Robert Schumann: Frauenliebe Und -leben, Op. 42 / Liederkrei

Schumann's astonishing outpouring of songs in his so-called "Liederjahr" was inspired by his love for Clara, whom he married in September that year after prolonged and acrimonious opposition from her father. "Not to be missed." - Musicweb International Frauenliebe und-leben, Opus 42 is a sequence of eight songs, a true song-cycle unified by a continuing narrative and recurring musical material. The poems are by Adelbert von Chamisso, who was French-born but grew up in Germany. These verses (previously set in 1836 by Carl Loewe) provided a subject with which Schumann could closely identify ? a young woman's love and life.. From dazzled ("blind") adoration of her lover, she progresses to marriage, experience of motherhood, and finally bereavement. Schumann completed his Liederkreis (literally "song-circle"), Opus 24 in a few days during February 1840, setting a sequence of nine poems from Junge Leiden (Youthful Sorrows), the first section of Heine's Buch der Lieder. Schumann wrote to Clara "while I was composing, my thoughts were only of you." Here in his first Liederkreis (? a second work of this name, Opus 39, has texts by Eichendorff) and in many other Schumann songs from this period, there are natural parallels with his own fluctuating emotions while courting Clara in spite of her father's violent opposition. Unfortunate in love, Heine took out his frustration and sometimes anguish in his verses, but Schumann was relatively unscarred and his deep affection for Clara prevailed. These songs are performed by Marianne Beate Kielland (mezzo) who has developed a keen following, accompanied by Johannes Weisser (baritone) and Nils Anders Mortensen (piano). Highly recommended.