Wiener Spätromantik - Late Viennese Romanticism
Lieder by Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler, Alban Berg and Richard Strauss
Jale Papila alto
Michael Balke piano
The colors of autumn, a full, evocative alto voice and rich, complex piano playing. The Genuin CD featuring Viennese songs from around 1900 bears witness to a world which was forever lost after the end of the First World War. A world which saw figures such as Gustav Mahler, Siegmund Freud, Richard Strauss and Egon Schiele as well as Alban Berg and Arthur Schnitzler in their prime. Theirs was perhaps the last phase in history where song composers spoke of tranquility and quiet, spoke of yesterday and tomorrow. Jale Papila (alto) and Michael Balke (piano) reward listeners with sustained lines and an eye for detail in more than twenty of these precious works which, despite their contrasts and inherently mournful air, give listeners a sense that "Tomorrow," as Richard Strauss composed in his song, "the sun will shine again."