Thumbs Down for Schumann Lieder Box

Lured by a cheap price, and nostalgia for many of the recordings I listened to in my teens, I bought a box of four CDs of Lieder by Schumann, recorded by various artists during the 1940s and 50s. At last, I recovered Gérard Souzay in the Dichterliebe, a 1953 recording that I once owned on a second-hand LP in the 1950s. And Fischer-Dieskau – never my favourite singer – with the Opus 39 Liederkreis (1954) that I used to play on an old 10 inch LP.

The set also includes Irmgard Seefried in the Frauenliebe und Leben cycle (1957), a work I am not fond of because of its – to me – mawkish and outdated view of a woman's life.

“Lieder und Zyklen” is translated into sort-of English as “Art Songs and Cycles”. I am not sure what has happened to the English language, but Schumann wrote “Lieder” (which are songs, in English). Gustav Mahler's “Das Lied von der Erde” is usually rendered into English as “The Song of the Earth” (not the “Art Song of the Earth”). Perhaps the addition of “art” to “song” is so not to confuse teenage Americans, who seem to call everything a “song”; even Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, or Bach's Mass in B minor. Anyway, for teenage Americans: these are songs (Lieder, in German) sung in German. No translations are included, so either you understand 19^th German perfectly, or you rest blissfully ignorant as to what is being sung. I am not dogmatic about understanding what is being sung (particularly when it comes to 18^th century music), but 19^th century German Lieder, and French mélodies, are slightly different kettles of fish and we need to know what the songs are about. I know the Dichterliebe and the two Liederkreis, plus Frauenliebe und Leben well enough not to need a libretto, and I also know many of the Goethe Mignon settings well enough. But the other 30 or so ….

Those selling recordings of German Lieder, or French mélodies (or even “art songs”) should make it very plain if no libretto is included. Otherwise, for pretty well everyone, it's a bit like buying a car without an engine. Other singers include Peter Anders and Emmi Leisner, mainly from the 1940s. What they are singing about, I have no clue. Not a good buy (a German company called Membran Music). Fine transfers, however.