Description:

Here comes a rare recording of Brahms' song cycle "Beautiful Magellone" with the splendid faces of Schreier and Schiff, recorded live at the 1997 Montsee Music Week. Since 1989, after the Salzburg Festival was over, a small but intimate music festival has been held in Montsee, and the music director of the festival was Pianist Schreier. The pianist Andras Schiff was the director of the festival (Heinrich Schiff and others succeeded him, and now the Aullin String Quartet is the music director). The Beautiful Magellone" is a love story between Count Peter of Provence and the beautiful Magellone, Princess of Naples. Peter, a young nobleman from Provence, goes on a wandering journey one day, meets and falls in love with Magerone, a beautiful princess from Naples. Peter gives her a ring containing a poem about his passionate love, and the two begin to fall in love with each other. When she is about to be forced to marry another man, Magellone flees Naples with Peter.The two are separated during their journey, but they are united in the end, and the story goes happily ever after. The original poem by Tieck consists of 18 verses, of which Brahms composed 15, and was published in 1869 as Beautiful Magellone Op. 33. The recording was performed with readings between the songs, and the narrator was Gerd Westphal, who had worked in German TV dramas. Gerd Westphal is an actor who has appeared on German TV dramas and has read for various musical productions, from "Glee Song" to jazz. His beautiful German enhances the world of the lieder. Schiff's piano playing was amazingly wonderful, going beyond the boundaries of Lied accompaniment. He skillfully depicts the world of the story with his exquisite storytelling. It goes without saying that Schreier's voice is wonderful as the young aristocrat Peter, and the meeting of the three creates a rare world of "Beautiful Magellone".