Frage - Schumann - Christian Gerhaher, Gerold Huber
Quarterly Critics' Choice 1.2019 - German Record Critics' Award. The twelve Schumann songs of op.35, setting freely-composed texts by Justinus Kerner, are not so much a self-contained cycle as a kaleidoscopically-compiled piece of introspection. Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber take many risks in this exploration, following every syllable, every nuance, without neglecting formal and architectural concerns. The two artists surpass themselves here. The CD is part of a recording project of all of Schumann's songs which is a collaboration between Bayerischer Rundfunk, Sony and the Heidelberg Spring Festival, and is scheduled for completion in 2020. Just how unconventionally Gerhaher approaches the pieces is clear, for example, in the Heine setting "The Two Grenadiers," which in this interpretation comes across as sickly grotesquery, balanced on the knife edge between humour and lunacy. (For the jury: Stephan Mösch)