Mozart - Lieder

The Guardian 100

Peter Schreier/Erik Werba
(Belvedere)

Mozart’s songs with piano – 30 of them set to German texts survive – span much of his career as a composer, though they are usually regarded as a relatively insignificant part of his huge output. But they were a regular favourite of the great tenor Peter Schreier, who made two studio recordings of all the settings intended for a male singer. In the earlier of them, his pianist was Jörg Demus; in the other, from close to the end of his career (he retired in 2005), it was András Schiff.

This disc is taken from a recital given in Salzburg during Mozart Week in 1978, when Schreier was at the height of his powers, and for which he was partnered by the veteran accompanist Erik Werba. It’s a treasurable collection of performances, every one a perfect example of Schreier’s supreme art as a lieder singer, one of the greatest of the last half-century. He performs 19 of Mozart’s songs here, in more or less chronological order, together with the strange little cantata to a German humanist text from the last year of the composer’s life, Die ihr des unermesslichen Weitalls Schöpfer ehrt, K619. For two of the settings, he is accompanied by a mandolin rather than piano, immediately conjuring up associations with the serenade in Don Giovanni.