Sternenklang III

»A la plus chère, à la plus belle« (»To the dearest and loveliest«), sang the young Gabriel Fauré to words by his compatriot Charles Baudelaire in the Hymne chosen by the label Mozartiana Classics for the third Sternenklang. This is the first to include a singer, the lyric soprano Julia Arsentjeva, and here the synthesis of music and poetry reaches what is to some extent a new phase: grouped with the instrumental dialogue, in which Max Bruch’s rhapsodic Kol Nidrei takes a prominent place, come three song-like pieces by Robert Schumann, whose Träumerei (Dreaming) easily stands comparison with Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel (Mirror in the mirror) for the accolade »loveliest island of peace«.