CD/DVD Releases -Week of April 17: Christiane Karg and Christian Gerhaher Headline New Releases

By Francisco Salazar

Two distinct solo albums headline this week’s new releases. Christian Gerhaher will take on a journey through a song cycle while Christine Karg will take you on a poetic journey.

Johannes Brahms’ “Die schöne Magelone”

Sony Classical releases a Brahms song cycle featuring baritone Christian Gerhaher, together with his long-time piano partner Gerold Huber. The cycle in question is “The Beautiful Magelone,” which was composed in the 1860s. A unique feature of this recording is that it will not use the original text utilized by Brahms. Instead, the great German writer and Buchner Prize-winner Martin Walser wrote a modern version of the texts and took over the role of the speaker. Gerhaher has noted particular enthusiasm for this decision as he regarded the original narrative as linguistically too old-fashioned. The CD was released internationally and this week comes to the US.

Parfum 

This week Christiane Karg releases her new album dedicated to poetry from works by Duparc, Koechlin, Debussy, and Ravel. Her selection also includes an early composition by Benjamin Britten, which in turn was inspired by Debussy and Ravel. Karg is accompanied by the Bamburger Symphoniker and conducted by David Afkham. The CD will be released by Berlin Classics. 

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