This album is a bold reimagining of Robert Schumann’s beloved song cycle, Dichterliebe, based on the artists’ cutting-edge research into the earliest surviving recordings of singers and pianists – including musicians directly connected to Schumann. The musical result is jarring at first, and then increasingly compelling: a creative freedom and rhetorical flair bordering on wildness, which belies the years of careful study of historical source material that made such risk-taking possible.

Dichterliebe (DXL 1193) Digital Booklet

Track List:

ROBERT SCHUMANN: DICHTERLIEBE, op. 48

1. Im wunderschönen Monat Mai (1:36)
2. Aus meinen Tränen sprießen (0:58)
3. Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne (0:43)
4. Wenn ich in deine Augen seh’ (1:43)
5. Ich will meine Seele tauchen (0:54)
6. Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome (2:08)
7. Ich grolle nicht (1:38)
8. Und wüßten’s die Blumen, die kleinen (1:41)
9. Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen (1:32)
10. Hör’ ich das Liedchen klingen (2:00)
11. Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen (0:59)
12. Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen (2:25)
13. Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet (1:56)
14. Allnächtlich im Traume (1:36)
15. Aus alten Märchen winkt es (2:47)
16. Die alten, bösen Lieder (4:20)

Tenor Koen van Stade is a performing scholar, researcher and educator. He attained a Ph.D. from the University of Sydney, where he was also a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Australian Research Council funded Discovery Project The shock of the old: rediscovering the sounds of bel canto (1700–1900), focussing on 18th- and 19th-century vocal practices. Koen has been singing all his life, initially training as a boy soprano in the St Laurence Cathedral Choir in Alkmaar, The Netherlands. He went on to study singing with Peter Kooij and Max van Egmond, and church organ and conducting at Amsterdam Conservatorium and The Royal Conservatory of The Hague. He specialised in Gregorian Chant at the Schola Cantorum Amsterdam. Koen has been a soloist and ensemble member of prestigious European early music ensembles including Collegium Vocale Gent and The Netherlands Bach Society. In addition to singing over 2,000 concerts internationally, he has also made many highly regarded recordings including the complete works of Dutch composer Sweelinck with The Gesualdo Consort Amsterdam. Since 2012, Koen has been vocal and organ tutor at Sydney Grammar School and is a regular guest lecturer at the Geneva University of Music. He has also held the positions of Principal Lay Clerk and Director of the Cathedral Scholars at St Mary’s Cathedral Sydney and Principal Artist at The Song Company.

Pianist Neal Peres da Costa has long been established as a world-recognised authority on keyboard performing practice 1700–1900. His highly-praised monograph Off the Record: Performing Practices in Romantic Piano Playing (OUP 2012) is considered as a ‘go to’ text worldwide. As a performer, Neal works regularly with Ironwood, Bach Akademie Australia and Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra (ARCO) of which he is Artistic Advisor. Neal is also the Associate Dean of Research and Professor of Historical Performance at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (SCM), University of Sydney, and currently the lead chief investigator on three Australian Research Council Discovery Projects: Deciphering 19th-century pianism: Reinvigorating global practices; Hearing the music of early NSW 1788-1860; and, The shock of the old: Rediscovering the sounds of bel canto 1700-1900.