Abstract
He has just completed a singular, highly acclaimed mammoth project: the recording of all Schumann songs. Now baritone Christian Gerhaher, whom one could most recently admire in Zurich as Alban Berg's Wozzeck and Heinz Holliger's Lenau, devotes his Zurich recital to Johannes Brahms, who is closely associated with Schumann. Gerhaher, who feels a deep affection for Brahms, describes Brahms's song cosmos as a «broad, dark-green and dark-red river», as «a three-dimensional sound structure». In Gerhaher's wide-ranging programme, the first part features the 9 Lieder und Gesänge op. 32, which come from dark emotional regions, and the Vier ernste Gesänge op. 121, Brahms' last Liedopus, which deals with death. In the second part, Gerhaher and his piano partner Gerold Huber will perform the Regenlied cycle from op. 59, among others.