Für Christian Gerhaher, den wichtigsten Lied-Bariton der Gegenwart, ist dieses "Lied von der Erde" bereits die zweite Aufnahme des Spätwerks von Gustav Mahler. Diesmal in der Alternativ-Version mit Klavierbegleitung, und mit Piotr Beczała als eher Mahler-unerfahrenem Tenor. Begegnet sind sich die beiden während der Aufnahme-Sessions nicht.

Auf seinem neuen Album "Elegie" widmet sich der Sony Classical-Künstler und herausragende Liedsänger Christian Gerhaher mit dem Kammerorchester Basel und dem Dirigenten Heinz Holliger der betörenden Schönheit und dunklen Melancholie des spätromantischen Schweizer Komponisten Othmar Schoeck. Schoecks Liederzyklus "Elegie" wurde bei seiner Uraufführung 1923 mit Musik "aus einer anderen Welt" verglichen und ist nach wie vor eines der verkannten Wunder des Liedrepertoires. Die 24 Lieder, die von einem Ensemble aus 15 Instrumentalisten begleitet werden, erzählen eine Geschichte von schmerzlichen Abschieden, verlorener Liebe und verblassender Schönheit.

Although being generally acknowledged as one of the leading composers of his native Switzerland, Othmar Schoeck (1886–1957) has never acquired a stable reputation outside the German-speaking world. This is partly due to his strong focus on the sung word: His output comprises eight operas, some 400 songs and a couple of smaller works for instrumental forces. Moreover, Schoeck’s essentially late-romantic style was considered démodé after the second world war when the avant-garde was arguing for a more rational and emotionally restricted approach to composition. One of his most personal works is the “Notturno” for baritone voice and string quartet. Written between 1931 and 1933 it served as a personal confession after an unhappy extra-marital love affair. Its five movements set verses by German 19th-century-poet Nikolaus Lenau and by the great Swiss writer Gottfried Keller. The highly differentiated interpretation by baritone Christian Gerhaher – one of the most distinguished young German “Lied” singers and a former disciple of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau – and the Rosamunde Quartett offers a strong plea for Schoeck’s expressive music and sheds an exciting light on his artistic preoccupation with the dark abysses of human existence.

Eschewing the eccentricities and exaggerations of some of his contemporaries, Gerhaher wonderfully exhibits the verities of Schubert interpretation in this well-planned and absorbing programme. Everything he does evolves from the song in hand and so accords with all that is needed in performing some of the composer's greatest Lieder.

Though the catch-all title 'Melancholie' is slightly misleading, Christian Gerhaher's enterprisingly planned programme provides a conspectus of Schumann's art as a Lieder composer. With his bright, burnished high baritone, expressive diction and alert, unexaggerated response to mood and nuance, Gerhaher confirms his credentials as one of the most probing Lieder singers of the younger generation. While it is virtually impossible for a single voice to do equal justice to all 12 songs of the Liederkreis, he succeeds better than most.

With Myrthen, baritone Christian Gerhaher opens Chapter 2 of his life project: a complete recording of the lieder of Robert Schumann. Since Dietrich Fischer-Dieskaus epoch-making recording of the 1970s, no singer has devoted himself more thoroughly to the lied output of Robert Schumann than Christian Gerhaher. Lauded as the greatest lied singer of our time, he launched his complete recording of Schumanns lieder with the album Frage, released in autumn 2018. It marks the fulfilment of a long-cherished dream and, he emphasises, probably the most important project of my life. The Neue Zurcher Zeitung spoke of consummate vocal artistry. Gerhaher has opened a new door in lied interpretation.

Heinz Holliger’s “dream opera” Lunea which was premiered, to great acclaim, at Opernhaus Zurich, interweaves strands from the life and mind of Nikolaus Franz Niembsch (1802-1850), the Hungarian-born Austrian poet who wrote under the name Nikolaus Lenau. Lenau’s last, fragmentary writings have fired Holliger’s imagination and led to the creation of an intricately inventive work with a marvellously evocative lead role for baritone Christian Gerhaher. Neue Zürcher Zeitung: “Here Gerhaher can display his full sensitivity in dealing with the finest nuances of language and bring to bear his almost unlimited spectrum of tonal-dynamic gradations in the intonation. The poet Lenau speaks most directly from the sounds and notes…”

"Frage" is the new album by sensational baritone Christian Gerhaher. This new album is the first of many highly anticipated projects to record all of Robert Schumann’s songs. This project will be the first time since the 1970s where a singer has devoted themselves to comprehensively perform and record Robert Schumann’s complete lieder output. Frage is produced by the Bayerischer Rundfunk and the Deutsches Liedzentrum Heidelberg. Also featured in the project are fellow singers: Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Sybilla Rubens, Camilla Tilling, Julia Kleiter and Martin Mitterutzner as well as pianist Gerold Huber. Christian Gerhaher is set to perform at the prestigious Wigmore Hall in London on January 16 2019. He has won many awards including the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera and the Midem Special Prize.

Sir Simon Rattle was in no doubt: the performance of the St. Matthew Passion which he realized together with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Rundfunkchor Berlin in 2010 was for him “the single most important thing we ever did here.” Critics around the world agreed. They praised the semi-staged “ritualization” by American star-director Peter Sellars, as well as the outstanding musical performances by the soloists, including Magdalena Kozená, Christian Gerhaher, Thomas Quasthoff, and Mark Padmore as the Evangelist.