Franz Liszt: Songs for Bass Voice & Piano – Jared Schwartz

Throughout Liszt’s long career, his songs – perhaps the most neglected part of his enormous output – took a radical approach to form, eschewing convention in search of a sincere musical response to each text. His free-spirited creativity meant that a single song would often call on a range of stylistic devices, among them bel canto vocal lines, unaccompanied recitative, orchestrally conceived piano textures and audacious harmonic procedures. This first recording of Liszt songs by a bass voice brings out both the power and poetry of his remarkable imagination.

Reviews

Gramophone Magazine January 2018

“Schwartz’s tone sometimes acquires a pulse in his middle registers but the intensity and emotional range of his singing are consistently compelling…He’s at his best in the late, unsparing reflections on mortality…The grander, extrovert numbers are comparably impressive.