Schumann
Liederkreis, Kernerlieder
Matthias Goerne b-bar, Leif Ove Andsnes p
Harmonia Mundi HMM902353

Vocal Recording of the Year

Head and heart: Matthias Goerne and Leif Ove Andsnes wed voice and piano in equal doses of drama and poetry

In Schumann’s world, everything seems to be upside down. It’s very exciting because you feel there is something not in the right place and sense this enormous tension between the music and the text. – Matthias Goerne

His 12-disc traversal of Schubert’s songs done and dusted, German bass-baritone Matthias Goerne turns to unfinished business with Robert Schumann to revisit the Op. 24 Heinrich Heine Liederkreis and offer his first recording of the dozen Op. 35 poems by Justinus Kerner.

In the company of the elegant but incisive Leif Ove Andsnes, Goerne’s 51-year-old voice has changed. Darker hues impinging on the centre and around the edges of his still beautiful, burnished and flexible baritone suggest the increasing gravity of encroaching years. But there is also a markedly more...