Beethoven:
Aus Goethes Faust Op 75 No 3
Loewe:
Edward Op 1 No 1
Loewe:
Die wandelnde Glocke Op 20 No 3
Schubert:
Erlkönig D328
Schumann:
Die Löwenbraut Op 31 No 1
Schumann:
Der Schatzgräber Op 45 No 1
Brahms:
Es war ein Markgraf überm Rhein WoO33 No 29
Wolf:
Der Feuerreiter No 44 of Gedichte von Eduard Mörike
Mahler:
Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen
Stanford:
La belle dame sans merci
Scott:
Lord Randall
Sullivan:
The Lost Chord
Emanuel:
The Desert
Porter:
The Tale of the Oyster

This latest release from the multi-award-winning partnership of Gerald Finley and Julius Drake features a literary and musical form which inspired the greatest voices of German Romanticism. The foremost poets and composers of the age saw the ballad as a direct link to the folk-minstrels of the past. Frequently ghoulish and sensational in character, ballads satisfied the popular taste for the Gothic. This disc contains some of the greatest examples of the form, including Schubert’s Erlkönig, as well as some fascinating and lesser-known works. The disc also includes selections from the everpopular English ballad tradition.

Gerald Finley’s unrivalled gift for characterization and story-telling, honed both on the stages of opera houses around the world and through his extraordinary Lieder recordings, makes him the ideal performer of these works. This is a genuinely entertaining and original disc.