Peter Cornelius (1824–1874) remains one of the most underrated lied composers (and poets, translators and writers on music) of the nineteenth century. Neither prolific nor self-promoting – a stark contrast to his colleague Joachim Raff – Cornelius nevertheless bequeathed to posterity a lasting legacy of high-quality lyric compositions that reflect his inner grounding in the heritage of German Classical and Romantic verse. Many of Cornelius’s poems arose from life experiences, which inspired his favourite topics of faith and family, love and loss. His poetic expressions resonated with associates from the Liszt circle of Weimar, so that Eduard Lassen, Alexander Ritter, Felix Draeseke, Ingeborg von Bronsart and even Liszt set poems by Cornelius. Of course, Cornelius himself composed music for a number of his own verse creations, including everything on the first Naxos CD and two of three song cycles on the fourth CD in the current set of four. This activity as poet and composer positions him among the few successful Dichterkomponisten (poet-composers) that central Europe has produced (and that only if we consider opera libretti as poetry: Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss and Alban Berg are the primary names that come to mind). Among the other poets whose work Cornelius put to music were Goethe, Schiller, Uhland, Heine, Eichendorff, Hebbel, Heyse and Droste-Hülshoff, all lyricists of the first order.

As is apparent, the voice was the chosen instrument for Cornelius, and the lied his preferred vehicle for musical creation, usually grouped together and carefully arranged sequentially within narrative cycles (e.g., Trauer und Trost or the Weihnahtslieder). Cornelius was able to absorb into his song compositions both the programmatic tendencies and the musical innovations of his New German friends, especially Liszt, Berlioz and Wagner. The songs also display the New German tendencies toward close word–music correspondence, expanded tonal resources, and poetry-based forms; they push the boundaries of Romantic-era expression, while retaining lyrical beauty and ostensible simplicity. The songs maintain the Romantic-era ideal of unity of affect within individual lieder, where brevity – whatever the mood – is the watchword. Cornelius composed solo songs throughout his creative career, the duets forming an important sub-genre within the realm of lyrical creation. He also tried his hand at opera, the most successful being the comic Der Barbier von Bagdad from the late 1850s, during his residence in Liszt’s Weimar. And in one other field of vocal composition, sacred and secular choral music, Cornelius demonstrated his thorough understanding of the voice and its capabilities, especially in his sensitive part writing.

Thus it was with great anticipation that we greeted the release of the Complete Lieder in one multi-volume recorded collection on the Naxos label. Prior to the 2013–14 release of these four CDs we could enjoy selections from his solo song oeuvre performed in exemplary fashion by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Herrmann Prey, Elly Ameling, Irmgard Seefried and Margaret Price, but never in combination with the exquisite duets or sung by both male and female solo voices on the same recording. And these distinguished singers tended to focus on a limited selection of Cornelius’s best-known songs, primarily the perennial favourites like the Weihnachtslieder and the song cycle Trauer in Trost. The Naxos set may not offer the star power of a Fischer-Dieskau or an Ameling, but considering the challenge of maintaining a standard of uniformity across a four-disk anthology, the Complete Lieder of Cornelius succeeds quite admirably. That all four singers are native German speakers guarantees a consistent accuracy in the pronunciation of the poet-composer’s thoughts; that they have immersed themselves in the music ensures a clear, expressive interpretation of the text.

Christina Landshamer (soprano), Markus Schäfer (tenor), Hans Christoph Begemann and Mathias Hausmann (baritones), and Matthias Veit (piano) all provide solid – and sometimes truly moving – performances of a repertory that is not as simple as it looks on paper nor as it sounds in recording. The co-producers – Naxos and Bayerischer Rundfunk – merit special recognition not only for the high quality of the recording technology (though Schäfer in the Vater unser cycle is miked too closely), but also for the decision to deploy the four singers in varying combinations and dispositions whenever possible. While it would disturb the unity of the song cycles of volumes 1 and 4 to distribute the performances among the four voices, the song collections like the Sechs Lieder op. 5 (vol. 2, tracks 2–5), the Drei Lieder of 1848 (vol. 3, tracks 1–3) and the ever beloved Weihnachtslieder op. 8 (vol. 4, tracks 14–21) provide opportunities for featuring multiple singers from the ‘quartet’, to the advantage of variety within the project.

Landshamer possesses a youthful, lovely voice, but at times the music calls for a greater variety in the expression of moods, such as for the delightful comedic miniature ‘Preziosas Sprüchlein gegen Kopfweh’ (vol. 3, track 6), the rapturous ‘Aus dem hohen Liede’ from Brautlieder (vol. 1, track 17) or the melancholy ‘Auftrag’ of the Sechs Lieder op. 5 (vol. 2, track 5). In contrast, tenor Markus Schäfer occasionally slips into a melodramatic mode that is unbecoming for Cornelius’s sensitive text setting, including the songs of the Vater unser cycle (vol. 4, tracks 1–6). The substantial technical demands of the Drei Lieder op. 4 (vol. 1, tracks 27–9) are just beyond the tenor’s reach, yet his performances in the Weihnachtslieder (vol. 4, tracks 14, 18 and 21) and indeed, elsewhere within the collection, bespeak Schäfer’s ability to render Cornelius’s poetic and musical ideas with clarity, accuracy and expressive economy. It is perhaps inevitable that the reviewer would compare the two baritones on the recordings, and it seems that the individual strengths of the two voices are exploited in the allocation of performances: Begemann’s rich baritone works well in such darkly hued, dramatic offerings as ‘Dämmerempfindung’, ‘Reminiszenz’ and ‘Die Räuberbrüder’ from the second disk and ‘Schäfers Nachtlied’ from the third, while Hausmann’s brighter, vibrant baritone quite suits Cornelius’s more lyrical, subdued moods, like in the Rheinische Lieder of 1856 (vol. 1, tracks 23–6) or the Drei Sonette of 1859–61 and ‘Das Kind’ from 1862 (vol. 2, tracks 8–10, 16).

The duets comprise a special niche within the lyrical productions of Cornelius. As programme booklet commentator Marcus Imbsweiler observes, ‘all of Cornelius’ duets without exception were written for domestic music-making and are tailored to the needs and skills of middle-class households’. Thus the listener will discover among them attractive settings of love poetry, not too demanding in their technical requirements yet pleasant to the ear and displaying the strengths of Landshamer, Schäfer and Begemann.

Accompanist Matthias Veit deserves praise for his well-considered understanding and finely honed interpretation of both word and tone. He works closely with his singers and brings out their vocal assets in the music and its diverse meanings. Veit does not allow the more virtuosic writing in some of the songs, such as ‘In Lust und Schmerzen’ from op. 4 (vol. 1, track 27), ‘Sonnenuntergang’ from 1862 (vol. 2, track 15) or ‘Du kleine Biene, verfolg mich nicht’ from 1859 (vol. 3, track 7), to distract from the expressive task at hand, but rather subordinates technique to the song’s narrative intentions.

The arrangement of the four discs is sensible, given the variable circumstances and components for Cornelius’s song oeuvre: published or unpublished, solo voice or duet, secular or sacred, cyclical or individual. The large secular cycles, mostly published during his lifetime, appear in volume 1, while one further cycle and some unpublished secular songs (arranged by author, chronologically) make up volume 2. Volume 3 completes the secular songs with settings of Heyse and Kuh and presents the duets, and volume 4 rounds out the collection with three cycles of sacred solo lieder and the ‘Ave Maria’. As the first complete recording of Cornelius’s songs and duets (as well as the ‘parody trio’, ‘Der Tod des Verräters’), the Complete Lieder should be purchased in its entirety so that listeners can make up their own minds regarding the quality of the composer’s songs. In that light, the producers are to be thanked for including two versions of two songs from the Weihnachtlieder, ‘Die Hirten’ and ‘Die Könige’ (1859 and 1870), which demonstrate Cornelius’s ability to thoroughly revise both poetry and text for a song (he added an appropriate chorale to the latter upon Liszt’s instigation).

In closing, one complaint: it does not well serve the CD listener to have the texts and translations placed on a website rather than in the accompanying booklet. This cost-cutting practice presupposes that consumers have access to the Internet at the time of listening and that the website will remain accessible as long as the digital technology of the CD remains a viable option for sound playback. For non-German speakers, having the texts and their translations readily available is as crucial as the (admirable) biographical and interpretive notes of the booklet.

In all, the Complete Lieder of Peter Cornelius serves a valuable function by allowing the voice of one of the era’s undervalued Dichterkomponisten to resonate fully in strong performances. Let us hope that the release of this set will inspire singers and music lovers to seek out this neglected yet wonderful repertory.