EDITORIAL REVIEWS
AMAZON
Hagegard's sampler is a model of how a recital disc can be programmed. With expert collaboration from Warren Jones, the Swedish baritone serves up a smorgasbord of song with Brahms at both ends of the table and a tasty selection of Sibelius and Stenhammar settings in the center. The central work here is the Four Serious Songs, Op. 121, those remarkably poignant meditations on Old and New Testament verses that Brahms finished May 7, 1896, the last birthday of his life, and with which he effectively said farewell to the world. They are sung to glorious effect by Hagegard, who probes their gentle emotion with a master's touch and conveys the characteristically ambivalent mix of pain, resignation, and wintry radiance at their core. Swedish is a beautiful language, especially when its sounds are entrusted to the Swedes; both Stenhammar and Sibelius knew it as their mother tongue, and were able to fashion songs of remarkable beauty and expressiveness on its poetry. In the vignettes presented here, Hagegard, with his sure grasp of imagery and characterization, proves an impressive interpreter. Especially noteworthy is his treatment of the lengthy ballad "Florez och Blanzeflor," with which the 20-year-old, self-taught Stenhammar proved what a master he was. The recording, made at the HageGarden Music Center (a haven for artists in Brunskog, Sweden founded by Hagegard in 1992), is appealingly lifelike in its presence and dynamic range. --Ted Libbey