Delian Quartett / Claudia Barainsky - Im wachen Traume

Named after a lyric from the first piece in Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben song cycle, the Delian Quartett’s programme of Im wachen Traume combines said cycle – in a new arrangement for soprano and string quartet by the late Aribert Reimann – with music by Renaissance composer William Byrd and Baroque composer Henry Purcell. Most of the music appears in world premiere recordings here. The earlier English repertory bookends the album, framing Frauenliebe und Leben in a thematic embrace and, as the quartet’s violinist Andreas Moscho puts it, “in dazzling harmonies, that colour the musical span from the bliss of the moment to the end of things”. Claudia Barainsky, one of the foremost interpreters of Reimann’s music, is a striking presence throughout the programme and especially expressive in the Schumann cycle, delivering the music with conviction and a keen sense for the text’s emotional delivery. The majority of the Byrd and Purcell pieces appear in reworked versions by Italian composer Stefano Pierini.