Schubert: Lieder, Vol. 1;

Ian Bostridge has chosen a kaleidoscopic variety of songs by the greatest of all songwriters. The attractions and challenges of these songs are poetic and dramatic as well as musical, and Bostridge and Drake mobilize a wide range of expressive skills to reinforce their pure musicianship. They are intensely involved in storytelling in the playfully serious "Die Forelle" (The Trout) and "Heidenroeslein" (Wild Rose), in the grotesque "Der Zwerg" (The Dwarf) and the spooky "Erlkonig," which gallops through a story of a fruitless race against death. Tranquility reigns in the "Wandrers Nachtlied" (Wanderer's Night Song) I and II; hushed awe in "An die Musik" (To Music--a performance that brings tears to my eyes) and "Du bist die Ruh" (You are Peace); and idealistic love in the Shakespearean "An Sylvia" ("To Sylvia"). Each song creates a world of its own, superbly embodied in these performances. --Joe McLellan