Rückert-Lieder, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen And Kindertoten songs are obviously enriched by the orchestral accompaniment, but the use of the piano is legitimate. Few recordings have succeeded not in “making us forget the orchestra”, but in captivating with a different vocal art, measuring the dynamics to the millimeter in the service of the word and the poems. We think of Christa Ludwig with Bernstein on piano (Sony) and a Fischer Dieskau-Barenboim recital from 1972 (Audite). In this album recorded in April 2021, the great Sarah Connolly achieves this miracle. “Great”, because we are facing one of the greatest interpreters of Handel’s music of all time, an extraordinary tragedian. In June 2019, Connolly suspended her career to treat breast cancer. For her return, a year later, she chose Mahler and the chamber version of Song of the Earth. Here, the piano allows him to control and measure everything. And the experience, the experience of life facing death, on the edge of the abyss, stirs to the depths of the soul.
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