Friedrich Silcher:
Frisch gesungen
Ännchen von Tharau
O wie herbe ist das Scheiden
Loreley

Franz Schubert:
Erlkönig, D 328
Wanderers Nachtlied, D 768
Zum Rundtanz, D 983/3
Die Nacht, D 983/4
Im Abendrot, D 799
Fischers Liebesglück, D 933
Auf dem Wasser zu singen, D 774
Der Zwerg, D 771
Meeres Stille, D 216
Widerspruch, D 865
Licht und Liebe, D 352
Nacht und Träume, D 827

Hermann Zilcher:
Fünf Duette für zwei Singstimmen und zwei Mundharmonikas in C, Op. 109

Johannes Brahms:
Die Sonne scheint nicht mehr
In stiller Nacht
Erlaube mir, feins Mädchen
Da unten im Tale (all songs arranged for two voices by Hermann Zilcher)

Robert Schumann:
Nachtlied, Op. 96/1

Cesar Brsegen:
O du stille Zeit

Weißt du, wieviel Sternlein stehen? (Anonymous, German folksong)

The conditions under which Schubert’s art of the song developed into a kaleidoscopically incandescent spectrum that crossed over genres and the institutionally set, historical boundaries disappear today as a rule under the pedestal that the late nineteenth century began to erect for the composer. The traces of improvisational practice were increasingly lost within a music culture that stylised the printed manuscript into a quasi sacred object. A particularly successful way of leading back to a fundamental impetus in Schubert’s art of the song is through an approach towards the songs that takes the moment of spontaneous performance seriously as a communicative act, without denying the work character of Schubert’s music. The idea of ‘one’ universal human voice seems to materialise with particular intensity in the commingling of two voices of similar timbre, which can permanently interchange and double their identity. Based on our knowledge for instance of the Schubertiade reminiscences of 1868, remembered and noted down by Moritz von Schwind, can we not imagine that the ‘Schubert singers’ Johann Michael Vogl and Karl von Schönstein might indeed have sung alternately (or even in unison)?

In our arrangements we first and foremost wanted an encounter with the prodigious complexity of Schubert’s oeuvre in lied and to show that boundaries overlap! Schubert composed the song “Widerspruch” (Contradiction) in two versions in any case – namely the solo version and as an ensemble lied – and we are now in a way adding a third. With “Licht und Liebe” (Light and Love) we have also included an original composition for two voices, as well as dramatic ballads, convivial vocal ensembles and elegiacally meditative solo songs which we have “heard” anew and arranged in various ways. (Julian Prégardien)

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Recorded at Evangelisch Lutherse kerk Haarlem, 21th - 24th March 2014. Reedycja wydania CC 72645 z 2014 roku.