Poetisches Tagebuch by Christoph Prégardien / Julius Drake

Franz Schubert

Christoph Prégardien / Julius Drake

Poetisches Tagebuch

Price: € 19.95
Format: SACD hybrid
Label: Challenge Classics
UPC: 0608917267020
Catnr: CC 72670
Release date: 17 November 2015
Buy

Hi-res download at Spirit of Turtle

1 SACD hybrid ✓ in stock	€ 19.95	Buy
		Hi-res download at Spirit of Turtle

Label
Challenge Classics

UPC
0608917267020

Catalogue number
CC 72670

Release date
17 November 2015

"Winner of the Jahrespreis of Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik 2016 for the album 'Poetisches Tagebuch'! This yearly prize is the most prestigious critic prize for all music genres in Germany!"

Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik 2016, 30-11-2016

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

Press

About the album

‘I lived in a fantasy world and was on the way to becoming an incurable daydreamer’ (German = ‘Ich lebte ganz meinen Phantasien und war auf dem Wege, ein ganz unheilbarer Schwärmer zu werden’), wrote the Saxon poet Ernst Schulze (1789-1817) of his schooldays. Despite this moment of clarity, Schulze did indeed live in a world in which the boundaries between the real and the imagined were increasingly hazy. As a student in Göttingen he shared Don Giovanni’s ‘mille tre’ attitude to women, notching up a string of casual conquests while pursuing the daughter of an archaeology professor, Cäcilie Tychsen. Schulze’s campaign to seduce Cäcilie failed; and when she died of tuberculosis, aged just eighteen, in 1812, she became idealised as his lost bride- to-be, saviour and Muse.
Conveniently for the fantasising poet, Cäcilie had a sister, Adelheid, to whom he quickly transferred his affections. That Schulze had earlier described Adelheid as having ‘a monkey’s face’ (‘Affengesicht’) did not seem to matter one iota. Nor did the fact that Adelheid was in love with someone else. From 1813 until his own early death, likewise of tuberculosis, Schulze embroidered his fragmentary, largely one-sided relationship with the reluctant Adelheid in the 100 poems that make up his Poetisches Tagebuch (‘Verse Journal’). Schubert first seems to have alighted on Schulze’s work in 1824, when he flirted with the idea of making an opera from his long narrative poem Die bezauberte Rose (‘The enchanted Rose). Then in March 1825 he set ‘Im Walde’ from the Poetisches Tagebuch, initiating a sequence of Schulze songs composed over the following year. While only two, ‘Auf der Bruck’ and ‘Im Frühling’, have become recital favourites, these songs of loss, alienation and obsessive longing (Winterreise is already glimpsed) are among Schubert’s most powerful and poignant.

Emotioneel en lyrisch, maar zonder opsmuk, deze vertolking van liederen van Schubert
In dit Poetisches Tagebuch hoort u beeldschone liederen van Franz Schubert, uitgevoerd door de crème de la crème uit het liedvak. De beroemde tenor Christoph Prégardien en de al even illustere pianist Julius Drake. Deze liederen van verlies, vervreemding en obsessief verlangen behoren tot Schubert's meest krachtige en ontroerende liederen. Waaronder ook de populaire liederen Im Frühling en Auf der Bruck.
'De tenor is een verteller die maniertjes mijdt: geen galm, weinig vibrato, geen preoccupatie met mooi geluid. Wel is hij voortdurend verstaanbaar en schuwt hij het risico niet. In de hoogste regionen zit bovendien een verbazingwekkende veerkracht, zoals de bijna geneuriede toegift Mondnacht bewees. De Britse begeleider Julius Drake toonde een gevoelig oor voor detail. Het perlentränentröpfchen, de doodskist waaraan werd getimmerd: ze kwamen terug in de Steinway.' De Volkskrant, november 2015.

Op het album staan vooral liederen op teksten van Ernst Schulze. 'Ik leefde in een fantasiewereld en was op weg een ongeneeslijke dagdromer te worden', schreef deze Saksische dichter (1789-1817) over zijn schooltijd. Ondanks dit moment van helderheid, leefde Schulze inderdaad in een wereld waarin de grenzen tussen de echte en de fantasie wereld steeds waziger werden. Alsof hij Don Giovanni zelf was, probeerde hij de dochter te verleiden van een professor in de archeologie: Cäcilie Tychsen. Schulze's missie om Cäcilie te verleiden mislukte; en toen ze stierf aan tuberculose, werd ze zijn verloren toekomstige bruid, verlosser en muze. Gelukkig voor de fantasievolle dichter had Cäcilie een zus, Adelheid. Dat de dichter haar eerder beschreef als iemand met 'een apengezicht', maakte niet meer uit, noch het feit dat Adelheid verliefd was op iemand anders. Tot aan zijn dood heeft Schulze honderden gedichten gewijd aan de onwillige Adelheid, en hun eenzijdige, fragmentarische relatie. Deze gedichten vormden zijn Poetisches Tagebuch.

De Duitse Christoph Prégardien (1956) begon zijn zangcarrière als koorknaap in de dom van Limburg an der Lahn, zijn geboortestad. Prégardien behoort tot de beste lyrische tenoren van deze tijd. Hij heeft een heldere en precieze stemvoering. Zijn intelligente interpretatie en dictie, gecombineerd met zijn kracht om door te dringen tot de kern van zijn rol, maken van hem een alom gewaardeerd zanger. De tenor treedt wereldwijd op met vooraanstaande orkesten en is ook een graag geziene gast in ons land.

‘Ich lebte ganz meinen Phantasien und war auf dem Wege, ein ganz unheilbarer Schwärmer zu werden’ Ernst Schulze

Ernst Schulzes Poetisches Tagebuch besteht aus 100 Gedichten, die der träumerische Dichter ab 1813 bis zu seinem frühen Tod 1817 an Adelheid Tychsen schrieb. Eine einseitige Liebe. Im März 1825 begann Schubert mit 'Im Walde' mit der musikalischen Bearbeitung seiner Gedichte. Jedoch fügte Schubert diese Lieder nicht zu einem Zyklus, so dass einige der Kompositionen ein etwas stiefmütterliches Dasein fristen. Nicht jedoch für Christoph Prégardien und Julius Drake. Sie haben für ihr Poetisches Tagebuch ihre liebsten Vertonungen von Schulze zusammengestellt und erweitern dies mit Schubert-Liedern zu Texten von Rückert, Schlegel, Collin, Schlechta, Craigher und Leitner.

Un altro grande album schubertiano del tenore Christoph Prégardien, questa volta accompagnato dal celebre pianista Julius Drake.
Schubert sembra essersi imbattuto per la prima volta nella produzione di Ernst Schulze nel 1824, quando accarezzò l’idea di comporre un’opera dal suo lungo poema narrativo La rosa incantata (Die bezauberte Rose). Quindi, nel marzo 1825, mise in musica ‘Im Walde’ dal Diario poetico (Poetisches Tagebuch), inaugurando una serie di Lieder su testi di Schulze composti negli anni successivi. Anche se soltanto due, ‘Auf der Bruck’ e ‘Im Frühling’, sono entrati in repertorio, questi Lieder sulla perdita, alienazione e ansia ossessiva (già si intravede Winterreise) sono tra i più intensi e struggenti di Schubert.

Artist(s)

Christoph Prégardien (vocals)

His lyric tenor voice had a youthful glow, yet he sang with plaintive beauty and piercing insight. - The New York Times Precise vocal control, clear diction, intelligent musicality, and an ability to get to the heart of everything he sings all ensure Christoph Prégardien’s place among the world’s foremost lyric tenors. Especially revered as a Lieder singer, he also regularly appears with renowned orchestras the world over. He has worked with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, as well as the Boston and San Francisco Symphonies, alongside conductors such as Barenboim, Metzmacher, and Thielemann. His wide orchestral repertoire includes the great baroque, classical, and Romantic oratorios and passions, as well as works from...

His lyric tenor voice had a youthful glow, yet he sang with plaintive beauty and piercing insight.
- The New York Times

Precise vocal control, clear diction, intelligent musicality, and an ability to get to the heart of everything he sings all ensure Christoph Prégardien’s place among the world’s foremost lyric tenors. Especially revered as a Lieder singer, he also regularly appears with renowned orchestras the world over. He has worked with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, as well as the Boston and San Francisco Symphonies, alongside conductors such as Barenboim, Metzmacher, and Thielemann. His wide orchestral repertoire includes the great baroque, classical, and Romantic oratorios and passions, as well as works from the 17th and 20th centuries. In opera, his roles have included, among others, Tamino, Almaviva (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Fenton (Falstaff), Don Ottavio, Titus, Ulisse, and Idomeneo.

The current season begins with recitals at the Oxford International Song Festival, together with Yaara Taal in Munich, at Haus Marteau, in Monheim, and in Weiden as well as with Michael Gees in Marbach and Blaibach. In December, he returns to the Filharmonie Brno, where he most recently performed Handel’s Messiah, to sing songs from Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn under Dennis Russell Davies. This is followed in January by two trio concerts in Switzerland with violinist Leila Schayegh, featuring works by Beethoven and Schubert; the programme will also be presented at the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg in June. Further engagements include a recital at the Festival internacional de música de Bogotá and the closing concert and a masterclass at the Leeds Song Festival. He will also serve as a jury member at the Concours Reine Elisabeth and the Bachwettbewerb Leipzig. A major project of recent seasons has been Johannes Maria Staud’s Die schöne Müllerin/These Fevered Days, combining Schubert’s cycle in a newly orchestrated version with seven new songs after texts by Emily Dickinson. Following the 2024 world premiere with Ensemble Kontraste, highly successful performances followed last season with Klangforum Wien (Klangspuren Schwaz and Vienna Konzerthaus) as well as with the Remix Ensemble in Porto.

His extensive experience singing the Evangelist roles, together with his close working relationship with conductors such as Nagano, Chailly, Herreweghe, Harnoncourt, Luisi, and Gardiner, have provided the perfect base for his increasing dedication to conducting this repertoire as well. Following the success of his conducting debut in 2012 leading Le Concert Lorrain and the Nederlands Kammerkoor, he now regularly conducts renowned ensembles like the Balthasar Neumann Choir, Dresdner Kammerchor, Collegium Vocale Gent, and RIAS Kammerchor. In 2024, he took to the podium for Bach’s St Matthew Passion with Vespres d’Arnadí and the Cor de Cambra del Palau in Barcelona, returning to the latter in 2025 for a tour of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Belgian ensemble Il Gardellino.

The singer has recorded much of his repertoire on a discography of over 150 albums, which have received awards such as the Orphée d’Or of the Académie du Disque Lyrique, the Edison Award, the Cannes Classical Award, and the Diapason d’Or. For the label Challenge Classics, he has recorded Schubert’s Schwanengesang with Andreas Staier and Die schöne Müllerin with Michael Gees, which was selected as Editor’s Choice by Gramophone magazine and awarded the MIDEM Record of the Year award. Shortly thereafter followed recordings of Hugo Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch with Julia Kleiter, Between Life and Death, Wanderer, and the Grammy-nominated Winterreise disc – all with Michael Gees – as well as Father and Son with his son Julian Prégardien. His Schubert CD Poetisches Tagebuch with Julius Drake was awarded the German Critics’ Award 2016. His most recent releases include one recorded in collaboration with the Warsaw Chopin Institute with pianist Christoph Schnackertz featuring songs by Paderewski, Moniuszko and Duparc, and a new recording of Schubert’s Schwanengesang and Schumann’s Liederkreis, Op. 39 (with Julius Drake). In 2023, the Etcetera label released an album of Bach cantatas recorded with Stephan Schultz and Le Concert Lorrain, featuring Christoph Prégardien as baritone.

Teaching remains an important part of Christoph Prégardien’s musical life. Following many years at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Zurich and a professorship at the Academy of Music in Cologne, he continues to give masterclasses for young singers around the world.

less

Julius Drake (piano)

The pianist Julius Drake lives in London and enjoys an international reputation as one of the finest instrumentalists in his field, collaborating with many of the world’s leading artists, both in recital and on disc.
He appears regularly at all the major music centres: the Aldeburgh, Edinburgh, Munich, Schubertiade, and Salzburg Music Festivals; Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Centre New York; the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Philarmonie Berlin; the Châtalet and Musée de Louvre Paris; La Scala Milan and Teatro de la Zarzuela Madrid; Musikverein and Konzerthaus Vienna; and Wigmore Hall and BBC Proms London.
Director of the Perth International Chamber Music Festival in Australia from 2000 - 2003, Julius Drake was also musical director of Deborah Warner’s staging of Janáček’s Diary of One Who Vanished, touring to Munich, London, Dublin, Amsterdam and New York. Since 2009 he has been Artistic Director of the Machynlleth Festival in Wales.
Julius Drake is also a committed teacher and is invited to give master classes worldwide, recently in Aldeburgh, Brussels, Cincinatti, Toronto, Utrecht, and regularly at the Schubert Institute in Baden bei Wien.
He holds a Professorship at Graz University for Music and the Performing Arts in Austria, where he has a class for song pianists.
Julius Drake’s passionate interest in song has led to invitations to devise song series for the Wigmore Hall, London, the BBC and the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. A series of song recitals – Julius Drake and Friends – in the historic Middle Temple Hall in London, has featured recitals with many outstanding vocal artists including Sir Thomas Allen, Olaf Bär, Iestyn Davies, Sergei Leiferkus, Dame Felicity Lott, Simon Keenlyside, Christoph Prégardien, and Sir Willard White.
Julius Drake is frequently invited to perform at international chamber music festivals – most recently, Lockenhaus in Austria; West Cork in Ireland; Oxford in England; Boswil in Switzerland and Delft in the Netherlands.

less

Composer(s)

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer. Schubert already died before his 32nd birthday, but was extremely prolific during his lifetime. His output consists of over six hundred secular vocal works (mainly Lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music and a large body of chamber and piano music. Appreciation of his music while he was alive was limited to a relatively small circle of admirers in Vienna, but interest in his work increased significantly in the decades following his death. Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms and other 19th-century composers discovered and championed his works. Today, Schubert is ranked among the greatest composers of the late Classical and early Romantic eras and is one of the most frequently performed composers of the early nineteenth century.
It was in the genre of the Lied that Schubert made his most indelible mark. Prior to Schubert's influence, Lieder tended toward a strophic, syllabic treatment of text, evoking the folksong qualities engendered by the stirrings of Romantic nationalism. Schubert expanded the potentialities of the genre like no other composer before.

less

Press

Winner of the Jahrespreis of Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik 2016 for the album 'Poetisches Tagebuch'! This yearly prize is the most prestigious critic prize for all music genres in Germany!
Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik 2016 , 30-11-2016

The SACD sound is realistic, doing full justice to the piano as well as the voice, and the texts and translations are very clearly laid out.
Musicweb, 22-8-2016

"To make every word clearly understandable is still a matter of course for this singer. The very well balanced proportion between grand piano and voice also contributes to this on this record. Not a millisecond of reverb too much spoils the concentration of the listener."
Stereo, 01-4-2016

"Despite the sometimes audible age differences cross Prégardien as songs singer still high above quite a few younger colleagues and is his collaboration with Drake is always exceptional."
Luister Magazine, 01-3-2016

"In a true partnership give tenor and pianist piercing, emotionally direct and utterly natural performances, alternately profound lyrical playful and boisterous."
Klassieke Zaken, 01-2-2016

"Even if Prégardiens voice sounds a little autumnal by now and some tone comes out quite brittle, his interpretative skills remain impressive. Like only few other Lied singers he grasps the music as a medium for the words."
Opernwelt, 01-2-2016

["].. As a representation of the ultimate Schubertian theme leads the moon 's visit to reminisce about the past, about what is not there! The song gives a sense of satisfaction in sadness. Prégardien convinces us with its quiet spell that he played this song. "
Klassiek Centraal, 19-1-2016

Article - no quote possible
Fono Forum, 17-1-2016

["]..The effortless might be off by Prégardien, there was lived- in return."
De Volkskrant, 01-12-2015

"The tenor is a storyteller who avoids mannerisms: no reverb, little vibrato, no preoccupation with nice sound. However, he is constantly audible, and he does not avoid the risk. In the highest registers he also has an astonishing resilience, as demonstrated in almost hummed encore Mondnacht. British accompanist Julius Drake showed a sensitive ear for detail. In the perlentränentröpfchen, the death coffin is nailed: they were all audible in the Steinway."
De Volkskrant, 20-11-2015