Soprano Tony Arnold and Guitarist Daniel Lippel join forces for a recording of transcriptions of Schubert lieder. Lippel recorded this New Focus release on a copy of a Stauffer 19th century instrument.
Classical Voice of North America
"Lippel and Arnold have an interesting programming idea – the six solo transcriptions are each followed by a voice and guitar arrangement published during Schubert’s day (from a modern edition by Thomas Heck). It works quite well.
These are not easy works – I’ve performed them on guitar myself – and the challenge is to capture Schubert’s heavenly melodies with all the singing sonority they need while at the same time playing the arranged piano accompaniment as support, never interfering. Lippel manages this quite well. “Aufenthalt” storms angrily, “Die Post” dances jauntily (but doesn’t fail to catch the note of despair in poet Wilhelm Müller’s lonely lover), and “Ständchen” is simply irresistible. Was there ever a more beautiful melody?
The competition here is significant. David Leisner recorded these for Azica 71223, with several Mertz solo pieces, in a supremely beautiful performance. Hubert Käppel’s recording is out of print (it also has some transcriptions of late Brahms piano works that are amazing), but can be downloaded on iTunes. But Lippel’s is still a strong performance that will reward the listener." - Ken Keaton