MusicWeb International’s Göran Forsling recently reviewed Di Sheyne Milnerin, the reworking of Schubert’s cycle of unrequited love, performed by Mark Glanville and Alexander Knapp of A Yiddish Winterreise:
[T]he music, though completely new to me, conveys the feelings just as graphically as Schubert’s does…. This is a fascinating issue and I urge readers to give it a try. It is music off the beaten track, but that’s where one often makes the real discoveries.
Read the rest of the review here.
Update (1/9/2013): The CD is now available in the U.S. on Amazon.
Plus, another very positive review from the International Record Review:
‘Di Sheyne Milnerin’ is a follow up to the same artist’s ‘A Yiddish Winterreise’. Alexander Knapp and Mark Glanville have taken the essential story of Schubert’sDie schöne Müllerin, namely that of unrequited love for a miller girl, but use traditional Yiddish folk songs and texts in highly effective arrangements, largely by Knapp (only ‘Am Feierabend’, translated as ‘Nokh der arbet’ (After work’), remains from the original Schubert cycle).
The aim of Glanville and Knapp is to present this comparatively unknown but highly attractive music in the style of the classical Lieder tradition. That their concept works so well is partly a tribute to the artists themselves, but also perhaps due to the ‘rich symbiosis that once existed between the German and Jewish cultures’, as they explain in the excellent essay contained in the booklet. There is a very appealing feeling of whimsy in the hero of the story, with the spirit of Don Quixote very much in evidence, giving each of the varied songs – which range from tragic emotion to humour – a certain colourful intensity and a thought-provoking ambiguity. The wealth of attractive melody found in these songs is very seductive indeed, with Glanville’s flamboyant approach to this repertoire, not always immaculate in execution but unfailingly characterful and full of personality, giving point to the words. In sum, anyone who enjoys the Lieder repertoire will relish this quirky and original twist on that art form.