Between 1861 and 1869, Johannes Brahms composed fifteen ‘Romanzen’ for baritone Julius Stockhausen. For the text, he found inspiration in Ludwig Tieck’s Liebesgeschichte der schönen Magelone und des Grafen Peter von Provence. With this Liederoper – as he called his opus 33 – Brahms made a masterly contribution to the romantic apology of the Middle Ages. As with Tieck’s tale of chivalry, the ‘lied’ cycle alternates between spoken prose and sung poetry. In addition to a captivating palette of emotions, Brahms also created a magnificent chamber music cycle based on Die schöne Magelone.
Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber form a chamber music duo of exceptional quality: combining intelligence and expression, force and nuance, their strong presence is continuously at the service of music.