Schubert: Der Wanderer

Schubert Der Wanderer
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Artist: Florian Boesch, Roger Vignoles, Franz Schubert
Genre: Classical
Label: Hyperion

Conor Biggs's Schubertreise at the NCH (next instalment: May 4th) is traversing the songs in the order the composer chose to publish them. Austrian baritone Florian Boesch here takes a different tack. The theme is that of the wanderer or outsider, and your response to the selection may well depend on how much romantic gloom you like. Boesch and pianist Roger Vignoles take the melancholy, isolation, anguish, and bleakness fully in their stride, as if to let their listeners eavesdrop on a musical stream of consciousness. Boesch is particularly superb at communicating a kind of drained stillness – expression in immobility. Everything is revealed to you without having to thrust it in your face. And the voice is gorgeous as well. url.ie/4qdb

Michael Dervan

Michael Dervan

Michael Dervan is a music critic and Irish Times contributor