| Disc No: CYP1653 |
The nineteenth century was a period of growing fascination on the part of the continentals for British folklore. Several music publishers therefore had the idea of entrusting some highly regarded composers with making setting of traditional songs, such as had until then been transmitted from a drunk’s mouth to a tippler’s ear. Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven were, the two of them, responsible for the redaction of three hundred of these songs. Their themes are pretty straightforward and evoke love, death, life, strong alcohol and heavy feasting. These little playlets set to music are pretexts for outpourings at times of melancholy, at times drollery, wonderfully served by the musician of the ‘text’ that is Wolfgang Holzmair.
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