Art song had blossomed into a multifaceted genre by 1800, and the debate whether to favour recurrent stanza structures or through-composed form was well underway. Lieder, as the lyrical genre per se, marked out the territory in which musicians could express the most profound emotions. The best composers therefore increasingly chose to through-compose their songs – a logical step, thanks to which they were able to closely follow the content and the speech of the poems they were setting to music. Beethoven already took that very step in his earliest Lieder.

The New York Times has described the French ensemble as “a string quartet that can easily morph into a jazz band” and its recordings of Haydn, Bartók, Brahms and Schubert have been praised all over the world. Portal and the Ébène first played together in Paris in 2013, where Piazzolla’s compositions were also on the programme, prompting Le Monde to speak of “a significant lesson, a superb encounter, a real conversation.”

Decca, THE Opera Company, has always invested infinite energy and enormous care in its productions, pairing unrivalled casts with its unequalled technical skill and legendary sound. Decca Classics is proud to continue its Hardback Opera Series of go-to performances incorporating true 24-bit audio with two reference recordings of R. Strauss with casts led by Birgit Nilsson and also Leontyne Price’s legendary recording of Verdi’s Aida – all three performances are conducted by Sir Georg Solti