Every era produces at least one legendary baritone. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Thomas Quasthoff, Matthias Goerne. It seems that Samuel Hasselhorn, winner of the 2018 Queen Elisabeth Competition, can be added to this illustrious list. His CD series of songs from Schubert's last years of life is still in development. The present Urlicht is Hasselhorn's first album with orchestral accompaniment. Even
… this morbid program becomes a delight thanks to Hasselhorn's lively delivery and voice that rings like a bell. Death is the central theme. We hear alternately well-known and obscure orchestral songs or opera excerpts from the German-Austrian "fin de siècle. Together it is a kaleidoscopic concatenation of marching soldiers, children's suffering, grim fairy tales and a murder in the relational sphere. Hasselhorn "shows how these darkest visions become a lens through which we can contemplate our present malaise," according to the review in Gramophone. (HJ)more
