Rural exodus and urban addiction
The songs by Eugen Meier on texts in Valais German by Hannes Taugwalder alternate here with songs in High German by Swiss composers.
When the Aargau pianist Werner Schmid, together with the soprano Christina Lang and the mezzo-soprano Margrita Sarbach, recorded the pioneering CD And 's Meiteli sings mostly unknown children's and dialect songs by Swiss composers, samples stood out from the booklet Songs from around the valley by Eugen Meier because of their distinctive Valais dialect.
The soprano Franziska Heinzen and the pianist Benjamin Mead have now recorded all but two of the 16 songs based on texts by the writer and industrialist Hannes Taugwalder (1910-2007), who grew up in Zermatt, for the first time. Compared to the first edition from 1981, some of them have been expanded with pianistic introductions and postludes.
Born in Aargau in 1934 and trained in Vienna by Julius Patzak and Hans Swarowsky, the composer, conductor and teacher Eugen Meier has lived and worked in Valais, which has become his second home, since 1961. His works, which deal with longing, love and closeness to nature Songs from around the valley are heard on this cleverly conceived CD with the subtitle "An Homage to Swiss Art Song", alternating with carefully selected, thematically related songs on German-language texts by Hesse, Lenau, C. F. Meyer, Morgenstern and Storm, among others. Settings by well-known composers such as Joachim Raff, Othmar Schoeck, Frank Martin and Heinz Holliger alternate with contemporary contributions by Isabel Mundry and Werner Bärtschi on the one hand, and songs by long-forgotten composers such as Walter Courvoisier, Emil Frey and Hermann von Glenck on the other.
Originally from the canton of Valais, Franziska Heinzen guarantees an authentic rendition of the text. Songs from around the valleywhich she sings with a folk-song-like simplicity of tone. In the mostly late-romantic art songs, she drifts into the operatic with a strong vibrato, especially in the high registers. This is in contrast to Hans Huber, for example, who in the Girl's song op. 61 No. 3 "flattering, with the most delicate expression". Discreetly supported on the piano by Benjamin Mead, the singer gives the impression that she has to break out of the reservation of rustic Valais music in order to win over an urban audience with a more expressive style of singing.
Songs from around the valley. Franziska Heinzen, soprano, Benjamin Mead, piano. Prospero PROSP 0062
