Gerhard Hüsch - Lieder um den Tod [1] (Kilpinen)

No.1: Vöglein Schwermut & No. 2: Auf einem verfallenen Kirchhof.




with Margaret Kilpinen (piano).
Baritone Hüsch (1901-1984) started his carreer as an actor in 1920, but soon his voice was discovered and trained by Hans Emge in Hannover. He gave his debut as a singer in Bremen in 1923 and for several years was a member of smaller houses, until he arrived at the Berlin City Opera in 1930. Here he remained until 1935, by which time his fame as a song interpreter had grown to such proportions that he thought of giving up opera altogether. Nevertheless, he appeared at the Berlin State Opera between 1937 and 1944. His open support for the fascist regime more or less ended his European carreer in 1945, but he continued to appear (and record) in Japan in the 1950s.
Hüsch is considered by most experts to be one of the most important Lieder singers of the century, and he was the first one to promote internationally the works of Finnish composer Yrjö Kilpinen. Kilpinen had studied composition in Austria and Germany but his considerable song output (almost 800 in total) to me seems to be more influenced by his private studies with Toivo Kuula, another composers whose works are too seldom performed. Hüsch had studied several of Kilpinens songs with the composer, who sometimes accompanied him. For his recordings of Kilpinens songs, the composer changed places with his wife, who was an accomplished pianist and had studied with Eduard Erdmann. As I feel that Kilpinens songs lose som eof their qualities when presented out of their intended context, I decided to upload the whole cycle of this exceptional "Songs about Death. These were pressed in 1935 by HMV in a limited edition of 250 copies, and the quality is, as usual for British pressings from the 1930s on (sorry), lousy. As most of you might not be familiar with the songs or the poems by Christian Morgenstern Kilpinen used, I included an English translation of the lyrics in the video. I used an English translation that was printed in the booklet accompanying the original discs and corrected a few obvious mistakes - I just hoped I havent added some ...
HMV master 2EA 1251-2, rec. London, February 8 1935.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• song
• Lied
• Gerhard
• Hüsch
• baritone
• Margaret
• Yrjö
• Kilpinen
• Christian
• Morgenstern
• HMV

[christophleipzig]

Starkes Lied!

[gorilius]

Thank you for posting these wonderful nearly forgotten Lieder. Huesch's interpretation was the best ever. Powerful!