Duet singing reached its zenith in the Victorian age, and has since fallen out of fashion. Did artists become concerned with grander solo projects? Did audiences think duets too lowbrow?
William Berger follows up his acclaimed Delphian debut recital with Iain Burnside, in a programme of duets with the delectably voiced Lucy Crowe that resoundingly demonstrates just how musically rich the genre can be. Published sets and individual songs by Mendelssohn, Schumann and the slightly younger Peter Cornelius span the middle decades of nineteenth-century Germany, and also represent the literary life of the country in that period. Nestled at the end of the disc, ravishingly beautiful and sad, is Schumann’s memorial to his deceased young son.