn in "Auf dem Strom." In the Heine songs, Rolfe Johnson's approach is dramatic, declamatory, almost operatic. Ainsley has the darkest voice and gives the Rellstab songs great simplicity and inwardness; his balance between poetic and musical prosody, and between a lighthearted text and its dark musical undercurrent, is perfect. One song, placed so as to separate the two parts of Schwanengesang, is shared by all three singers. Their diction is equally good, though two are English and one is German; the impression of a vocal competition is avoided through the diversity of their voices and styles. Johnson's playing continues to be pure magic. His sound is incredibly beautiful--he brings out hidden melodies, imitates a guitar and a galloping horse, and has an incomparable sensitivity to the music and his partners. --Edith Eisler