Taking as its cue the Frauenliebe und -Leben cycles by Robert Schumann and Carl Loewe, this captivating duet recital follows the poet Chamisso’s story of a single woman’s life and love, expanding it to encompass the life stories of two women as they share and compare their experiences. As part of this broadening of the story we also hear songs and duets on the themes of love, marriage, motherhood and bereavement by Brahms, Mendelssohn and Wolf. Hyperion’s much-loved soprano Felicity Lott is here joined by the young, sought-after mezzo Angelika Kirchschlager who won a Grammy award in 2004 for her recording with René Jacobs of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro.

SUPERSONIC AWARD - PIZZICATO MAGAZINE

'The performances give unalloyed pleasure. Lott's still-radiant soprano combines beautifully with with the vibrant, musky mezzo of Kirchschlanger, while Johnson's sentient playing is a delight' (Gramophone)

'Felicity Lott and Angelika Kirchschlager give delightfully characterised performances, whle Johnson's playing is typically sensitive and pointed … an ingeniously planned and beautifully executed duet recital' (The Daily Telegraph)

'I'll leave you to experience the conjuring for yourself. For conjuring it is: any element of the didactic is totally absent in this seamless garment of word and music. Fragments of the Schumann we know and love surface and return like a mantra bedding itself deeper and deeper into the subconscious, as a point of reference for the outstanding performances of all three musicians. And, at the end, Johnson's postlude to the Schumann elides into the entwined voices of Brahms's Klänge - only to return as a curtain slowly falling at the end of a recital as near perfection as I know' (BBC Music Magazine)

'Avec de telles artistes, on savait qu’on allait etre musicalement comblés. Grandes habituées de l’exercice de Liederabend, elles rivalisent de musicalité, d’émotions et de compréhension des textes. Graham Jonhson est comme a son habitude un modele d’attention a ses chanteuses. La qualité de la notice de présentation témoigne encore du savoir-faire Hyperion dans le domaine du disque de lieder' (www.resmusica.com)

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Recording details: August 2005; All Saints, Tooting, United Kingdom; Produced by Mark Brown; Engineered by Julian Millard; Release date: May 2006;