Christoph Pregardien, Michael Gees – Schubert: Die Schone Mullerin (2008) [MCH SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC]

Christoph Pregardien, Michael Gees – Schubert: Die Schone Mullerin (2008) [MCH SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 61:38 minutes | Scans included | 3,38 GB
or DSD64 2.0 Stereo (from SACD-ISO to Tracks.dsf) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Full Scans included | 1,44 GB
or FLAC Stereo (carefully converted & encoded to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Full Scans included | 1,24 GB
Features Stereo and Multichannel Surround Sound | Challenge Classics # CC 72292

Christoph Prégardien and Michael Gees are, beyond the shadow of a doubt, among the greatest interpreters of Schubert’s song cycle “Die schöne Müllerin”. The cycle deals with a period in the life of a young miller lad as he wanders along a stream in search of work; he meets a mill-girl and falls in love with her; then loses her to another man and, in deep despair, drowns himself in the millstream. “Die schöne Müllerin” – consisting of twenty songs – is an amazing compendium of the human psych which deals with the miller’s emotions as he finds, and then loses, his love.German tenor Christoph Prégardien has recorded Schubert’s seminal song cycle Die Schöne Mullerin before, with Andreas Staier for Deutsche Harmonia Mundi in 1991. One immediate difference in this recording for Challenge Classics is that Michael Gees serves as accompanist and plays a modern piano rather than a period fortepiano, as did Staier. Moreover, this SACD recording of Die Schöne Mullerin and the early digital DHM are worlds apart; the sound on the DHM is distant, recessed and rather clattery, whereas the Challenge Classics recording is a huge improvement. Prégardien’s voice is attractively centered, and Gees’ piano is captured in a warm perspective that cloaks and envelops the singer. It’s a great sound; as Prégardien’s voice soars, the piano rolls through both right and left channels as waves in a babbling brook, echoing the very sentiments expressed in Wilhelm Müller’s pre-Romantic texts. Prégardien’s interpretation is much the same as it was Staier, though one could argue in the Challenge Classics recording he achieves a greater emotional projection, not to mention a more lightweight delivery in the tenor range; in the DHM recording he had more of a tendency to borrow from the baritone range in order to gain more heft.

That’s not to throw the DHM, still available in August 2008, under the bus; it remains a very good performance, particularly in the domain of versions with a period instrument keyboard. However, this version is clearly superlative; Prégardien has grown with this work in the intervening time and it shows. This is a sensitive reading of Die Schöne Mullerin demonstrating complete integration with the material, in addition to embracing a generally more mainstream kind of performance idiom than the earlier recording. Challenge Classics’ Die Schöne Mullerin with Christoph Prégardien and Michael Gees is a recording worthy of taking pride of place on the shelf alongside such “classic” versions as those by Richard Crooks, Aksel Schiøtz, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and is in considerably better recorded sound than any of them.

Tracklist:

01. Das Wandern
02. Wohin?
03. Halt!
04. Danksagung an den Bach
05. Am Feierabend
06. Der Neugierige
07. Ungeduld
08. Morgengruß
09. Des Müllers Blumen
10. Tränenregen
11. Mein!
12. Pause
13. Mit dem grünen Lautenbande
14. Der Jäger
15. Eifersucht und Stolz
16. Die Liebe Farbe
17. Die böse Farbe
18. Trockne Blumen
19. Der Müller und der Bach
20. Des Baches Wiegenlied

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