Beethoven: An die Ferne Geliebte; Schoenberg: The Book of the Hanging Gardens; Berg: Altenberg Lieder, etc – review

Gerhaher/Huber (Sony Classical)The Stefan George songs of The Book of the Hanging Gardens and the precocious settings of Peter Altenberg's pithy texts, which Berg composed under the influence of Schoenberg's first atonal masterpiece, are not the most obvious pairings for Beethoven's only song cycle. But Christian Gerhaher clearly views the Second Viennese School songs as a continuation of the German Lied tradition that began with An die Ferne Geliebte. He treats the cycles with the same care for...

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