Schubert: Schwanengesang / Terfel
Having burst upon the music scene like a force of nature,Bryn Terfelhas experienced an ascent to fame that is truly meteoric--and no wonder. His voice is like dark, warm  velvet, incomparably beautiful, effortlessly produced, flawlessly controlled;  it can float with tender delicacy and build up to climaxes of earth-shaking  power.  Its range of color and inflection is unlimited. Though he recordedSchwanengesangwhile still in his 20s, there is no doubt of Terfel's empathetic feeling  for these somber, dark, often bleak, despairing songs, written toward the end  of Schubert's life in failing health and desperate circumstances. Terfel's  way with them is deeply, intensely expressive, but sometimes rather  overstated. He favors slow tempos and lavishes meticulous attention on both  textual and musical details, including a lot of "word painting," which,  though his diction is exemplary, betrays a learned rather than a native  relationship to the language. His tonal inflections are more indigenous to  opera than song, so listeners accustomed to the German school of  lieder singing may miss the directness and simplicity of, for example,Wolfgang Holzmair's recording.  The latter's performance is also deeply expressive and moving, but more of the cycle seems flowing and inward, letting the music speak for itself and the poems--especially the inferior ones--take care of themselves. Terfel's customary pianist (Malcolm Martineau) is a  splendid collaborator, sensitive to every nuance and wonderful in his solos.--Edith Eisler