Munich-based composer Ludwig Thuille was a friend and contemporary of Richard Strauss, and like Strauss he was a prolific song composer. There, however, the similarity ends -- Thuille was largely untouched by Wagner's example, and his compact songs, with their clear structures, sound very little like those of Strauss. They don't sound much like those of anyone else, either, and that's what makes them interesting -- although they have conventional beginnings that woudn't be out of place in Beethoven or Mendelssohn, they ...
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Munich-based composer Ludwig Thuille was a friend and contemporary of Richard Strauss, and like Strauss he was a prolific song composer. There, however, the similarity ends -- Thuille was largely untouched by Wagner's example, and his compact songs, with their clear structures, sound very little like those of Strauss. They don't sound much like those of anyone else, either, and that's what makes them interesting -- although they have conventional beginnings that woudn't be out of place in Beethoven or Mendelssohn, they diverge into freer spaces determined by the qualities of the text. This disc doesn't seem to promise much on the outside: between the well-worn German poetry, full of linden trees and disappointed lovers in May, and Thuille's status as a pedagogue and the listing of his virtually unknown students, the listener is led to expect music that's heavy and conventional. In the event, it is neither. Thuille may be classified as a conservative, but the notes by American soprano Rebecca Broberg...
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