MENDELSSOHN : Songs and Duets (Sophie Daneman • Nathan Berg • Eugene Asti) (1998) FLAC (image+.cue) lossless

The latest research indicates that at least one hundred-and-six lieder, thirteen vocal duets and sixty part-songs by Mendelssohn have survived. Yet even during an age characterized by an apparently insatiable desire for the musically obscure and neglected, these impeccably crafted microcosms are rarely encountered in the concert hall where Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Wolf (even Liszt by musical association) continue to form the backbone of the Austro-German Romantic lieder tradition.
The main reason for this neglect is Mendelssohn's comparatively narrow emotional range. Whereas the aforementioned composers all fearlessly probed the dark side of the human psyche, for the peaceable, broadly contented and self-contained Mendelssohn such concerns simply lay outside his experience. Equally, his songs were above all intended to be sung and enjoyed around the piano at home rather than subjected to public scrutiny. It is hardly Mendelssohn's fault that (with the notable exception of Mozart) commentators generally share an irrational tendency to upgrade the value of music in which laughter emerges only through tears rather than the other way round. Hyperion    Tracklist & Credits :

MENDELSSOHN : Songs and Duets • 2 (Sophie Daneman • Stephan Loges • Eugene Asti) (2001) FLAC (image+.cue) lossless

'The most attractive programming of the Mendelssohn duets yet devised'. So said Fanfare of Sophie Daneman's entrancing first disc of Mendelssohn songs and duets recorded with Nathan Berg (CDA66906). That disc was so well received when it was issued in spring 1998 that we have now produced a second in which she is partnered by the outstanding winner of the Wigmore Hall Song Competition, baritone Stephan Loges, accompanied as before by the American Eugene Asti.
Like the first disc there are many rare and previously unrecorded items here. Hyperion
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MENDELSSOHN : Songs and Duets • 3 (Sophie Daneman • Stephan Loges • Eugene Asti) (2003) FLAC (image+.cue) lossless

Eugene Asti and his dedicated team of singers present us with an engaging recital of twenty-six songs and duets from the Mendelssohn stable. This collection includes settings of poetry by Goethe, Byron, Heine, Eichendorff and others; twenty songs are by Felix Mendelssohn—whose facility to charm is perfectly exploited in such a medium—with Fanny Mendelssohn demonstrating in the remaining six an extraordinary and striking talent, quite the match of her younger sibling.
The Mendelssohn songs without words may indeed outshine the Lieder in our contemporary consciousness, but here we find domestic bliss in pure musical form.
The first two volumes in this ongoing series have been warmly received around the world. Hyperion    Tracklist & Credits :