• In Befreit: A Soul Surrendered (Chandos), the mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately and pianist Joseph Middleton perform late romantic songs from the Austro-German tradition about death, loss and hope. From Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler to Johanna Müller-Hermann (1868-1941) and Margarete Schweikert (1887-1957), the programme is well balanced and admirably performed. Two songs by Müller-Hermann, a student of Alexander Zemlinsky (she is also next week’s Radio 3 Composer of the Week), open the recital.
The first, Like a Night in Full Moon, bursts with vocal urgency and limpid, rippling piano chords; the second, The Last Evening, records a painful separation. Schweikert, a prolific composer of songs, is often harmonically experimental but always sensuous. Whately’s ability to trace the drama of each song, whether in powerful climax or drawing back to a whisper, makes this an absorbing journey, with Middleton a poised and incisive co-traveller. By inserting Strauss’s Morgen! (Tomorrow) halfway through, we too have a sense of momentum, as well as release.
• A husband and wife, both composers, both writing piano concertos in the same key of A minor: it could turn out badly. Not in the case of Clara Schumann and Robert Schumann. As Clara Wieck, she wrote her Op.7 in 1835, still in her teens, before her marriage. His, Op.54, is a work of maturity, completed 10 years later, for his wife to play. Robert’s may be the more ambitious work, but the musical links between the two are immediately audible, and brought out in an excellent new recording by the Italian pianist Beatrice Rana, with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Yannick Nézet-Seguin (Warner Classics).
Rana’s virtuosity, the clarity and brilliance of her fingerwork, and her attention to detail, make her account of Clara’s concerto especially buoyant, as well as covetable. The closing bars are a tour de force, with the COE matching Rana in fire and energy all the way. She also plays Liszt’s transcription of Robert’s song Widmung, a welcome and fitting bonus.
• Andrew McGregor presents highlights from last week’s Royal Philharmonic Society Awards held at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. Monday, 7.30pm, Radio 3/BBC Sounds.
