Lieder us um Tal – An Homage to Swiss Art Song (2023)
A declaration of love for the Valais Mountains and a tribute to Swiss song art: Eugen Meier’s cycle “Lieder us um Tal” set to Walliserdeutsch poems by Hannes Taugwalder is heard in the context of Swiss song compositions from two centuries. Including works by Othmar Schoeck, Joachim Raff, Isabel Mundry, Frank Martin, Hermann von Glenck, and others.
Recording date/venue: Mai 2022/Radio-Studio SRF Zürich
Recording producer, editor, engineer and mastering: Andreas Werner
Label: Prospero Classical
Release: 3.2.2023
Order here (CHF 25)
Komponistinnen – Women Composers – Compositrices (2021)
The duo’s second album on Solo Musica celebrates the song repertoire of women composers from Romanticism to Contemporary Music with 24 songs by 24 women composers. The Swiss soprano Franziska Heinzen and British-Polish-German pianist Benjamin Mead set out to research the work of women composers for Clara Schumann’s bicentenary in 2019 – and discovered a valuable treasure of relatively unknown music.
Beginning with a life journey through refreshing spring feelings, the album goes on to describe painful hours of loneliness and uncertainty as well as anxious premonitions of death and dark fears. Five examples of self-confident female characters, whose experiences are concluded with wiser, reflections on life, as seen retrospectively.
Recording date/venue: January 2021/Radio-Studio SRF Zürich
Recording producer, editor, engineer and mastering: Andreas Werner
Label: Solo Musica
Release: 15.10.2021
Order here (CHF 25)
“The variety is enticing.” Dr. Renate Wagner, onlinemerker
“An Album to listen to several times and give as a gift.” Ekkehard Pluta, klassik-heute.de
Remy Franck, pizzicato.lu
“A Masterpiece.” Michael Zerban, o-ton.online
“Beautiful…” Knopskaya, CultuurPakt.be
LES SIX (2021)
Then as now, the music of „Les Six“ is a fascinating kaleidoscope of musical ideas and friendship; an idiosyncratic preciousness full of musical avant-garde, everyday melancholy, profound curiosities, virtuosity and passion that is in need of rediscovery.
The collaborative work „L’Album des Six“ was created in 1920, to which each of the six composers Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and Germaine Tailleferre contributed a piece. Arranged alphabetically, the album summarises the composers through their connection with various aesthetic ideas, different personalities and lifelong friendship. 100 years later, the „L’Album des Six“ is expanded with corresponding song cycles from their oeuvres: In addition to well-known compositions by Francis Poulenc and Darius Milhaud, the first releases of the song cycles by Georges Auric (1940) and Louis Durey (1920) enrich the CD in a special way.
Recording date/venue: July 2021/Radio-Studio SRF Zürich
Recording producer, editor, engineer and mastering: Andreas Werner
Label: Solo Musica
Release: 12.2.2021
Order here (CHF 25)
“Ingeniously programmed…” Brett Allen-Bayes, limelightmagazine.com
“An outstanding duo presents French avant-garde pearls” Jolanta Łada-Zielke, klassik-begeistert.de
“…a truly exceptional album…” Michael Zerban, o-ton.online
“[Franziska Heinzen] perfectly understands how to reproduce the French character of the melodies. Her interpretations live from a profound understanding of the texts, which become true treasures through her unaffected, beautiful singing.” Remy Franck, pizzicato.lu
„Two young artists, who have already received quite a bit of attention in the music world, present their debut album – and in accordance with their particular interests, choose the unusual. … [the music is] equipped with all imaginable timbres between lively cheerfulness and melancholy tones.“ Renate Wagner, onlinemerker.com