tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11336161.post3431859805540803837..comments2024-03-06T15:42:42.589+00:00Comments on Planet Hugill: Entrancing duets from Lucy Crowe and William BergerAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05139360579883837086noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11336161.post-34650548086981421282016-06-01T15:02:57.514+01:002016-06-01T15:02:57.514+01:00Just to add for those who download. Schumann's...Just to add for those who download. Schumann's intense In der Nacht with Schwarzkopf and Fischer Dieskau in superb voice live at the Festival Hall along with Er und Sie are available as individual tracks from Amazon, as indeed is the whole album of tributes in duets, trios and solos, to Gerald Moore the eminent accompanist. The Purcell duets from the QEH recital with Janet Baker and Fischer Dieskau are available on a tribute EMI box set to the celebrated English mezzo-soprano. The Brahms on a much older mainly French orchestral song 2CD set. All of these are available as individual downloads. I will be definitely purchasing the Lucy Crowe and William Berger CD despite my reservations from the excerpts on Radio 3 I described above, for one simple reason: these singers are to be commended for investigating and performing this neglected part of the repertoire which is full of delightful surprises, and whatever now are bound to improve in depth interpretatively as their careers progress.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18155289086787825339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11336161.post-21325981859261812652016-05-27T11:37:11.120+01:002016-05-27T11:37:11.120+01:00They are good, but I prefer Jan Gaetani to Lucy Cr...They are good, but I prefer Jan Gaetani to Lucy Crowe in an alternative modern CD.<br /><br />The reference recording is still the 1969 Live Recital with Janet Baker District Fischer Dieskau and Daniel Barenboim from the QEH. Only the Brahms duets are available on CD on an EMI double CD focusing on Baker's French orchestral vocal works. The Schumann duets, indeed everything else, on the vinyl original is beyond anything since issued.<br /><br />Curiously this even applies to the full survey of Schumann duets from the late German baritone and his wife Julia Varady. This sounds cold and unromantic.<br /><br />The famous Er und Sie is covered again by Fischer Dieskau and Elizabeth Schwarzkopf in the 1967 RFH live Fare to Gerald Moore Concert.<br /><br />None of these mezzo-sopranos is a patch on Dame Janet and Lucy Crowe is inevitably a shadow of this great singer in both technique and expression. William Berger is more convincing and warmer in this romantic fare, but the range, colour and full support that Fischer Dieskau conveys in these works is simply not there.<br /><br />now Edith Mathis has a recording... any ideas?Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18155289086787825339noreply@blogger.com