Wolf - Lieder
Bostridge; Pappano
EMI 342 2562

Release date August 2006

On hearing this, Ian Bostridge’s first foray into Wolf on CD, the immediate reaction must surely be: why has he waited so long? Here are songs ideally suited to his voice and interpretative powers, and in Antonio Pappano he has a partner who sounds as if he brings fresh ideas to every performance. The disc’s running order works very well: five Eichendorff settings (I loved the way Bostridge lets his voice blossom on key words in Verschwiegene Liebe) followed by seventeen by Morike and two by Goethe. I was particularly moved by the performers’ skill in pulling the listener into Morike’s yearning Im Fruhling and the way they conveyed the intoxication and confusion of love in Auf einer Wanderung. The disc gathers emotional momentum as it progresses, with an especially powerful penultimate track in Goethe’s Gutmann und Gutweib. Rarely can Bostridge have been in finer voice – impeccable clarity of diction, alert to every nuance of meaning, calling on a wide range of vocal colour and tone – and Pappano’s accompaniments are a delight in themselves. A sublime recital!

Reviewed by Anne McAlister