Sämtliche Lieder für Singstimme und Klavier
(Weihnachtslieder, Frühe und späte Lieder, Kinderlieder, etc.)
Complete Songs for Voice and Piano
(Christmas Songs, Early and Late Songs, Childrens’ Songs, and others)
Sibylla Rubens, soprano ·
Christine Müller, mezzosoprano
Thomas Bauer, baritone ·
Andreas Weller, Tenor
Chia Chou, piano ·
Uta Hielscher, piano
Engelbert Humperdinck’s fairy-tale opera Hansel and Gretel is one of the hits
of the operatic repertoire, the opera The King’s Children can at least be heard
now and again. The rest of Humperdinck’s vocal works however enjoy a
niche market. This double-CD set includes the complete oeuvre for a singing
voice and the piano. This includes numerous Christmas songs, songs based on
children’s rhymes and songs based on lyrical texts from poets in Humperdinck’s
vicinity. It is the early songs, until ca. 1890, that demonstrate the great admiration
of the composer for Richard Wagner, who studied under Hiller in Cologne
and under Lachner and Rheinberger in Munich. The convergence with the style
of the folk song and its unostentatious diction explains the great popularity of
many of the songs, which also appear as adaptations for choirs, orchestras and
chamber ensembles.
The present recording is based on a new musicological edition that was
prepared by the Music Work Shop of Engelbert Humperdinck in Siegburg.
Engelbert Humperdinck: Lieder
Hänsel und Gretel, one of the three most
performed operas in the world – the others
being Zauberflöte and Carmen – became
Engelbert Humperdinck’s fate: while his posthumous
glory quickly faded after his death in
1921, this successful opera continued triumphant
on stages throughout the world after
its premiere in 1893. Today, the name Humperdinck
is connected only with this one work
– occasional productions of his second, ambitious
opera Königskinder notwithstanding – as
well as with the doubtful attribute of being a
Wagner imitator.
When the 26-year-old Humperdinck was introduced
to Richard Wagner in 1880 in Naples,
he had already completed his studies at the
Cologne Music Conservatory with Ferdinand
Hiller and in Munich with Franz Lachner and
Gabriel Josef Rheinberger at the Royal School
of Music. This traditional but painstaking conservatory
training became the foundation of
his virtuosic mastery of composition, as Humperdinck’s
unusually polyphonic – but always
delicate and transparent – orchestral writing
shows, proving the great writer of melodies to
be just as great a contrapuntal composer and
master of orchestration.
Hänsel und Gretel brought Humperdinck
fame and financial independence. In 1897, the
premiere of the first version of Königskinder
followed; in 1900 he was appointed director
of a master class for composition at the Royal
Academy of Arts in Berlin. His second worldwide
success and the crowning achievement
in his oeuvre was the second version of the
fairy-tale opera Königskinder (1910). From 1911
to 1920, Humperdinck was the director of the
theory and composition department of the Royal
University of Music in Berlin. Highly esteemed
as a teacher, his students included Siegfried
Wagner, Carl Schuricht and Leo Blech, among
others. He died in Neustrelitz in 1921.
Above all, Humperdinck was a stage and
vocal composer. His earliest successes were
ballads for chorus; his major works are six
operas. In addition, he wrote stage music
for countless Shakespeare dramas and was
in great demand as a publisher of numerous
children’s and folksong collections. The only
genre he continually wrote for, from the time
of his youth until his very last years, was the
Lied.
His first explorations in this genre are still oriented
on Mozart and Schubert (Der Garten,
Vom Häslein und Mägdlein). He wrote his first
masterpiece in 1875: the unfinished Ballade.
Humperdinck only implied the close of this
work, because it was apparently meant to
take up an earlier passage again. In the edition
used for this recording, publisher Christian
Ubber has provided a version that adds an
ending to the work in the manner that Humperdinck
presumably intended.
Due to the many Lieder Humperdinck composed
in 1876, this year can be called his
“Lied-year”. The jump in quality is evident:
vocal lines become more melodic; piano accompaniments
show a finer sense of the
instrument. The two Lieder with the title Oft
sinn ich hin und wieder, which are completely
different from one another (and can thus not
be referred to as two “versions” of one Lied,
but are two different compositions), each expressing
different moods, characterizing the
same text differently and with different musical
means. The same is true for the three compositions
In einem kühlen Grunde. The Lied
Der Ungenannten finally won Humperdinck
the Frankfurt Mozart Prize in 1876.
Two Lieder in particular show Humperdinck
to be a Wagner admirer: Die Wasserrose
(1878), written immediately after Humperdinck
had seen the complete Ring des Nibelungen
in Munich, and Scheiden (1882), the first Lied
composed after Humperdinck met Wagner.
The independent, orchestral piano accompaniment
elucidates the text, e.g. using harmony
(chromatics, contrasting keys); the voice is
only one of several equally important voices.
The immediate influence of Wagner must be
understood as a characteristic of Humperdinck’s
early period; at this time he did not yet
have his own true style and was searching
through a broad palette of styles and techniques.
Only gradually did he develop his own
style out of the many influences that he experienced
from Rheinberger and Wagner.
His stylistic proximity to Wagner can be
relativized, even if some later Lieder still show
Wagnerian stylistic elements (e.g. Sonntagsruhe
with its reminiscences of Parsifal).
The focus on melody which comes ever more
strongly to the foreground shows much more
nearness to the folksong. Most of Humperdinck’s
Lieder written after 1882, with their
catchy melodies, have a touch of the
traditional, while simultaneously having carefully,
almost chamber-musical crafting with high
motivic density. Examples of such songs include
Romanze, Liebesorakel, Wiegenlied,
Am Rhein, Rosmarin or his Christmas songs.
The musical and technical demands of many
of these songs are relatively simple – despite
the highest compositional expertise that went
into them – because Humperdinck wrote them
for lay musicians. Not without reason were
they so popular in the composer’s lifetime.
They appeared in countless arrangements: for
men’s a cappella chorus, for orchestra, string
or salon orchestra, and for every imaginable
type of chamber ensemble. Humperdinck’s
closeness to the ‘common folk’ also showed
itself in his use of texts in dialect (Oi’ Schwalb’
macht koi’n Sommer).
It is conspicuous, however, that Humperdinck
set few literarily top-rate poems. He often
set – mostly for reasons of courtesy – texts
from his personal environment, e.g. by his
father Gustav or sister Adelheid Wette. This
means that many of his occasional compositions
such as the Mosel wine songs, Am Rhein
or the Lied for Boer General Christian de Wet
have a weak text and remain musically simple
throughout. Lieder such as the last-mentioned,
or the Kaiserlied or Reiterlied from Bunte Welt
also show Humperdinck’s conservative political
mentality.
The last Lied in the cycle Junge Lieder,
Maiahnung, is a so-called ‘bound’ melodrama
for “speech voice”, whose pitch is fixed in
notes. Humperdinck developed this procedure
for his second opera Königskinder (first
version, 1897). He was searching for a middle
course between speaking and singing that
would allow a focus sometimes more on singing,
sometimes more on speaking, depending
on the expression needed. For the first time,
the melodrama was expanded for an entire
stage work; the linking of the speaking voice
to pitch was also new. (Sprechgesang – or
“speech-song” – was repeatedly used during
the 20th century, but its invention is often
falsely attributed to Schoenberg.) It is not
surprising that Humperdinck used this ‘bound’
melodrama not only in opera but in Lied as
well; the reason is the same thematic material:
love and the month of May. The Jungen Lieder
are doubtless the apex of Humperdinck’s
Lieder. They were published in 1898 as part
of a precious edition entitled Trifolium. Moritz
Leiffmann (texts), Engelbert Humperdinck and
Alexander Frenz (illustrations) created a gesamtkunstwerk
in which poetry, music and art
were meant to be equals.
As of circa 1905, a stylistic change becomes
evident in Humperdinck’s Lieder: they
are simpler in style, harmony and form. This
was accompanied by a conspicuous preference
for children’s songs, e.g. the Sang und
Klang fürs Kinderherz collection published by
Humperdinck. In addition to this came commissioned
works such as Hab ein Blümlein
gefunden or the Dideldumdei and Bunte Welt
cycles. Among Humperdinck’s many cradle
songs, Su, su, su, du Windchen has a particular
status as evidence of the composer’s long
friendship with Hugo Wolf. Many years after
Wolf’s death, while suffering from mental derangement,
Humperdinck took Wolf’s small
Piano Piece in G Major and composed a melodic
line to it based on a text from his sister
Adelheid.
The Musikwerkstatt Engelbert Humperdinck
Siegburg, called to life in the city of
the composer’s birth, has published Humperdinck’s
Lieder in a new complete edition that
makes many of these songs available for the
first time – or for the first time in many years.
This complete recording of his songs is based
on the musical edition and emphasizes the significance
of a late-romantic composer located
clearly between tradition and modernity, one
who is well worth rediscovering.
Christian Ubber
Translation: Elizabeth Gahbler
The Artists
SIBYLLA RUBENS · Soprano
Sibylla Rubens studied concert and opera
singing at the State Academy in Trossingen
and at the Academy for Music and Theater
in Frankfurt a.M. She was a member
of Irwin Gage’s master class for Lied and
supplemented her training with numerous
master classes, e.g. with Edith Mathis and
Elsa Cavelti in Basel.
The highlights of her concert activities
until now include appearances with the Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra under Philippe
Herreweghe,
with Hartmut Haenchen, Heinrich
Schiff, Heinz Holliger and Jeffrey Tate.
Sibylla Rubens works especially closely
with Helmuth Rilling and the Stuttgart Bach
Academy.
Numerous recordings attest to this
work, including many Bach cantatas as well
as the composer’s Christmas Oratorio and
Mass in B Minor. She also tours regularly with
Philippe Herreweghe and his Collegium Vocale
Gent. In addition, she has appeared with
such conductors as Roger Norrington, Herbert
Blomstedt, Ton Koopman, Peter Schreier,
Heinrich Schiff, Leopold Hager, Jonathan Nott,
Michael Gielen, Marek Janowski and Christian
Thielemann.
Sibylla Rubens gave her first Lied recital
with Irwin Gage in 1999 at the Ludwigsburg
Schlossfestspiele, followed by recitals in Barcelona,
Amsterdam und Nuremberg. The artist
has recorded numerous CDs on renowned
labels.
Christine Müller · Mezzosoprano
Christine Müller studied voice at the State
Academy in Trossingen and at the Academy
of Music in Vienna. Master classes with
Brigitte Fassbaender, Edith Mathis and Jessica
Cash, among others, as well as work
with Elisabeth Glauser and Anna Reynolds
supplemented her studies. In addition to vocal
studies, she completed degrees in musicology
and art history in Tübingen and Vienna.
In the meantime, Christine Müller is in
demand in concert halls nationally and internationally.
Her multifaceted repertoire ranges from
baroque music to works of the 20th century.
Christine Müller has made a name for herself
as an instructor at the Academies in Trossingen
and Rottenburg as well as of master classes.
Vocal chamber music plays an important
part in her artistic activities. She works with
such pianists as Anthony Spiri, Ulrich Eisenlohr,
Chia Chou and Uta Hielscher.
Thanks to her musicological training,
Christine Müller often works together with
archives to uncover forgotten musical treasures.
Her next recording project will be
dedicated to works of the 19th century and fin
d’siècle French vocal music.
Andreas Weler · tenor
Stuttgart tenor Andreas Weller received his
first vocal training at the age of eight as a
member of the Stuttgart Hymnus-Chorknaben.
He began university vocal studies with Prof.
Bruce Abel at the Music Academy Stuttgart,
where he simultaneously studied vocal and
orchestral conducting.
From 1998 to 2000, he completed additional
studies with James Wagner at the Academy
for Music and Theater in Hamburg followed
by studies in Wagner’s solo class at the Music
Academy of Lübeck. In 2005 he completed his
studies in Christoph Prégardien’s solo class
and together with his piano accompanist Götz
Payer, in an additional course of studies in
Lied duo with Irwin Gage at the Academy of
Music in Zurich.
Andreas Weller is internationally renowned
as an Evangelist and oratorio singer. He has
sung under Frieder Bernius, Helmuth Rilling,
Philippe Herreweghe, Sigiswald Kuijken,
Masaaki Suzuki, William Christie, Daniel Harding,
Marcus Creed, Konrad Junghänel, Thomas
Hengelbrock, Enoch zu Guttenberg, Hartmut
Höll, Roger Vignoles and The King’s Singers and
appeared with renowned international festivals.
He has participated in numerous CD productions
and was a prizewinner of numerous
competitions, including the Elise Meyer-Competition
Hamburg, Michel Vocal Competition
Hamburg as well as the 13th International
Bach Competition in Leipzig.
Thomas E. Bauer · Bariton
Thomas E. Bauer is the winner of many
prizes and one of the most renowned
baritones today. In 2003 he was awarded
the “Schneider-Schott Musikpreis” for his
outstanding performance of contemporary
music as well as the coveted “Aoyama Music
Award” for his debut Lied recital in the Japanese
Emperor city of Kyoto.
Thomas E. Bauer works with conductors
like Bernard Haitink, Philippe Herreweghe,
Krzysztof Penderecki, Jos van Immerseel and
Ivan Fischer and currently concertizes in
the Gewandhaus Leipzig, Konzerthaus Wien,
Accademia Santa Cecilia Rom, Palais des
Beaux Arts Brüssel, Cité de la Musique Paris,
Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Chicago Auditorium,
Tokyo Metropolitan and the Berlin,
Cologne and Munich Philharmonic Halls.
His repertoire ranges from Notre-Dame
school organum to music of the 21st century.
Thomas E. Bauer has become known to a
broad sector of the public in recent years
with spectacular musical projects such as
his role as the protagonist in Moritz Eggert’s
soccer oratorio Die Tiefe des Raumes.
Klaus Voswinckel’s documentary “Winterreise
– Schubert in Sibiria”, about Bauer’s
adventurous
concert trip from Moscow to
Peking, now finds its acoustic sequel in a
spectacular live concert recording from
Irkutsk, now released by OehmsClassics
(OC 907).
Uta Hielscher · Piano
The Tokyo-born pianist studied at the
Academy
for Theater and Music in Munich
with Michael Schäfer, Siegfried Mauser and
Helmut Deutsch. She won prizes and scholarships
at the “Deutscher Musikwettbewerb”,
the “Konzerte junger Künstler” and the International
Chamber Music Competition in Pavia.
In 2003, she was awarded the Aoyama Music
Award Kyoto.
Uta Hielscher has performed at such
venues
as the Schleswig-Holstein Music
Festival, the International Beethoven Festival
Bonn, the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, the
Schwetzinger Festival, the Académies Musicales
Saintes, the Munich Opera Festival, the
Mahler Festival Toblach, the Lofoten Festival
and the Vocal Journeys Chicago as well as
many other festivals in Europe, the USA,
Japan, North Africa and the Middle East.
The pianist has often impressed critics:
she embodies the type of interpreter who
– as the Süddeutsche Zeitung put it – does
not simply accompany in the conventional
sense, but “who strongly emphasizes her own
personality in a manner that makes true duoperformances
possible”.
Chia Chou · Piano
Chia Chou was born in Taiwan and grew up
in Canada, where he performed in public
for the first time at the age of seven. After
completing school, he studied with Prof. Lieselotte
Gierth at the Stuttgart Music Academy,
where he also obtained his diploma. While
still a student, Chia Chou won first prizes at
the Mendelssohn-Competition in Berlin and
the Sydney International Piano Competition,
subsequently concertizing in Europe, Australia,
New Zealand, Canada, Asia and the
USA. He also won the Bronze Medal at the
Concours Reine Elisabeth in Brussels.
In Germany he has appeared with conductors
such as James Conlon, Charles Dutoit,
Karl Münchinger and Edmond de Stoutz
and with orchestras such as the Weimar
Staatskapelle, Dusseldorf Symphonic, RSO
Stuttgart and Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne.
Chia Chou has been a member of the Trio
Parnassus since 1990. The ensemble was
awarded the “Echo Klassik” prize in 2001 and
the “Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik”
in 2006.
Chia Chou was appointed professor of
chamber music at the University for Music
and Performing Arts in Graz in 2004.