Elizabeth Watts, Schubert Lieder

Posted by mwblogger

May 28, 2009

This disc has been perched high atop a massive pile for some time because I keep hearing amazing things about this young British soprano—that and I cannot seem to get enough of Schubert’s lieder these days. So finally, middle of the night, I decided to put on Schubert Lieder specifically to hear my insomniacal anthem “Nacht und Träume.” And forgive my constant amazement at all I survey but WOW! From the opening lustrous chords (deep credit to Roger Vignoles piano) I felt—cliché alert—as if I were in a warm bath. And Watts’ first long tone matched perfectly the deep-in-the-keys tone of the lush opening. I was sold. And like I tend to do, I just keep listening to that one track over and over.

What has always made a good Schubert song for my money is a certain kind of emotional nudity. I’ve always thought Art Songs were to opera what chamber music is to the orchestra: in one mode, we get to see (hear?) a composer at their most public, their grandest, their most overt and in-the-world; in the other, we get the quiet whispers, the complex, nuanced thoughts, the difficult-to-pin emotions. One mode requires distance, the other asks your ear to be pressed to the speaker or for you to be listening from mere feet away. Schubert wrote a lot of all kinds of music, from the hugest symphonies (the “Unfinished”!) to operas to string quartets (the G major! Or the quintet in C with the extra cello!), but it is in his songs—especially songs like this one—that we get to know the private man (and he was private). So for me, the great lieder singer is not necessarily the great opera singer any more than the great soloist may not be the best at chamber music. Now I suspect opera is where someone like Watts makes her living and attains her visibility, but from this one track (and I may be wrong here) it seems like she gets her greatest satisfaction from the Art Song.

As to the record, I am positively certain that there are other gems on this disc, but I’ve not made it there, not yet. I will, to be sure, but for now I’ve got this one on repeat. It will stay there for a while, I have a feeling…

You can purchase Elizabeth Watts’ Schubert Lieder here.

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