Angelika Kirchschlager, Julius Drake - Liszt: The Complete Songs, Vol. 2 (2012)

This second volume of Hyperion's newest lieder series features the great dramatic and musical gifts of mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager. Internationally renowned on the opera stage, the concert hall and the recording studio, Kirchschlager is an ideal performer of these most varied, complex and emotionally charged songs. She is accompanied by the multi-Gramophone Award-winning Julius Drake, who curates the series. The songs recorded here encompass thirty years of Liszt's life, with texts in German, French and Italian, and contain many examples of the hidden beauties of this undervalued and unknown strand of the composer's works. Detailed and informative notes by Susan Youens and a beautifully intimate recorded sound complete a volume which will be indispensable to any lover of song.