Epic : Lieder & Balladen

"Here is a disc that lives up to its title. The baritone Stéphane Degout and pianist Simon Lepper give us a stormy sequence of songs and ballads, most of them steeped in the German Romantic tradition, all of them delivered with the dramatic sense of true storytellers ... There's some seriously superb singing on this disc: throughout, there's the thrill of hearing a big voice perfectly calibrated to the music in hand, used with absolutely security. Degout never loses control, never tips over the line even if he sometimes seems to be standing on the edge, dangling one foot over the abyss. It's quite a performance".

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"Degout's superb voice sounds wonderfully virile throughout his impressive range ... In the more testosterone-driven songs, he sounds suitably heroic ... Felicity Palmer has a magnificent cameo as Edward's ghastly mother in Brahms's setting of the eponymous ballad ... Lepper is supremely unhurried throughout, spinning out the suspense and bringing welcome gravitas to these macabre stories".

"Mit hervorragender Diktion überzeugt der französische Bariton Stéphane Degout in einem Repertoire, das wie kein anderes von der Behandlung der Sprache lebt ... Degout verfügt über eine volle dramatische Baritonstimme mit dunkler Grundfarbe - und atemberaubender Höhe ... Pianist Simon Lepper neigt ebenfalls nicht zur Verzärtelung, seine Lyrik bleibt auch bei den himmlischen Verzückungen Liszts handfest".