Renée Fleming - Sieben frühe Lieder - Berg LIVE (2007) plus "An Leukon"

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Seven Early Songs and An Leukon

No. 1 Nacht
No. 2 Schilflied
No. 3 Die Nachtigall
No. 4 Traumgekrönt
No. 5 Im Zimmer
An Leukon (UK premiere) arranged: Chris Gordon
No. 6 Liebesode
No. 7 Sommertage

Renée Fleming
Conductor: Gianandrea Noseda
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

I absolutely adore Berg's Sieben frühe Lieder (Seven early songs) - the incredible beauty of the vocal writing, Berg's sensuous response to the texts, and his magnificent orchestration which he furnished the songs with in 1928, at the height of his powers, two decades after he wrote them. Berg is one of the most consummate masters of the orchestra - of his era only Strauss, Schoeck, Ives and Janacek match him for range, sheer beauty and aural imagination in this regard.

In this performance singer, orchestra and conductor give full rein to the music's intoxicating, almost feverish sensuality, Renée Fleming's trademark lyricism finding itself in ideal repertoire. Added to the familiar seven early songs is an extra early song by Berg "An Leukon" here given its UK premiere (12:05). It was orchestrated in Bergian style by Chris Gordon. In the same concert she sang some excerpts from Korngold operas (I will post versions of these soon)

Renée Fleming sang these songs several times in the mid 2000s, one particularly fine live performance with Abbado/Berlin Phil being released together with Mahler 4th symphony. It's one of her most exquisite discs in fact - the Berg is more refined, poetic and mysterious than the reading we get here, which is by comparison more overtly passionate and urgent (more operatic shall we say). Although she has never sung Marie or Lulu on stage, she actually recorded extracts of both roles in her first major commercial recording in 1993 - Levine and the Met orchestra give sublimely beautiful support - another disc really worth seeking out: rarely has Berg sounded more lushly romantic. Also in the mid 2000s she gave several performances of the Altenberg Lieder which represent a slightly more "advanced" tonal/atonal idiom, and then in 2015 with the Emerson Quartet she recorded the "secret song" contained within the last movement of Berg's Lyric Suite.

The original video broadcast had very distorted sound on all the high notes, so I have spliced together the image with a higher quality radio broadcast. I plan to do the same with the Korngold songs from the same concert.

Видео Renée Fleming - Sieben frühe Lieder - Berg LIVE (2007) plus "An Leukon" канала Great moments of opera