“To enter the world of Mahler’s Wunderhorn songs is like opening a picture book. Each page gives us another character, another fairy tale, another episode, whether happy or tragic, in the tale of human existence … such is the consistency of its musical tone that Mahler achieves a remarkably intense evocation of human life in this collection, portrayed with empathy, humour and compassion,” notes pianist Roger Vignoles in his booklet essay. Some of these celebrated songs are much more familiar in their orchestral versions and pose a great challenge to the pianist; here Roger Vignoles achieves a great level of intimacy, while baritone Stephan Genz performs with the same musical intelligence and passion that characterized their first disc in this series.
