SECKENDORFF: Lieder

Kobow, Jan, Remy, Ludger

CPO 999817

Goethe wrote poetry and Seckendorff composed and sang the most soulful songs to the beautiful ... and when one walked through the streets on summer nights, the sweetest melodies sounded from many windows. So wrote the former Weimar page Karl von Lyncker in his diary around the year 1780. Seckendorff, Reichardt and Zelter are known as musicians from Goethe's circle, but Siegmund Freiherr von Seckendorff is probably unknown to most people.
Yet Seckendorff lived directly with Goethe for nine years as a chamberlain to Duke Carl August and set Goethe's songs and musical comedies to music for the first time as part of Duchess Anna-Amalia's round table. Even though the relationship between the aristocrat Seckendorff and the bourgeois Goethe was overshadowed by bitter rivalry - Goethe was far above Seckendorff in the hierarchy - they nevertheless engaged in a lively artistic exchange.
Seckendorff was primarily a composer of songs for the closed society of the Weimar court, and we may assume that Goethe greatly appreciated the pleasing and extremely pliable settings. Through the encouragement and support of Seckendorff's immediate descendants, we are now able to present to the public for the first time a quite enchanting program of songs with Jan Kobow, tenor, and Ludger Rémy on fortepiano. An important discovery!

CD x 1

CPO

11/14/03

761203981724