Schubert in English, Vol. 4 in Bloomington, MN

It has been frequently observed that 19th century audiences liked to hear opera in their own languages. How true this was for art song is less clear, but poet
Jeremy Sams
is making a strong case for the procedure. This is the fourth in a series of releases by the present performers, and others have recorded his translations as well. He has a fine feeling for the way
Schubert
was drawn to simplicity; he has sometimes been charged with setting inferior verse, but what he needed as poetry that stated its basic idea and then, so to speak, got out of his way.
Sams
gives the texts a natural feeling that is hard to replicate for listeners who are not German, even if they speak the language well. Consider
Wild Rose, D. 257
, which is the famed
Heidenroeslein
; this title scans easily, and the listener is drawn into the immediacy of the text. There are a couple of
Goethe
texts, but they are songlike excerpts;
and the performers probably do well to stay away from his more philosophical poetry. The singers -- baritone
Roderick Williams
and soprano
Rowan Pierce
-- emphasize directness and text intelligibility, and accompanist
Christopher Glynn
properly keeps close to the meter.
Pierce
hangs out on the bottom side of the pitch sometimes, and listeners can decide for themselves whether this is troublesome. However, it is hard to escape the idea that, at some level, this recording presents
as non-German audiences of the composer's day might ideally have heard his songs. This album made classical best-seller charts in the autumn of 2023. ~ James Manheim