Schumann's 'Year of Song' in 1840, inspired by his love for Clara Wieck and impending marriage, saw him compose almost 140 songs, over half his total output.
Performer Biography
Thomas E. Bauer, the baritone on this recording, was a chorister at Regensburg Cathedral and has won several awards, including the Schneider-Schott prize for contemporary music.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Schumann's settings of Heinrich Heine's poems capture the poet's characteristic irony not as sudden musical points, but as an overall tension between the vocal part and piano accompaniment.
Composer Biography
Robert Schumann, the composer, met the famous poet Heinrich Heine when Schumann was eighteen, expecting a sullen man but finding him friendly.
Compositional Technique
In Schumann's Dichterliebe, the piano plays an unusually independent role, with extended postludes and a final postlude that reflects and meditates on the entire cycle.
Performer Biography
Uta Hielscher, the pianist, was born in Tokyo and has won the Jugend musiziert prize, the German Music Competition, and the International Chamber Music Competition in Pavia.
