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Read tenor Benjamin Brecher’s bio

Read pianist Robert Koenig’s bio

Tenor Benjamin Brecher and pianist Robert Koenig have created a sweet jewel of a CD for MSR Classics. Forgotten Liszt: Songs for Tenor and Piano is a 2016 release with fascinating pretext and unusual programming. At the suggestion of Liszt scholar Dr. Michael Vitalino who discovered a large swath of Liszt’s art songs that had fallen out of the repertoire, Brecher and Koenig set about recording 12 of them. A few, like the three Sonetti del Petrarca are not unfamiliar to singers and audiences but most, especially early first versions of songs, have been dusted off and prepared for this recording, fomenting fresh insight into Liszt’s tastes and temperament. Six songs on this disc are world premieres.
Benjamin Brecher is Professor of Voice and Area Head for the Voice Program at the University of California Santa Barbara. Well known to Opera Santa Barbara audiences, Brecher maintains a busy opera and concert schedule in the United States and beyond. A graduate of The Juilliard Opera Center, New England Conservatory of Music and Bowling Green State University, Brecher joined the UCSB music faculty in 2008. Robert Koenig is Professor of Keyboard and Chair of the Department of Music at UC Santa Barbara specializing in collaborative piano and chamber music. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, he enjoys an active career nationally and internationally as a soloist and collaborative pianist for many of the world’s great musicians. He has been on the faculty at UC Santa Barbara since 2007.
The first two art songs on Forgotten Liszt are world premiere recordings; first versions by the composer of Angiolin dal Biondo crin with a lovely piano intro and sweet timbre to Brecher’s mid-high voice and Die Lorelei, favored with clear diction and delicacy in voicing, clean high notes with perfect intonation on Brecher’s part, Koenig’s keyboard collaborations bringing moods and images vividly to life. A third, much later version of Die Lorelai, now using a French translation (La Loreley) is next up - the writing more complex and exposed for both voice and piano, including challenging but glorious high tessitura moments for tenor, fantastically expressive writing for piano and a dramatic last couple of bars for tenor, exquisitely realized by Brecher.
Three Petrarch Sonnets are likely the most recognizable to listeners because of their original iterations as solo piano pieces. Refreshing to hear with Petrach’s texts, Sonnets 47, 104 and 123 are beyond song in scope and imagination, more like bravura grand arias for both instruments. Brecher and Koenig make a particularly good case for the last, I’vidi in terra angelici costumi (I behold on earth the habits of angels). A delicate sound soufflé suits Petrarch’s words, “and air and wind were filled with sweetness.” The opening piano solo casts a huge spell, while Brecher’s mid/low register is given opportunity to resonate - rich and evocative. A lovely piano finish to this sonnet caps the set- moving, whispering, distant, marvelous.
Six more songs finish out the disc - four are world premiere recordings. Dr. Vitalino’s CD notes make for informative reading as he describes the histories of Elegie, Quand tu chantes bercée, Jeanne d’Arc au bucher, Wenn die letzten Sterne Bleichen, Vergiftet sind meine Lieder and Die Tote Nachtigall. Of the six, Jeanne d’Arc au bucher to text by Alexandre Dumas is the most powerful. A vivid narrative, Jeanne laments her fate to be burned at the stake, “and yet I saved France.” Brecher’s voice is full and expressive throughout this last set of songs, but particularly operatic here. A heartbreaking story, Die Tote Nachtigall, the last piece on this revelatory Liszt CD is superbly realized by both artists - magnificent.

Daniel Kepl | Performing Arts Review