Serenade by Judith Leyster (1609-1660), in the Rijksmuseum
Let's see how these randomly chosen serenaders make out --
and how they handle, er, lack of response (oops, spoiler!)
Brigitte Fassbaender, mezzo-soprano; with women of the Bavarian State Opera Chorus, Munich; Erik Werba, piano. EMI, recorded in the Bürgerbräu, Munich, June 18-20, 1973
Sarah Walker, mezzo-soprano; with male vocal ensemble (6 tenors, 5 baritones and basses); Graham Johnson, piano. From Vol. 8 of the Hyperion Schubert Edition, recorded May 29-31, 1989
Peter Schreier, tenor; András Schiff, piano. Decca, recorded in the Mozartsaal of the Vienna Konzerthaus, August 1989
Håkan Hagegård, baritone; Emanuel Ax, piano. RCA, recorded in RCA Studio A, New York City, Oct. 31-Nov. 2, 1984
Matthias Goerne, baritone; Alfred Brendel, piano. Decca, recorded live in Wigmore Hall, Nov. 5 & 7, 2003
by Ken
To recapitulate: We have slid through a wormhole into the world of Schubert's serenades. We came by way of matters larkish -- originally my fondly remembered old trio of larks: Haydn's Lark Quartet (Op. 64, No. 5), Nicolai's setting of Shakespeare's "Hark, hark, the lark" in Act II of The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Vaughan Williams's "rhapsody for violin and orchstra The Lark Ascending. (The relevant posts are "Just so you know what we're up to: Three familiar larks, a bonus lark, and (oh yes!) Death and a maiden," Oct. 16, and "If we're musical-lark-harking, we really need to count the number of: (1) 'hark's and (2) stanzas ['finally' (?) updated version]," Nov. 21.
THEN I REMEMBERED THAT SCHUBERT
TOO HAD SET "HARK, HARK, THE LARK"
