Daniel Behle - Dichterliebe - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Tenor Daniel Behle fulfills a heartfelt wish and sings the InchgreatInch bel canto repertoire. However, he is not accompanied by a symphony orchestra, but by the renowned Alliage Quintet. The idea is as unusual as it is charming instead of a full opera orchestra, four saxophones and a piano take center stage - sometimes shining velvety soft like strings, sometimes flashing virtuosically like brass instruments. Behle, one of the most versatile tenors of our time, sings arias that every opera lover carries in their heart-and which shine here in completely new colors. Bel canto with a wink, so to speak

Even more than in Beethoven's case, Mendelssohn's Lieder were intended for performance in the salons of the prosperous bourgeoisie a convivial circle of highly qualified connoisseurs who shared the same outlook, and often a similar financial status. Those members of the upper middle classes were the musical link and the sociological crossroads between Hausmusik and the concert hall. Mendelssohn often wrote songs as gifts for the friends he was visiting, frequently as settings of their own texts the considerable technical challenges they contained still needed to be manageable for members of those circles. Thanks to their songlike or folklike character, certain works by Mendelssohn became true classics, even across broad swaths of the population. The narrower the compositional framework in his songs, the more noteworthy were Mendelssohn's divergences he often unobtrusively proved his mastery by varying upon a strict form thus providing variety, excitement, and ironic musical fractures. Robert Schumann's Lied output was probably more crucial for his existence than in Mendelssohn's case, and likewise more significant due to the artistic dialogue he held with his wife Clara songs thus took up a greater place in his life. Composed in Leipzig in 1840, Dichterliebe Op. 48 on texts by Heinrich Heine offers an excellent example of Schumann's use of a self-contained episode with a homogeneous poetic idea as a point of departure for an entire song cycle. Thus he not only rearranged the order of Heine's poems from the Lyric Intermezzo, but chose the title Dichterliebe himself. Here the piano goes far beyond pure instrumental accompaniment instead of merely illustrating the text, it provides it's own dimension of interpretation as a partner on equal standing with the voice, both in terms of extension as well in terms of artistic niveau.

On Generation mother and son Renate Behle and Daniel Behle perform various operatic excerpts. For more than fifteen years Renate Behle has been one of the world's most outstanding interpreters of dramatic roles. Daniel Behle has won numerous awards including first prizes in the International Robert Stolz Competition and the Queen Sonja Competition.