Britten: Four Folk Songs André Schuen & Karla Haltenwanger

• Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976):
• 1The Salley Gardens03:06
• 2The Foggy Foggy Dew02:43
• 3Greensleeves02:01
• 4The Ploughboy01:51
• Total Runtime09:41

Info for Britten: Four Folk Songs

While we were looking for appropriate repertoire to supplement our recital programme of Irish and Welsh songs by Beethoven, we came across Benjamin Britten’s folk song arrangements, and we were immediately taken with their charming simplicity and subtle musical humour. Britten wrote a multitude of songs and vocal works: here, in these arrangements, he approaches the melodies and texts with a great deal of sensitivity, but also uses quite modern harmonies that imbue them with further expressive power. Britten wrote them with all the qualities of Peter Pears, his life partner, in mind: in their recital tours as a duo, they performed these folk songs as encores. Britten’s initial scepticism regarding the idea of arranging folk songs probably stemmed from his aversion to nationalism, since folk music was indeed misappropriated in that context. However, he had familiarized himself with Spanish songs in the 1930s, and once Peter Pears encouraged him to look closer into the authentic traditional music of the British Isles, he ended up arranging a total of 61 songs in three successive work periods. Since the pieces were often broadcast on British radio, they helped make his music better known to a much wider audience. And since he had now studied British folk song much more closely, many motifs found their way into his works.

Andrè Schuen, baritone
Karla Haltenwanger, piano

Andrè Schuen
Baritone Andrè Schuen comes from the Ladin area of La Val of South Tyrol in Italy) and grew up speaking three languages (Ladin, Italian and German), a versatility reflected in his current vocal repertoire. Although the cello was his chosen instrument for many years, he decided to attend the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, studying singing under Professor Horiana Branisteanu, and song and oratorio under Professor Wolfgang Holzmair. He graduated from the Mozarteum in 2010 with distinction. Early in his career Andrè Schuen was awarded many prizes, and in the autumn of 2016 he received an ECHO Klassik Award as “Young Artist of the Year” for his first CD on the CAvi-music label.

From 2010 to 2014 Andrè Schuen remained a member of the ensemble at the opera house in Graz. Andrè Schuen was one of the few singers to appear in three roles at the same time: as Figaro, Don Giovanni and Guglielmo in Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s Da Ponte Cycle at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. In the 2016/17 season he sang role debuts as Marcello in La Bohème in Geneva and as Count Almaviva in a new production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro in Angers and Nantes.

With the pianist Daniel Heide Andrè Schuen has sung recitals in London’s Wigmore Hall, in Oxford, at the Heidelberger Frühling and in Vienna’s Konzerthaus. Gerold Huber is also one of his recital partners, with whom he made his debut at the Schubertiade in Hohenems. In the summer of 2017 Andrè Schuen celebrated his North American debut at the renowned Tanglewood Festival, as well as at the Aspen Music Festival in a Schubert recital together with Andreas Haefliger.

On his first two lied CDS Andrè Schuen sings songs by Schumann, Wolf and Martin accompanied by Daniel Heide, and he has also recorded works by Beethoven with the Trio Boulanger (both CAvi-music).

Karla Haltenwanger
was born into a music-loving family in Bucharest in 1977. Very early on, she thrilled audiences performing works of Vienna Classicism and composers of the 20th century: at the age of seven, she recorded Béla Bartók‘s Mikrokosmos for Romanian television. She gave her first concert with orchestra at the age of eleven under the baton of legendary conductor Ion Baciu, and performed her début recital at the Romanian Athenaeum that same year. She began her training with Prof. Camelia Pavlenco at the George Enescu Music Lyceum in Bucharest; in 1990, her family moved to Germany, and she pursued her studies with Bozena Steinerova in Bonn. In 1992 she was admitted into Karl-Heinz Kämmerling’s class for young gifted pupils at Hannover Conservatory, and she started winning a series of First Prizes in youth competitions. The German Music Council awarded her the Gold Medal at the national Jugend musiziert competition, and selected her to tour the Czech Republic, Poland, Israel and Switzerland in performances of music by composers who had been interned in Theresienstadt concentration camp.

Karla Haltenwanger studied music education and concert piano performance with Prof. Karl-Heinz Kämmerling in Hannover and with Homero Francesch in Zurich. In masterclasses she also received important artistic counsel from renowned musicians such as Ferenc Rados, Eberhardt Fels, Vassilia Efstathiadou and Markus Becker.

She performs all across Europe as a soloist, vocal accompanist and chamber musician, particularly as a regular member of the Boulanger Trio.

Karla Haltenwanger won further prizes at the International Caltanissetta Competition in 2003 and at the International Chamber Music Festival in Kuhmo in 2004.

Booklet for Britten: Four Folk Songs